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Synthetic Biology’s New Menagerie
… In the summer of 2009, a team of Cambridge University … prize at that year’s International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition, in which high-school and … “Engineering biology for the good of the world.” No surprise, then, that synthetic biology has exerted such an …
Issue: September-October 2014
Of Ants and Earth
… emeritus status as Pellegrino University Research Professor in 1997, Wilson—the father of sociobiology and biophilia, the most acute … it, too, fell silent. "Completing the Linnaean Enterprise" How, then, to proceed? For Wilson, coming to terms …
Issue: March-April 2003
The Fighting Pencil
… still a tongue-twister, but on closer inspection, it’s less of an oxymoron than you might think. After Stalin’s death in 1953, the USSR took stock of itself. Soviet bureaucracy and its many abuses had …
Issue: March-April 2022
At Home with Harvard: Traveling for the Story
… This round-up is part of Harvard Magazine ’s series “At Home with Harvard,” a … watch, listen to, and do while social distancing. Read the previous selections, featuring articles about climate … in 2004 , I entered the overnight lives of astronomers, who rise for breakfast at 6 p.m., observe all night, return to …
"The Love of a Ghost for a Ghost"
… one knew we had this document,” says Leslie Morris, curator of the Houghton Library’s T.S. Eliot collection, describing the … to the current librarians at Princeton, who were surprised to hear about it when Morris called them to coordinate …
Hub of the (Undergraduate) Universe
… The Inn at Harvard, shown in late January, is being … renewal during the ensuing 15 months, following completion of pilot projects at Quincy and Leverett. Dunster’s diaspora … buildings and a renovated frame house (former home of Expository Writing) on Prescott Street; and the …
Issue: March-April 2014
The Skinny on Weight
… Calvin Trillin has attributed an astute observation to his father, who said something like, "You can't gain more weight than that of the food you eat." That makes perfect sense to me, but … both a conundrum and a national obsession. A recent survey of 107,804 adults conducted by the Centers for Disease …
"Of Faith and Citizenship"
… I am one of you . But I am also one of "them." What do I mean? When I am told that this is a …
Issue: July-August 2002
Leaders of their Class
… Members of the College class of 2006 marched to their Baccalaureate service on Tuesday, June 6, behind their …
Issue: July-August 2006
A Century of Commerce
… (HBS) is throwing a year-long centennial celebration. The anniversary itself falls on April 8, the date in 1908 … join in HBS-style case-method discussions on the future of the school, based on a new case study being prepared for … speakers include Bill Gates ’77, LL.D. ’07, chairman of Microsoft Corporation and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda …
Issue: March-April 2008
Agree to Disagree
… Last year, in the midst of all of the turmoil on campus in the aftermath of October 7, I sat …
Issue: July-August 2025
Fong of Ping-Pong
… The orange ball, clicking in its relentless, stuttering rhythm, is bigger now. Last fall the game of table tennis adopted a new official ball, 40 millimeters in diameter, to replace the …
A Sino-American “Contest for Supremacy”
… In A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (Norton, $27.95), Aaron … Friedberg ’78, Ph.D. ’86, dissects the present and future of Sino-American relations, stating that “despite several … columnist and author of When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World …
And the War Came
… We are in the midst of a perfect storm of new Civil War books. With the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in 2009 and this …
Issue: March-April 2011
China Hands: Meet the Experts
… Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office William Kirby Courtesy of Arthur Kroeber Arthur … Harvard's Center for Government and International Studies . The wide-ranging discussion touched on China's political … energy sector. His next book, Playing Our Game: Why China's Rise Doesn't Threaten the West is forthcoming from Oxford …
Issue: March-April 2010