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Written accounts of Native Americans cultivating the land in New England overstate the importance of agriculture in the pre-contact period, according to a new study. Here, an engraving by Theodor De Bry, after a drawing by Jacques Le Moyne, depicts Timucua Indians at Fort Caroline, a French settlement established in what is now Florida, hoeing and sowing seeds, including beans and maize.
Courtesy of the Lewis Ansbacher Map Collection, permanently housed in the Morris Ansbacher Map Room, Jacksonville (Florida) Public Library.
Before Europeans arrived in New England, local ecology was driven by climate shifts, not by human interventions.
Loeb House, where the Corporation and Board of Overseers conduct their University business
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JCThe spring-semester agenda on climate-change advocacy takes shape—on campus and beyond.
The clouds that make up the Radcliffe Wave (highlighted in red) pass within just 500 light years of our sun (yellow). Wave data has been superimposed on an artist’s rendering of the Milky Way galaxy as it appears in a screen shot taken from WorldWide Telescope.
Image courtesy of Alyssa Goodman, Harvard University
The massive “Radcliffe Wave” traces a new map of the sky.
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Written accounts of Native Americans cultivating the land in New England overstate the importance of agriculture in the pre-contact period, according to a new study. Here, an engraving by Theodor De Bry, after a drawing by Jacques Le Moyne, depicts Timucua Indians at Fort Caroline, a French settlement established in what is now Florida, hoeing and sowing seeds, including beans and maize.
Courtesy of the Lewis Ansbacher Map Collection, permanently housed in the Morris Ansbacher Map Room, Jacksonville (Florida) Public Library.
Before Europeans arrived in New England, local ecology was driven by climate shifts, not by human interventions.
The clouds that make up the Radcliffe Wave (highlighted in red) pass within just 500 light years of our sun (yellow). Wave data has been superimposed on an artist’s rendering of the Milky Way galaxy as it appears in a screen shot taken from WorldWide Telescope.
Image courtesy of Alyssa Goodman, Harvard University
The massive “Radcliffe Wave” traces a new map of the sky.
A network of curli fibers (produced by genetically altered E. coli bacteria) can bind to intestinal surfaces, where it acts like a Band-Aid, and can even deliver probiotic therapies.
Image courtesy of the Wyss Institute at Harvard UniversityNeel Joshi harnesses bacteria to build products sustainably.
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Built in 1962, the off-the-grid, one-room cabin is popular among ice climbers and back-country skiers.
Photograph by David Leonard
The Harvard Mountaineering Club’s Mount Washington cabin
Illustration by Wenting Li
The Undergraduate finds beauty in the complexities of applied science.
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Loeb House, where the Corporation and Board of Overseers conduct their University business
Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JCThe spring-semester agenda on climate-change advocacy takes shape—on campus and beyond.
Annette Samuels, caught between classes
Photograph by Jacob Sweet/Harvard MagazineAnnette Samuels ’55 goes back to class.
Photograph by Marc F. Henning / Alamy Stock Photo
New models for newspaper journalism in the Internet era
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John Christian Anderson’s Sacrificial Lamb
Photograph by Will Howcroft
Revealing sculptures at the Fuller Craft Museum, in Brockton
From the New York City production
Photograph by Joan Marcus“Gloria: A Life,” at the American Repertory Theater
The casual Map Room Tea Lounge offers “bar bites,” like the charcuterie board and tartines
Photograph by Binita PatelThe Boston Public Library’s cozy winter hideout
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Lawrence S. Bacow
President Bacow on Nobel honorands and curiosity-driven research
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(Click on arrow at right to view full image and the image gallery.)
Memorial Church
Photograph by William Rittase/Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives
What William Rittase found when he came to Harvard in 1932
Shawon Kinew
Photograph by Stu RosnerConnecting European Old Masters with the new landscape of art history
Bearden’s stance in this ca. 1940 photograph prefigures his self-portrait in his collage Artist With Model in Studio (shown below), painted three decades later.
Photograph by Sam Shaw, ca. 1940s / Courtesy of the Romare Bearden FoundationBrief life of a textured artist: 1911-1988
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Built in 1962, the off-the-grid, one-room cabin is popular among ice climbers and back-country skiers.
Photograph by David Leonard
The Harvard Mountaineering Club’s Mount Washington cabin
Robert L. Scalise
Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Public Affairs and CommunicationsSexual-misconduct survey results, and the athletics director to retire
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This year's Campus Services holiday breakfast featured a "plant-forward" station.
Photograph by Robert Fitta/Harvard MagazineEnd-of-semester news and fun from around campus
At left: The field team included (from left) Asah, Naban, Ashton (note his indispensable leech socks), and Ladi.
Photograph by Timothy Whitmore/Courtesy of Peter Ashton and Arnoldia.Trekking, shuttling, and semi-friending
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The flowers of Rafflesia arnoldii are the largest in the world.
Photograph by Jeremy Holden
Colossal Blossom
Exploring the genetic mysteries of a gigantic parasite
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September-October 2017
Letters
Readers comment further on “Fair Harvard,” teaching the liberal arts, celebrity and politics, the middle class, and more.
President Drew Faust on the rise, and significance, of engineering and the applied sciences at Harvard
Making the faculty and research a high priority for the presidential search
The College Pump
Memorial Hall burning in September 1956—with flames beyond the reach of firefighting apparatus
Photograph by William Simon
A fresh source for Harvard humor, a critique embedded in a memorium, and historic photos of a famous campus fire
Treasure
The volume’s front cover features a needle-painted portrait of the young prince Charles Stuart.
Photographs by Jim Harrison/Object courtesy of the Houghton Library
Embroidery fit for a prince
In this Issue
Carl Thorne-Thomsen in high school (with fellow student-council member Linda Jones Docherty)
Photograph from Lake Forest High School 1964 Yearbook/Courtesy of Linda Docherty
Brief life of a man of principle: 1946-1967
To simply say that the White Cliffs of Dover are made of chalk would miss the point of Life at the Edge of Sight: A Photographic Exploration of the Microbial World. The chalk giving the famous cliffs their white appearance was formed from the exoskeletons of plated marine microbes called coccolithophores.
All images from Life at the Edge of Sight: A Photographic Exploration of the Microbial World, by Scott Chimileski and Roberto Kolter. Copyright ©2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
On Earth, microbes run the show.
Photograph by iStock Images
Alec Karakatsanis puts “human caging” and “wealth-based detention” in America on trial.
Letters
Readers comment further on “Fair Harvard,” teaching the liberal arts, celebrity and politics, the middle class, and more.
President Drew Faust on the rise, and significance, of engineering and the applied sciences at Harvard
Making the faculty and research a high priority for the presidential search
Right Now
A surgical technique designed to preserve proprioceptive signals after amputation should allow patients to sense the location of their prostheses, feedback that is often compromised by convential surgery.
Image courtesy of Shriya Srinivasan
Improved surgical techniques enhance prosthetic function.
Illustration By Doug Panton
The combination of certain factors can determine whether a city is plagued with disease, or is a hub for innovation.
Harvard Squared
The village grew up around the Meeting House, built in 1792.
Photograph by Alamy Stock Images
The Canterbury Shakers’ enduring appeal
A view of the State House dome and downtown’s towers, from the Charles River
Courtesy of the Charles Riverboat Company
Boat tours of architectural gems
World’s End offers stunning views of Hingham Harbor…
Courtesy of the Trustees of Reservations
A day trip to Hingham
Branch Line, which pairs fresh fare with craft beers on tap, has transformed part of an historic building at the former Watertown Arsenal.
Photograph by Melissa Ostrow
Branch Line serves brasserie-style fare in an historic Watertown setting
John Harvard's Journal
Assembling the science and engineering complex in Allston (with work on the district energy plant distantly visible to the rear of the site)
Image from the SEAS Construction Cam
A campus construction program of unprecedented proportions
President Drew Faust
Photograph by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Public Affairs and Communications
President Faust’s exit timetable, and the search for her successor
HarvardX project leader April Opoliner with Kolokotrones professor of biostatistics and epidemiology Miguel Hernán and teaching assistant Barbra Dickerman
Photograph by Stu Rosner
HarvardX transforms a popular course in epidemiology to serve a global audience.
Sunil Amrith
Photograph by Jim Harrison
The Bay of Bengal is central for this South Asia scholar.
A Harvard committee proposes eliminating unsanctioned student social organizations.
Derek Bok and other scholars weigh in on improving universities and colleges—and why that’s hard to do.
Illustration by Mark Steele
A Channel first, a voluntary U.S. history exam, and more from the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Magazine
Harvard’s business and engineering faculties join forces on a new technology-design degree—before they co-locate in Allston.
George Andreou
Photograph by Michael Lionstar
New University Press director, new University Professor, changing Harvard Square, and more
Illustration by Rebecca Clarke
The Undergraduate contemplates cycles in college friendships.
Natasha Lasky and Tawanda Mulalu
Photograph by Stu Rosner
The Ledecky Fellows provide an undergraduate perspective on life at Harvard.
Tjerk van Herwaarden
Photograph by Gil Talbot/Harvard Athletic Communications
Under coach Tjerk van Herwaarden, Harvard field hockey ascends.
Montage
Though songwriter Dan Wilson mostly stays out of the spotlight these days…
Photograph by Devin Pedde
The Grammy Award-winning songwriter Dan Wilson reclaims his catalog.
The young Rachel Carson (1940); Abraham Lincoln, wearied by the Civil War (1864); and the Endurance in the crushing grip of polar ice
From Left: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Library of Congress (2)
The Business School’s Nancy Koehn analyzes the personal stakes that propel leaders.
Ensemble members reminisce in Party People, about the Black Panthers and Young Lords.
Photograph by Jenny Graham
Historical plays for a nation “stuck in the middle”
The artist as master colorist: Henri Matisse, Woman with a Hat (Femme au Chapeau), 1905
Wikimedia Commons
John Kenneth Galbraith’s letters, Linda Greenhouse, color in art, and more
The world’s most famous fruit-plucking: detail from Hugo van der Goes, The Fall (after 1479)
Painting detail from Bridgeman Images
Stephen Greenblatt explores the myths and meanings of Adam and Eve.
Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words
Alumni
James Coe’s backyard and frog pond are worthy of their own plein air paintings.
Photograph by Stu Rosner
Landscape and bird artist James Coe reflects the Hudson Valley
Susan Morris Novick
Photograph by Jim Harrison
Harvard’s new alumni leader touts its global reach.
The College Pump
Memorial Hall burning in September 1956—with flames beyond the reach of firefighting apparatus
Photograph by William Simon
A fresh source for Harvard humor, a critique embedded in a memorium, and historic photos of a famous campus fire
Treasure
The volume’s front cover features a needle-painted portrait of the young prince Charles Stuart.
Photographs by Jim Harrison/Object courtesy of the Houghton Library
Embroidery fit for a prince