The Scoop
Crimson Unclear: Anxiety and Confusion in the Wake of Harvard’s Covid-19 Restriction Rollback
In 2023, there are still continued logistical challenges that Harvard affiliates face back on campus, but the minimization of these challenges — and of the pandemic itself — has created uncertainty, confusion, and continued disruption of many students’ experiences at Harvard.
Crimson Unclear Graphic
In 2023, there are still continued logistical challenges that community members face back on campus, but the minimization of these challenges — and of the pandemic itself — has created uncertainty, confusion, and continued disruption of many students’ Harvard experiences.
grand orrey
Harvard acquired its Grand Orrery in 1789, two years after it was built by Boston clockmaker Joseph Pope. The device is an intricately crafted working model of the solar system made of brass, mahogany, ivory, and glass, complete with once-revolving planets, all encased under a glass dome adorned with stars.
orrery gears
The gears at the center of the Grand Orrery. The hand-cranked orrery once vividly demonstrated the orbital paths of the first six known planets orbiting the Sun; today, the crank on the orrery no longer functions.
Cambridge sister city yerevan
Hoping to deepen their intellectual and cultural ties to the world across the Iron Curtain, former Mayor and then City Councilor Frank H. Duehay ’55 and 11 Cambridge residents journeyed to Moscow in late May of 1986. They then went to Yerevan, whose government expressed a desire to formalize the connection between Yerevan and Cambridge.
Reassembling Grand Orrey
Schechner and Ketchen work together on reassembling the Grand Orrery in the Special Exhibitions Gallery of Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.
CPL Sister City Exhibit Yerevan
Since 1987, Cambridge and Yerevan, Armenia have been sister cities. From March 1 to April 28, an exhibit at Cambridge Public Library showcases the relationship between the two cities.
moving grand orrey
The Grand Orrery had to be turned on its side to fit through a door frame before being transported down a freight elevator and into the Putnam Gallery for display.
Statuettes grand orrey
The statuettes that decorate the Grand Orrery were cast by Paul Revere and include Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, James Bowdoin, and other figures.
35 Years of Friendship Between Cambridge and Yerevan
Cambridge and Yerevan became sister cities because of a group of Cambridge citizens hoping to build a civilian bridge between the United States and the USSR to ease inflammatory rhetoric during the Cold War. The cities’ relationship has now lasted 35 years.
Reviving the Wonders of the Solar System: The Restoration of Harvard's 236-Year-Old Grand Orrery
Experts at Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments are using the Grand Orrery, a centuries-old mechanical model of the solar system, to study the Revolutionary War.
Conflux: Merging Art and Technology
Conflux’s members say it fills an important niche on campus. To Fang, Conflux is special because it merges art and tech. It’s not just “at the intersection” of the two fields, but combines them to make something interesting and totally new.
Transquinceañera
A party that educates as much as it celebrates, TransQuinceañera, an event hosted by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Latinx Student Association and the LGBTQ@GSAS Association, invited the Harvard community to a vibrant evening of art and activism.
Transquinceañera 2
“The performance is something for healing,” García says. “This is the power of art and the power of trans pedagogy that help us to heal the colonization that is in our bodies.”
David and Xinan Courtesy
David C. Christiani and Xinan Wang both work on the Boston Lung Cancer Study.
TransQuinceañera: The Party that Educates as it Celebrates
A party that educates as much as it celebrates, TransQuinceañera, an event hosted by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Latinx Student Association and the LGBTQ@GSAS Association, invited the Harvard community to a vibrant evening of art and activism.
Xinan Courtesy
Xinan Wang, a postdoctoral researcher working with Christiani at the School of Public Health, has analyzed how smoking history affects an individual’s response to immunotherapy.
David Christiani Courtesy
The BLCS began in 1992, when David C. Christiani, a professor at the School of Public Health and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, started recruiting a cohort of patients to study the interplay of genetics and the environment in lung cancer.
‘A Million Data Points’: A 30-Year Long Lung Cancer Study Meets AI
This is the Boston Lung Cancer Study, a long-running study of lung cancer patients that analyzes the disease’s genetic and environmental risk factors. But in recent years, the study reached a new frontier in medicine. The Harvard Artificial Intelligence in Medicine program has begun analyzing the dataset in unprecedented ways — by using artificial intelligence.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Math 55
Just five years ago, the Math Department’s official word on Math 55 was that it was “probably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country.” Now, they say, “if you’re reasonably good at math, you love it, and you have lots of time to devote to it, then Math 55 is completely fine for you.” So, what changed?
Bill Hanage
Bill Hanage is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Co-Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Vaccine Booster Argument
An HMS paper published this December in the Journal of Medical Ethics does a risk-benefit assessment of booster mandates, ultimately concluding that the mandates may have been misguided. Contrary to the intentions of the authors, the data now serves as material for conservative medical organizations like AFLDS skeptical of Covid-19 vaccine efficacy.