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  • Campus & Community

    IQSS, HSPH welcome four visiting scholars

    Harvards Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) and the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have announced the arrival of four new visiting scholars as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Research Program. This is a two-year postdoctoral fellowship program for outstanding new…

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard wins Global Innovator Award

    Harvard has won a CoreNet Global Innovator Award for its success in managing capital projects and controlling risk.

  • Campus & Community

    GE’s senior VP becomes fellow at KSG, HLS

    General Electrics (GE) Senior Vice President for Law and Public Affairs Ben W. Heineman Jr. will become a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government this coming February. At that time, Heineman will also become the first Distinguished Senior Fellow at Harvard Law Schools Program…

  • Campus & Community

    Iraq’s ambassador to UN hopeful about democracy

    Feisal Amin al-Istrabadi, Iraqs ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, provided an inside look at the writing of the Iraqi constitution and the future of the democratic process Monday (Oct. 31) at the Kennedy School of Government.

  • Campus & Community

    George Widmer Thorn

    George Widmer Thorn (GWT) was born in Buffalo, NY, January 15, 1906. He was the son of George W. and Fanny Widmer Thorn. George senior was involved in the food industry and retired early at the height of the depression. However, in 1923 he was able to send GWT, age 17, to Wooster College, Ohio.

  • Campus & Community

    Sports in brief

    Dawson wows, plows Dartmouth to reset Harvard bar for yards Junior tailback Clifton Dawson finished off the visiting Big Green this past Saturday with 223 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns to replace Chris Menick ’00 as Harvard’s all-time career rushing leader. Dawson, who surpassed Menick’s record by five yards with 3,335, also tallied his 40th…

  • Campus & Community

    Fresh faces beat Colonials

    With five key skaters from last seasons squad either gone for good due to graduation (national scoring leader Nicole Corriero and top defender Ashley Banfield), or out for the year chasing Olympic gold (U.S. national team hopefuls Julie Chu 06 and Caitlin Cahow 07, and Canadian Sarah Vaillancourt 08), the Harvard womens hockey team looked…

  • Campus & Community

    In brief

    RMO workshop to cover electronic recordkeeping Harvard’s Records Management Office (RMO) is offering one of its fall workshops on electronic recordkeeping Nov. 9 at 10 a.m. in Pusey Library. The 45-minute presentation will provide University staff with practical guidance on filing systems, filing rules and procedures, and equipment and supplies, and includes a new presentation…

  • Campus & Community

    Newsmakers

    HBS profs awarded paper prize Harvard Business School (HBS) Associate Professors Lee Fleming and Jan W. Rivkin, with co-author Olav Sorenson, have won a 2005 European Meeting on Applied Evolutionary Economics Best Paper Award for “Complexity and the Diffusion of Knowledge.” Fleming has also received the 2005 Richard R. Nelson Prize for his paper “Science…

  • Campus & Community

    Kokkalis Program calls for fellowship applications

    The Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) strives to provide individuals committed to invigorating the public sector in Southeastern and East-Central Europe with educational opportunities to explore effectual and pioneering means of governance. The program awards fellowships to enable individuals from the region to pursue one of…

  • Campus & Community

    The Big Picture

    When Steven Riel talks about his life, much of what he relates sounds like poems waiting to happen.

  • Campus & Community

    Greenes honored with endowed chair at BWH

    Celebrating the tremendous progress made in the past 25 years in the field of biomedical informatics, along with the contributions made by Professor of Radiology and Health Sciences Robert Greenes, the Department of Radiology at Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) has established an endowment for a Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Informatics, and has named Greenes…

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Oct. 31. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    November 1859 – Charles Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.” At Harvard, Darwin’s friends include Professors Asa Gray and Jeffries Wyman. Already evolutionists, they take up his theory of natural selection. Professor Louis Agassiz, however, continues to support the theory of permanent types until his death in 1873 –…

  • Campus & Community

    Faculty Council meeting for Nov. 2

    At its fourth meeting of the year on Nov. 2, the Faculty Council considered a proposal to disband the Standing Committees on Benefits and on Privacy, Accessibility, and Security of Records, received a report on the priorities of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and discussed the report of the Committee on General Education.

  • Campus & Community

    Community Gifts campaign under way

    November marks the beginning of the month long Community Gifts Through Harvard campaign. Employees will receive campaign pledge cards in the mail this week. For more information, or to pledge online, visit www.community.harvard.edu/communitygifts.

  • Campus & Community

    Activists get active

    Marking the one-year anniversary of the Bush re-election and as part of a national student walkout against the war, the Harvard-Cambridge Walk for Peace gathered students and faculty together for a peace walk outside the Science Center on Wednesday (Nov. 2).

  • Campus & Community

    Security comes from growth, not guns

    Pakistans ambassador to the United States said Monday (Oct. 31) that the South Asian nation is banking on economic growth to build security rather than the military might it has relied on in the past.

  • Campus & Community

    Stairway to winter

    On one of the areas recent, welcome, unusually temperate days, a student treads carefully along a Carpenter Center path amid a dazzling autumn display.

  • Campus & Community

    Questions remain about China in space

    Two Chinese astronauts spent five days in space in early October, boosting national pride and the reputation of China’s high-tech industry, but leaving experts scratching their heads about China’s military intentions. “Most analysts agree about what China is doing in space. There’s vast differences over why they’re doing it,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the…

  • Health

    New findings help explain how brain pathways control body weight

    A study led by a scientific team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center provides another important step in our understanding of the critical role that the brain’s molecular pathways play in the development of obesity and related disorders. The findings, reported in the Nov. 4, 2005 issue of the journal Cell, demonstrate for the first…

  • Campus & Community

    Armenia’s remarkable alphabet

    Armenians pride themselves on being the first nation to adopt Christianity, an event that is supposed to have occurred in the early fourth century when St. Gregory the Illuminator succeeded in converting Trdat, the king of Armenia. But according to Harvard researcher James Russell, there is much evidence that after Trdat’s death, the country was…

  • Campus & Community

    HapMap reveals roots of common diseases

    The genes that everyone inherits contain coded information that influences which diseases any individual is most at risk of getting. Countless studies show that small variations in genes play a major role in a host of common maladies that produce untold suffering and premature death. However, progress in tying these variations to specific maladies has…

  • Campus & Community

    Bulyk searches for DNA on-off switches

    Martha Bulyk held what looked like an ordinary glass slide up to the large window that is much of one wall of her Harvard Medical School office. The slide seemed to be blank, but a puff of breath exposed row after row of tiny dots, appearing like the hidden writing of a secret message. But…

  • Science & Tech

    Cosmic cloudshine

    Hubble’s iconic images include many shots of cosmic clouds of gas and dust called nebulae. For example, the famous “Pillars of Creation” mark the birthplace of new stars within the Eagle Nebula. Yet despite their beauty, visible-light images show only the nebulae surfaces. Baby stars may hide beneath, invisible even to Hubble’s powerful gaze. Harvard…

  • Science & Tech

    Study shows escalating climate change impacts

    The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, along with co-sponsors Swiss Re and the United Nations Development Programme, has released a study showing that climate change will significantly affect the health of humans and ecosystems and these impacts will have economic consequences. The study, “Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and…

  • Health

    Gingko may prevent ovarian cancer

    Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found initial laboratory and epidemiological evidence that, for the first time, demonstrates that ginkgo may help lower a woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer. The findings were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in Baltimore on Oct. 31, 2005. In a population-based study, which…

  • Science & Tech

    Taking a look at how ant (and human) societies might grow

    Edward O. Wilson has learned a great deal about life by studying ant societies. In this knowledge, he finds parallels between the social interactions of insects and those of birds, lions, monkeys, apes, and even humans. The last parallel got him into trouble in the late 1970s, but he now enjoys credit for establishing a…

  • Health

    An existing diuretic may suppress seizures in newborns

    A diuretic drug called bumetanide may serendipitously help treat seizures in newborns, which are difficult to control with existing anticonvulsants, according to a study in the November 2005 Nature Medicine. The study findings could lead to clinical trials of bumetanide in newborns, whose immature, rapidly- developing brains are especially vulnerable to seizures – particularly preterm…

  • Health

    Barrier found to nerve regeneration

    Scientists have long dreamed of prompting adult neurons of the central nervous system to regenerate. But these cells have the deck stacked against them in several ways. Molecules from the myelin sheath surrounding their axons actively discourage growth. After injury, nearby astrocytes form a dense scar to block them. Even the signals that once guided…