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Cambridge 02138
From Eugenics… I commend the excellent article “ Harvard’s Eugenics Era ” (by Adam Cohen, March-April, page 48). The “era” was not just at Harvard but really encompasses the United States generally and ought to be required reading for American history, …
Issue: May-June 2016
The Hack as Genius
Earlier this year, Houghton Library announced one of the most exciting donations in its history: the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Started by the Hydes in the early 1940s and continually expanded by Mary Hyde (later Viscountess …
Issue: November-December 2004
Is Teach for America Good for America?
“It’s like you’re the special ops team that’s coming in to rescue education because real teachers are terrible at their jobs. I’m not going to say that every career teacher is an all-star…but I do think it’s problematic to right off the bat blame the …
Cambridge 02138
Epigenetics Professor Sarah Richardson’s research on gendered bias in scientific studies is fascinating ( “The Science of Sex,” November-December 2019, page 34). I cringed, though, when I got to the part of the article stating that the theory Richardson …
Issue: January-February 2020
Medicine in the Middle of Nowhere
There was still some light in the sky that evening after supper, when everybody started shuffling over to find a spot near the fire. The heat of the day had faded only slightly. Still, they were carrying extra layers and puffy jackets. And headlamps: one …
Issue: November-December 2017
Educating Teachers
“This is something that’s interesting about HTF,” Quan Le ’15 said. “We literally cry every day.” Le was recalling the Harvard Teacher Fellows’ first collective classroom experience: a two-week stint at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in …
Issue: November-December 2016
Cambridge 02138
Keystone Pipeline Although Michael McElroy’s recent article, “Forum: The Keystone XL Pipeline” (November-December 2013, page 37) carefully addresses the pipeline issue, especially in terms of carbon dioxide and climate change, it neglects to adequately …
Issue: January-February 2014
The People's Epidemiologists
In the city of Boston —and everywhere else—wealth equals health. If you live in Beacon Hill’s Louisburg Square, which sits in the federal census tract with the third highest median family income in Suffolk County—$196,210—you’re sitting pretty. Your risk …
Issue: March-April 2006
At Large on the Blue Frontier
Science is like fishing. Patience, perseverance, and skill are part of it. Luck also plays a large role. But finding the right location often makes all the difference. When Louis Agassiz, professor of zoology and geology and founder of Harvard's Museum of …
Issue: July-August 2003
Bloodless Revolution
Imagine an operating room requiring no sterilization because there are no wounds, where doctors don't wear scrubs because there is no blood, where anesthesia is unnecessary because there is no pain. The patient doesn't lie on a surgeon's table, but rests …
The Hydrogen-Powered Future
Drive up a country road winding between horse pastures, cross a small bridge, then climb a gravel lane, and you can reach a house that seems to defy the laws of physics. About 70,000 visitors have flocked here since it was built in 1982. The curved, …
Issue: January-February 2004
The Law School and the Law
Rest assured, Harvard Law School is still teaching the law by the Socratic method--even over the Internet. "I've just started this privacy course," Bromley professor of law Arthur R. Miller, LL.B. '58, explained last spring. "The first attempt to use the …
The Future of Marriage
When I came to Harvard in 1970, the model for many young people was the wedding in Love Story ," recalls Peter J. Gomes, who has performed marriages in Harvard's Memorial Church for 34 years. Reflecting on the schmaltzy melodrama about a rich Crimson …
Issue: November-December 2004
Yo-Yo Ma's Journeys
A warm, breezy day in July, and beneficent providence has set for me a sumptuous lunch overlooking God's own landscape near Tanglewood, on the patio at Wheatleigh, the poshest hotel in the Berkshires. This is theoretically a business lunch. But never has …
"Listen to One Another": Harvard Commencement
For a newish president, Lawrence S. Bacow has had a lot of practice with the solemn ritual and spirited hoopla of graduations. He was on the receiving end as an undergraduate at MIT (1972), and then slightly upriver at Harvard (M.P.P.-J.D. ’76, Ph.D. …
John S. Rosenberg , Jacob Sweet