Did you know that your couch most likely contains up to a pound of flame retardants? And that these are toxic chemicals that may cause cancer, harm reproduction, or adversely impact brain development? In a March 6, 2012 talk at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Arlene Blum—a biophysical chemist, visiting scholar in chemistry at…

Harvard University has sponsored more than 200 members of its Harvard on the Move wellness program to participate in the Cambridge City Walk/Run on April 1 and support athletics programs and college scholarships for Cambridge youth. The University is encouraging other campus walkers and runners to register online for the event at http://www.cambridgecityrun.com/ or in…

The Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School and the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) will jointly honor former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III with the 2012 Great Negotiator Award on Thursday, March 29, 2012, at the Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School. The Great Negotiator…

Dudley House and the Harvard University Office for the Arts are proud to present a jazz residency with international saxophone icon David Liebman. The residency will include workshops with Harvard students and a public master class on Wednesday, April 18. The visit concludes with the world concert premiere of The Liebman Concerto, performed by Liebman,…

Rather than hitting the ski slopes or simply basking in the lull between semesters, close to 50 Harvard undergraduates spent a week of their winter break attending a new course titled “Introduction to Clinical/Translational Research,”  offered by Harvard Catalyst | The Harvard Clinical & Translational Science Center. Designed to introduce students to the growing field of…

African Americans face higher cancer rates than whites for many types of cancer, but the reasons why are largely unknown. Epidemiologist Lisa Signorello hopes to help explain the disparities in her role as co-principal investigator on a long-term study of nearly 86,000 people living in the southeastern United States—two-thirds of whom are African American. Signorello—associate…

Karen L. King, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, has been named as one of six Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology for 2012-13 by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) and the Henry Luce Foundation. Luce Fellows engage in year-long projects selected on the basis of…

The Arnold Arboretum is pleased to announce that it has granted several research awards to support studies that utilize the institution’s collections of living plants, herbarium specimens, and extensive library and archival resources. Awards were given to Laura Lagomarsino, Jorge Lora, Bharti Sharma, Hugh McAllister, and Claire Williams. The Deland Award for Student Research was…

A new study led by HSPH researchers finds that drinking just one daily sugar-sweetened soda, juice drink, or energy drink may increase a man’s risk for heart disease by 20 percent. Researchers Lawrence de Koning and Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology, analyzed data from nearly 43,000 men ages 40 to 75 followed for…

After an extremely successful inaugural season in 2011, the popular regional bike share program Hubway will reopen Thursday, March 15, 2012 with approximately 60% of stations live and operational. All five Harvard-sponsored stations in Allston and Longwood will be operational and stocked with bikes Thursday morning: Longwood Medical area at the Avenue Louis Pasteur at…

Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear challenges to the constitutionality of the landmark health care reform law known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). On February 2, the law was tested by HSPH students in a public health law class taught by Professor Michelle Mello. “It’s the most significant piece of public health…

In his February 26, 2012, Health Stew blog on Boston.com, HSPH’s John McDonough, professor of the practice of public health and director of the Center for Public Health Leadership, writes that he is encouraged by recent comments from Aetna CEO and President Mark Bertolini that the end of health insurance companies doing business as usual…

Sometimes, it seems that a Ph.D. in the humanities leads only toward a faculty career. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, with FAS Office of Career Services, Office of Undergraduate Education, and FAS Division of Arts and Humanities will present two programs exploring the many directions the Ph.D. can take students beyond the professoriate.…

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard has awarded the $20,000 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism to the Los Angeles Times for its six-part series “Billions to Spend.” During an 18-month investigation, the newspaper found that a $5.7 billion program to rebuild nine community colleges in Los Angeles was plagued with serious problems including…

David C. Bell, an expert on imaging techniques for nanoscale research in applied physics and materials science, has been appointed Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Electron Microscopy at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The appointment officially took effect January 1, 2012. A physicist by training, Bell also manages the…

Bottled water enhanced with vitamins—and loaded with sugar—gets low marks from Walter Willett, chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. They are “unequivocally harmful to health,” he told the Washington Post in a February 28, 2012, article on so-called healthy foods that people should avoid. “Whether vitamins dissolved in water…

Nathan Eagleis an expert in how to use cell phone data to predict and influence human behavior. And he thinks that cell phones could be the next big thing in public health. That’s because cell phone data could shed light on behavior connected to health issues. Researchers could potentially predict disease outbreaks by studying cell…

This year’s Academy Award for Best Picture may have gone to “The Artist,” but another Oscar-nominated film was a winner on a different level for a group of Harvard Kennedy School students. In 2010, Greenwood, Miss., hosted the vast majority of the shooting for ”The Help,” a story of racial segregation and domestic workers in…

Oil producing countries may exercise profound influence over American driving habits, but a new Harvard Kennedy School faculty research paper shows the U.S. federal and state taxes also play an important role. “Gasoline Taxes and Consumer Behavior” finds that even small changes in gasoline taxes affect consumer behavior and that taxes affect behavior even more…

The same combination of strategies deployed by parents to raise their children can also be used effectively by organizations working together in the public sector to achieve a common goal. That’s the finding of a new Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Faculty Working Paper. “’Hard,’ ‘Soft,’ or ‘Tough Love’: What Kinds of Organizational Culture Promote Successful…

The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., has won the 2011 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers for “Twisted Truth: A Prosecutor Under Fire,” a three-part series reported by J. Andrew Curliss about prosecutorial misconduct by Durham’s district attorney Tracey Cline. The Taylor Award is presented each year by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism…

Harvard’s connections in India—research collaborations, academic exchanges and partnerships, business ventures involving alumni and faculty—have expanded in recent years, in tandem with the country’s rapid growth. Those connections, including efforts spearheaded by Barry R. Bloom, Atul Gawande, and Richard Cash of Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), are outlined in the March-April issue of Harvard…

There are no ifs, whys, or butts about Harvard Kennedy School’s new smoke-free policy. As of March 1, the entire HKS campus is smoke-free, meaning that smoking is prohibited inside any campus building or outside on HKS grounds, including the courtyard, and within 25 feet of building entrances, outdoor air intakes and windows. “We make…

The tragic impact of war and corruption in Afghanistan; developmental pediatrics in inner-city communities; the current state of philanthropy for organizations serving women and girls: If asked where at Harvard these subjects were recently discussed, one of the last places someone might suggest is Harvard Divinity School (HDS). And yet all three were topics at…

A new animated video about cholera—how people get infected, how it spreads, and how to treat it—is drawing attention from health workers around the globe. The video’s producer, Deborah Van Dyke, is a nurse practitioner in Vermont, a longtime aid worker for Doctors Without Borders, and a 1993 graduate of Harvard School of Public Health.…

Nutritious snacks don’t have to bust budgets, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers conclude in a new study that analyzed the cost of foods served in YMCA after-school programs in four U.S. cities. While the prices of individual healthy snacks are typically higher than those of their processed-food counterparts, the researchers found simple strategies…

Children in the U.S. whose activity choices, interests, and pretend play before age 11 fall outside those typically expressed by their biological sex face increased risk of being physically, psychologically, and sexually abused, and of suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by early adulthood, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard School…

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the British-based Guardian newspaper, will address an audience of students, faculty, journalists and members of the public on Tuesday, March 6, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The program begins at 6 p.m. in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, and is sponsored by the Joan…

These are challenging times for American foreign policy. Violent government crackdowns against pro-democracy protesters in the Middle East, new saber rattling in Tehran, and a fragile European Union under the weight of a widespread debt crisis underscore the difficulties facing U.S. policymakers and their allies. Here is a sampling of perspectives from several Harvard Kennedy…

Former ambassador to South Korea expresses optimism for future relations between the U.S. and North Korea, but remains realistic. Donald Gregg told a group at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation last week (Feb. 17), it will take years to thaw the icy divide formed between the countries during the Cold War and re-chilled after…