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The Book on Houghton
I n connection with the inaugural exhibition celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Houghton Library , Heather G. Cole, assistant curator of modern books and manuscripts, and John H. Overholt, curator of the Hyde collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson and …
Issue: March-April 2017
The Voter-Fraud Disinformation Campaign
How did mail-in voting, a practice that U.S. states have implemented for decades, become so polarized in a matter of months? A new report by a research team at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society argues that the myth that vote-by-mail …
Spotting Pollutants from Space
In April, a SpaceX rocket carried a commercial communications satellite to a geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles above the equator. The satellite carried an important payload: a $93-million instrument for measuring pollution across North America, …
Issue: July-August 2023
Own Goals
Harvard had enough problems last academic year without making matters worse for itself. Yet after handling the pro-Palestinian encampment in the Old Yard from April 24 to May 14 reasonably well (the locked gates isolated the protest, and after some talks …
Issue: September-October 2024
Trailblazer in Space Science: The Legacy of Harvard's Ursula B. Marvin
Among Harvard’s greatest treasures are people who revel in discovery and disperse dusty clouds of ignorance. Among them was Ursula B. Marvin, who teased solar system secrets from meteorites, contributed to deciphering the Moon’s evolution from Apollo …
Issue: July-August 2023
Engineering Virus-free Cells… and Organs?
In January 2022, a 57-year-old man named David Bennett Sr. made history when he became the first human patient to receive a heart transplanted from a genetically modified pig. The procedure, known as a xenotransplant, has been heralded as the solution for …
Issue: July-August 2023
Asian-American Admissions Suit Proceeds to Discovery
A couple of hundred thousand applicants for admission to Harvard College are about to hear from the institution again—in an unexpected and possibly unwelcome way. Under court-directed discovery in the lawsuit filed in 2014 by the Project on Fair …
Harvard Football’s 2019 Season Outlook
The 2019 Harvard football season—the school’s 146th—will begin in the same place the 1919 season ended: Southern California. (See Anniversaries , below.) One hundred years ago, Harvard was a postseason victor and was proclaimed national champion; this …
“One Community, One Harvard”
Standing alone on a Nantucket beach during a spectacular sunrise, Harvard Alumni Association president John West, M.B.A. ’95, tilted his iPhone camera to share the stretch of golden sand and blue Atlantic Ocean with viewers of his Class Day speech to …
Issue: September-October 2020
Brevia
Primate Denouement Harvard Medical School (HMS) plans to wind down operations of the New England Primate Research Center , in Southborough, Massachusetts. The school cited financial pressures; Carolyn Y. Johnson, of The Boston Globe (who earlier reported …
Issue: July-August 2013
Double Vision
Having experienced their own twenty-fifth reunion last year, twin brothers Mark and Steve O'Donnell ('76 and '76, respectively) offer these visions, transcribed while they murmured in a restless dream state on undersized beds expressly borrowed from a …
Issue: May-June 2002
Michael Pollan’s Crooked Writing Path
Whether he is writing a book on big farming and the way Americans think about food, or interviewing terminal cancer patients who have had life-altering experiences through hallucinogenic drugs, author Michael Pollan’s career as a writer has been anything …
At Camp, a Community
As our car sped away from Logan Airport, into Boston and out along the Charles, my eyes widened as the cupolas of Harvard came into view. “Do I really go there?” I mused aloud. At that moment, I couldn’t have felt farther away from being a Harvard …
Issue: November-December 2011
Being Black at Work
Diversity, equity, inclusion: these are the watchwords for companies hoping to foster the best talent, regardless of race. But do their efforts, like anti-bias workshops meant to train employees to recognize their own prejudices, really help minorities …
Issue: March-April 2022
Harvard Corporation Rules Thirteen Students Cannot Graduate
On Monday, during the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ meeting on students’ eligibility to receive their degrees, members voted that 13 students found by the College’s Administrative Board to have violated University policies during their pro-Palestinian …