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January-February 2007

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Letters

Communicating about Cures—and Cancer The Harvard community is richly peopled with leading biomedical researchers. A few of them are doubly...

The College Pump

"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." Word of Fred R. Shapiro, J.D. ’77 (’80), in these...

Treasure

Professor Donald Davenport of the Harvard Business School hoped to teach the incipient captains of industry in his classroom, who tended to look...

In this Issue

Tal Ben-Shahar

Photograph by Jim Harrison

This doesn’t feel like a normal academic conference. True, the three-day Positive Psychology Summit is a sellout, with 425 attendees...

As a pianist, conductor, and composer, Ludwig van Beethoven was the most famous musician in music-crazy early-nineteenth-century Europe. He also...

Undergoing a PET scan: the photograph of Ken that accompanied a New York Times article on new anticancer drugs

Photograph courtesy of Jodi Hilton

A “rapidly developing revolution in cancer treatment” has prompted David G. Nathan, M.D., president emeritus of Dana-Farber Cancer...

Robert Lawrence France, immersed in his favorite element

Photograph by Jim Harrison

“Ours is a society of sensual eunuchs, impotent to the callings of the wildness within and as a result, the pull of that which resides...

Letters

Communicating about Cures—and Cancer The Harvard community is richly peopled with leading biomedical researchers. A few of them are doubly...

Right Now

Researchers found large mortality disparities by region. Above, life expectancy at birth for white males and females, based on death data from 1997-2001.

Image courtesy of Christopher Murray

A map of Americans’ health status and longevity resembles a microcosm of global health extremes. Although Asian-American women in Bergen...

Photograph by Philip Harvey/CORBIS

New archaeobotanical evidence pushes the origins of agriculture back to 11,400 years ago, when humans living in a village eight miles north of...

Using conventional imaging techniques, a circular piece of DNA (bottom left) appears as an indistinct blob when magnified (center). A new technique permits three-dimensional resolution 10 times better, revealing the crisp ring structure of the object (upper right).

Image courtesy of Xiaowei Zhuang

The light microscope launched modern biology in the seventeenth century, letting scientists view the components of life that exist far beyond...

An orbifold that depicts three-note chords, with major and minor triads found near the center

Image courtesy of Dmitri Tymoczko

Humans seem to have an instinct for music. Certain songs have a quality that makes us want to tap our toes and sing along. We can’t quite...

New England Regional

Illustration by Stuart Bradford

In recent years, University Marshal Jacqueline O’Neill and her daughter, Leigh, have spent part of the week between Christmas and New...

Defy the winter doldrums: attend a gospel concert, take kids to see Oliver Twist, or dip into the diverse array of exhibits on offer. This...

Chef Michael Leviton is sometimes called a perfectionist. “Not true; I don’t think perfection is attainable,” he explains...

John Harvard's Journal

Janelia Farm, the research campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is situated on 689 acres above the Potomac River in Ashburn, Virginia. The complex includes a main building about a thousand feet long (left),  and a 100-room hotel (right) for conference visitors, as well as long-term housing (not shown).

Rendering © Rafael Viñoly Architects

Great scientific research organizations, of the rare variety that produce multiple Nobel Prize-caliber breakthroughs, share common traits that...

Harvard is expected to file with the City of Boston, early in January, an institutional master plan that maps out development of the Allston...

Harvard came within an eyelash of crossing the $3-billion threshold in annual revenues and expenses for the fiscal year ended last June...

“I have a personality that’s like, if I’m going to do something, it’s going to be done well, period,” says Erin...

An unusual “Dean’s Letter on the Finances of the Faculty,” presented to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) on October 17...

The experience of first-year students at Harvard Law School, famously chronicled by survivors Scott Turow, J.D. ’78, in One L, and John J...

Illustration by Mark Steele

1917 — T.W. Lamont ’92, chairman of the Harvard Endowment Committee, announces a novel plan to raise $10 million for the permanent...

An aerial view of the proposed new building, looking northwest from a vantage point above the Science Center

An aerial view of the proposed new building, looking northwest from a vantage point above the Science Center Rendering courtesy of...

After three years of inconclusive work on a new general-education component for the College, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) appears to...

While acknowledging that the curriculum is the faculty’s “sacred domain,” President Derek Bok nonetheless said at the October...

From 1998 through 2005, University library holdings increased by 1.62 million volumes—11.6 percent. But during the same period, the number...

When Joseph B. Martin relinquishes the deanship of Harvard Medical School (HMS) at the end of the academic year—a decision announced on...

With great pleasure, the editors recognize four contributors to Harvard Magazine during 2006, awarding each $1,000 for their distinguished...

In her first annual report, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ (FAS) senior advisor to the dean on diversity issues has highlighted recent...

In 1906, Professor Barrett Wendell ’77 created a program in history and literature for Harvard undergraduates. In a later speech to the...

Design Departure Alan A. Altshuler Kris Snibbe / Harvard News Office Alan A. Altshuler, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design...

In the aftermath of last November’s elections for the 110th Congress, one Harvard alumnus stood very much alone. Representative Thomas...

Stumbling along Mount Auburn Street on my way to my Social Studies 10 lecture, I barely manage to juggle Wealth of Nations, this...

The Yale bulldog, muzzled by Harvard for five straight years, broke loose at the Stadium on November 18 and went on a tear. Closing out an Ivy...

In the world of college squash, Harvard was once a perennial national champion. The Crimson have bagged 30 such titles, far more than any other...

Montage

Daniel Barenboim conducting the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, whose members are young Israeli and Arab musicians.

Photograph by Alonso Gonzalez/Rueuters/CORBIS

Daniel Barenboim’s prodigious musical career has generated both acclaim and controversy. In September, the pianist and conductor...

Alexis Gregory ’57 is a collector of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes, a member of the Harvard University Art Museums Collections Committee...

Modern Liberty and the Limits of Government, by Charles Fried, Beneficial professor of law (Norton, $24.95). Fried assesses individual liberty...

“These are trying times for political cartoonists,” observes Kevin P. Kallaugher ’77. “I’m trying something new...

In 19 B.C., the Roman noblemen Varius and Tucca were given an extraordinary task: destroy the Aeneid. On his deathbed, Virgil asked his friends...

Following the “decisive moment” tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Carlin Wing ’02 started out doing New York street photography...

Forty years ago, millions of China’s urban youth rose up in response to the Great Helmsman’s call to “bombard the...

Alumni

Michael Burke stands amid his artwork as the afternoon suns treams into his New York City studio.

Photograph by Arianna Caroli

Behind Michael Burke’s childhood home in rural New Jersey stands a series of his aluminum sculptures. Called Quantum Stream, these seven...

University clubs offer a variety of social and intellectual events. Following is a partial list of Harvard-affiliated speakers appearing at...

Among the University’s new Shared Interest Groups (SIGs) is the fledgling Alumnae and Friends of Radcliffe College, led by Ellen Gordon...

Top: A nudibranch. Bottom: A “by-the-wind sailor” sea jelly. Photographs courtesy of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology...

Philip Conkling likes the water’s edge.

There are almost 5,000 islands off the coast of Maine, most large enough only for a few tern or osprey nests, but some the size of a small city...

As an undergraduate volunteering at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, Sachin Jain ’02 couldn’t help but notice that many of its...

From the highest treetops to the tiniest anthills on the ground below, Mark Moffett, Ph.D. ’87, has seen it all. An expert in insects and...

The College Pump

"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." Word of Fred R. Shapiro, J.D. ’77 (’80), in these...

Treasure

Professor Donald Davenport of the Harvard Business School hoped to teach the incipient captains of industry in his classroom, who tended to look...