All articles
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Campus & Community
Daffodil Days help bring spring a bit closer
Following the record snowfall that befell Boston last month, its hard to imagine (though not for a lack of trying) that spring will ever arrive. Thankfully, with Harvards annual Daffodil Days fundraiser now under way, the art of seasonal visualization becomes a whole lot easier.
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Campus & Community
Solving the mystery of centuries-old plagues
Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson believes hes solved twin centuries-old mysteries of Caribbean island ant plagues that devastated local agriculture.
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Campus & Community
HSPH names Zelen Leadership Award winner
The Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) recently named Ross L. Prentice of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Public Health Sciences, the 2005 recipient of its Marvin Zelen Leadership Award in Statistical Science. Prentice will deliver a lecture on June 3 at the School and be presented with a…
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Campus & Community
Human Rights internship deadline is approaching
The University Committee on Human Rights Studies (UCHRS) has announced the details of its 2005 summer internship program for undergraduates. Up to 10 summer internships will be available to qualified students seeking to work for eight to 10 weeks in a human rights organization in the United States or abroad.
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Campus & Community
A touch of elegans
Wondering why his relatives went bald stimulated an interest in genetics for Craig Hunter.
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Campus & Community
Allston planners hear community voices
An Allston community meeting Jan. 20 gave Harvards Allston neighbors a chance to voice opinions on the areas future, touching on everything from access to open space to traffic congestion to the location of utilities.
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Campus & Community
Upcoming tsunami vigils
As part of a nationwide candlelight vigil for victims of the tsunami, the University community is invited to gather in Copley Square on Feb. 4 from 7 to 8 p.m. Representatives from various aid organizations will discuss progress in relief efforts and speak about short- and long-term needs. At 7:45 p.m., the mayor of Cambridge,…
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Campus & Community
Armed robbery reported on Chauncy Street
On Jan. 26 at approximately 11:50 p.m., a male undergraduate student reported that he was the victim of an armed robbery while walking on Chauncy Street near Massachusetts Avenue. The victim stated that he was approached by three males who robbed him of his wallet, cell phone, and watch. During the robbery the victim was…
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Campus & Community
President holds office hours for students
President Lawrence H. Summers will hold office hours for students in his Massachusetts Hall office on the following dates:
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Campus & Community
Police reports
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Jan. 31. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor.
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Campus & Community
Remembering Dr. King
The Honorable Joyce London Alexander delivers the keynote address at a Memorial Church service to celebrate the life and message of Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
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Campus & Community
Robert Johnson, 35-year employee, passes away
Robert M. Johnson, an employee of the University for 35 years, died on Dec. 18, 2004, in Sandwich, Mass. Johnson was 83. Johnson, who retired in 1979, worked at Harvard for buildings and grounds. He was a World War II veteran and a VFW commander.
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Campus & Community
Snaring secrets of Venus flytrap
A team of researchers has solved the riddle of one of the plant kingdoms fastest and most ferocious movements: the blink-of-an-eye closing of the Venus flytrap.
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Campus & Community
Dean appointed to Graduate School of Design
President Lawrence H. Summers announced Wednesday (Feb. 2) the appointment of Alan A. Altshuler, Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Policy and Planning in the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Kennedy School of Government, to the position of dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (HGSD), effective immediately. Altshuler has been…
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Campus & Community
A record 22,717 students apply to the College
A record total of 22,717 students have applied for entrance next September to Harvard College. This unprecedented applicant pool is due in large measure to the new Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI) announced by President Lawrence H. Summers last February in his keynote address to the American Council on Education, said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean…
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Campus & Community
Biggest stars produce strongest magnets
Assistant Professor of Astronomy Bryan Gaensler and colleagues have discovered the source of powerful magnetic objects in the universe called magnetars, finding that some of the biggest stars in the cosmos become the strongest magnets when they die. First discovered in 1998, a magnetar is an exotic kind of neutron star – a city-sized ball…
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Campus & Community
Climate solutions through forests
Using the environment to help address the nation’s pollution problems. That’s the focus of a new report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and researchers at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and Indiana University. The “Cost of U.S. Forest-based Carbon Sequestration” investigates the potential for incorporating land-use changes into climate policy. Authored…
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Campus & Community
Winds and waves sculpted a ‘snowball Earth’
It’s a world hard to imagine. Some 650 million years ago, Earth’s land and oceans were almost completely covered by ice and snow. The planet’s population – primitive plants and animals like algae and bacteria – sheltered themselves around hot springs on the ocean floor, in surface ponds melted by volcanic heat, or in nooks…
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Campus & Community
Suicide high among female doctors
Male doctors take their own lives at a higher rate than the general population of white men in the United States. That’s been known for some time. Now, the largest, latest study of physician suicides in this country has found that female doctors take their lives much more often. The study was undertaken by Harvard…
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Health
Weight and weight gain may predict breast cancer survival
The study included 5,204 women with invasive breast cancer who were between the ages 30 to 55 when enrolled in the study in 1976. The researchers found that women who weighed more before they were diagnosed with breast cancer and those who were lean but gained weight after diagnosis and treatment tended to have worse…
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Health
Phobic anxiety increases risk of sudden cardiac death in women
According to lead author Christine M. Albert, M.D., M.P.H., an epidemiologist at BWH and an electrophysiologist and cardiologist at MGH, “Phobic anxiety is associated with coronary heart disease risk factors. However, in this study, in which these risk factors were controlled, we found a correlation between higher levels of phobic anxiety and death from CHD,…
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Science & Tech
Most Milky Way stars are single
Common wisdom among astronomers holds that most star systems in the Milky Way are multiple, consisting of two or more stars in orbit around each other. Common wisdom is wrong.
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Health
Scientists discover “master switch” that triggers insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes
“We zeroed in on a factor called NF-kB,” said principal investigator Steven E. Shoelson, M.D., Ph.D., Helen and Morton Adler Chair and head of the Section on Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Joslin, and professor of Medicine at Harvard Medicine School. Shoelson said that activating NF-kB in the livers of laboratory animals incited inflammatory responses.…
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Health
Study says women don’t experience pain, anxiety during mammograms
“I think it’s an old wives tale that mammograms hurt,” says the study’s lead author, Alice Domar, PhD, director of the Mind/ Body Center for Women’s Health at Boston IVF and senior psychologist in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. According to the American Cancer Society, one-third to one-half…
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Health
Weight gain and obesity linked to higher risk of kidney stones
“Our study demonstrated that multiple measures of larger body size, including larger waist circumference, higher weight, and higher body mass index, were related to an elevated risk of kidney stones,” said Eric Taylor, M.D., a BWH researcher and nephrologist. The data are based on a study of approximately 45,000 men and more than 200,000 women…
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Health
Snaring secrets of the Venus flytrap
While “speed” is not a word most people associate with the plant kingdom, the Venus flytrap closes its v-shaped leaves in just one-tenth of a second – fast enough to accomplish a feat thousands if not millions of backyard barbecuers fail at each summer: snaring a fly. So how can a plant pull this off?…
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Science & Tech
Racial, ethnic gap in youth violence linked to social factors
A study conducted by Robert J. Sampson of Harvard University and Jeffrey D. Morenoff and Stephen Raudenbush of the University of Michigan shows that the longstanding gap in the racial burden of violence follows a social anatomy and is not immutable. The odds of committing violence are almost double for blacks as compared to whites…
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Health
Solving the mystery of a centuries-old plague
Edward O. Wilson identified two different ant species in investigating the mystery of centuries-old plagues, a tropical fire ant in the early 1500s and an introduced African ant in the late 1700s. Both ant plagues came with widespread crop destruction that Wilson blames on the arrival of sap-sucking insects that are tended by the ants…
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Health
Safer cigarettes would cut fire deaths if made available
Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health, funded by the American Legacy Foundation, compared the physical properties of cigarettes sold in New York with cigarettes of the same brands sold in Massachusetts and California. The researchers found: • That while not perfectly self-extinguishing, New York cigarettes were far less likely to burn to the end…
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Health
One alcoholic drink per day improves cognitive function among older women
According to the study’s senior author, BWH’s Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., “Much evidence has demonstrated the heart benefits of light alcohol drinking, but less research has focused on cognitive functioning. While we all continue to recommend exercising caution when consuming any type of alcohol, our study suggests that moderate consumption might provide older women some cognitive…