This past Monday morning (Oct. 3), the giraffe and okapi were safely back behind glass after spending a couple weeks released from ‘captivity’ in the museum’s Great Mammal Hall for the first time in nearly a century.  It took a half dozen staff from HMNH and the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), which owns the…

A new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that, among women, drinking coffee may reduce the risk of depression. The researchers, led by Michel Lucas, research fellow in nutrition, found the risk of depression to be 20% lower among women who drank four or more cups of caffeinated coffee than…

Eating fish a few times a week may be beneficial in lowering stroke risk, according to a new meta-analysis. Researchers examined results from 15 previous studies to summarize the evidence linking fish consumption and stroke risk. According to the Swedish study, published online Sept. 8, 2011 in the journal Stroke, eating three extra servings of…

Harvard Divinity School (HDS) announces a major gift to support and expand its program in Buddhist ministry studies. The gift will provide exceptional funding to enhance and expand the strength of the School’s current offerings and will help to form a new generation of students who will make a lasting impact in Buddhist communities. The…

Wall Street and Washington share responsibility for the current economic crisis, according to Jeff Madrick, who discussed his new book Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present, at the Shorenstein Center. Madrick, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and editor of Challenge magazine,…

Many of this year’s Arab uprisings are evolving from angry popular revolts into drawn-out political struggles to build democratic systems that will protect basic civic rights and social justice, analysts told a Harvard Kennedy School forum. Rami G. Khouri, an associate in the school’s Dubai Initiative and a prominent Beirut-based journalist, said that in Egypt,…

Experiments in Place and Collaborative Documentary: UnionDocs’ Looking at Los Sures Director Diego Echeverria and UnionDocs artists will be in person Tuesday, Oct. 18, 7 p.m. at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, room B-04, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge. In the late seventies and early eighties, South Williamsburg was one of the poorest neighborhoods…

On Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 2.30 p.m. in Maxwell Dworkin G115, APJ Abdul Kalam , former president of India and current chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, will discuss science, technology, and India’s policy as they relate to energy, nuclear power, space, and IT. In particular, his focus will be on…

Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs this week announced its 2011-12 research fellows. While the Belfer Center is the hub of research, teaching, and training in international security affairs and diplomacy, environmental and resource issues, science and technology policy, and conflict studies at Harvard Kennedy School, the heart of the Center…

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced Sept. 6 a $1 million federally funded campaign to encourage young people and others to drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), which health officials have linked to rising obesity rates and health care costs. The awareness campaign, to feature multimedia advertisements in English and Spanish, targets parents and caregivers who…

A new analysis by Medicare has found that patients 65 or older suffering from heart failure, heart attacks, or pneumonia are just as likely to be readmitted within a month at Veteran’s Health Administration (VA) hospitals as at private hospitals. Only one of the 107 VA hospitals evaluated had significantly lower readmission rates for one…

Andy Carvin, senior strategist at NPR, presented to the Shorenstein Center a different kind of newsroom: “My Twitter following — they are my newsroom.” He sees himself as an “anchor,” listening to simultaneous streams of information, and providing a “coherent narrative to the public.” Rather than a traditional supporting newsroom, he has over 55,000 Twitter…

Middle-aged women who drink a glass of wine or other alcoholic beverage each day are more likely to be healthier at age 70 than non-drinkers, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study. Qi Sun, research associate in nutrition at HSPH, and his colleagues analyzed data on 13,984 female nurses in the…

From fertilizer plants in Turkmenistan to nickel smelting in the Philippines, Kanoko Kamata’s consulting work for Environmental Resources Management  (ERM) has taken her across the globe to provide a full spectrum of environmental and social assessments for Japanese and multi-national automotive, chemical, and electronic companies. Selected as one of the Ash Center’s two 2011-12 Roy…

His Eminence Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, the Sultan of Sokoto, will make his first visit to Harvard University Oct. 2–3, 2011. He will deliver the Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture, one of the most distinguished lectures at the University, on Oct. 3. The Sultan of Sokoto is the religious leader of Nigeria’s Muslim…

Harvard Business School (HBS) has received approval from the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) for its plans for Tata Hall, a new Executive Education classroom and residential building to be constructed on the HBS campus in Boston. The BRA board of directors met today (Sept. 16) to give its final approval on the new building, which…

At the first installment of the fall semester speaker series, the Shorenstein Center welcomed Jessica Yellin, chief White House correspondent for CNN, to speak about “Covering the White House in a Bare-knuckled Media Culture.” Yellin outlined several “hazards” of working in cable news. First, the “rise of everyone as a reporter” has a great impact…

The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) is pleased to announce its fall 2011 Askwith Forums, a series of public lectures dedicated to discussing challenges facing education, sharing new knowledge, and generating spirited conversation. Highlights this fall will include contemplations a discussion about the Boston busing/desegregation project, and a talk by Professor Howard Gardner describing…

It’s time to get those green creative juices flowing. The Harvard Office for Sustainability is once again offering seed funding of $500-$5,000 to undergraduate and graduate students for innovative projects that cut energy use, reduce waste, promote sustainability in student life, and create a more environmentally friendly campus. For inspiration, check out last year’s funded…

A new environmental toxicity study by a Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Danish researcher has found a link between DDT exposure and asthma–and possibly also a link between DDT and autism–using a new computer modeling system that may complement the conventional laboratory animal tests done for safety purposes. The study, “Application of Computational…

HSPH Professor Steven Gortmaker believes that there is a simple explanation for the globally skyrocketing rates of obesity in recent decades. It is now easy to obtain fast and cheap food at all hours of the day and night, giving eating a much lower “time-price” than in previous generations. People are exercising at about the…

Public policy officials grappling with the nation’s budget deficit should address the health care system’s inefficient use of expensive medical technology and interventions that may provide little clinical benefit to patients, two Harvard economists said in a paper they presented Aug. 25, 2011, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Policy Symposium in…

Harvard College Dean Evelynn Hammonds today announced plans for substantial enhancements to undergraduate social spaces across campus. The Mather Multimedia Lab, the Eliot Grille activity space, the Student Organization Center at Hilles, the Cabot Café, and the Quad Grille lounge space in Pforzheimer House are all slated for improvement, Hammonds said. “The enhancements build on…

Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds Sept. 2 congratulated Adams House Master Judith Palfrey on her appointment to lead first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative against childhood obesity, and also announced the appointment of Sharon Howell, the resident dean at Adams, as interim master. In addition to being House master, Palfrey is T. Berry…

Harvard Kennedy School is launching a new interactive website, HKS 75, to celebrate its 75th anniversary.  The website is designed to recognize the school’s history, impact and global connections as it has grown from its modest beginnings at the Graduate School of Public Administration. The evolution of the school is documented on the HKS 75…

HUCE extends a warm welcome to its newest cohort of environmental fellows, who will join a current group of scholars embarking on their second year of the program. Now in its fifth season, the fellows program recruits a diverse group of intellectually-curious, top-achieving scholars to tackle complex environmental challenges in a wide array of disciplines.…

Harvard’s new Borrow Direct service enables the University’s faculty, staff, and students to borrow books and other circulating library materials from the libraries of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale when they’re not available at Harvard. The new service, which the Library “soft-launched” in June, is reflects the Library’s mandate…

The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies is pleased to announce the arrival of its 2011 fall fellows. The center is dedicated to fostering the study of European history, politics, and society at Harvard. The center was founded as a catalyst to bring scholars and students together to talk and think about Europe. As…

A cadre of Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) students, staff and faculty — led by Dean David T. Ellwood — took to the streets, schools and neighborhood centers across the region on Aug. 26 as part of a School-wide day of service. HKS Serves brought out approximately 400 volunteers to 17 locations across Boston, Cambridge, Newton, and…

Coping with humanitarian emergencies brought on by war, famine, or a natural disaster is rife with challenges. Aid workers can face armed militias, an earthquake-stricken landscape of blocked roads and crumbling buildings, masses of displaced people on the move, or a confusing situation in which dozens of aid organizations are all trying to help at…