Editors' Choice
On Solid Ground
I had witnessed the magic some people found in this sport. I learned something entirely new that day; I hadn’t learned something so new in a long time.
Beloved Math Lecturer Dusty Grundmeier Bids Farewell to Harvard
Math lecturer Dusty Grundmeier is leaving Harvard at the semester’s end. Known for his empathy and engaging lectures, he’s something of a legend among students on campus. We sat down with Grundmeier and interviewed students to explore what makes his teaching special.
Surviving Life Alive
It seems that I’ve been driven to do the unthinkable, to commit the cardinal sin: purchase a nearly $14 açaí bowl from Life Alive Café.
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Tamarra James-Todd on the Hidden Toxins in Black Hair Care
But with products filled with unpronounceable chemicals like linalool methylparaben and methylisothiazolinone, one might begin to wonder: What exactly are Black women putting in their hair, and what does it mean for their health?
Direct Flash
I can’t shake the fact that my love for Los Angeles Apparel opposes my self-professed feminist politics. When I add another tennis skirt to my shopping cart, I line the pockets of a man who built his career on the degradation of women.
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.
‘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.
William Cheng, Scholar of Music and Video Games
William Cheng, a professor of music at Dartmouth College and a 2022–23 fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, loves video games. He has studied and played them through a complicated and trailblazing career in academia, where he says that caring for the “whole person” is often “perceived to be extracurricular and kind of secondary.”
Putting Society’s Ableism into Perspective
I remember how much I struggled to find the right words to write — staring at the computer screen for hours, refusing to write the word “disabled.”
Noah Feldman on Constitutions, Content Regulation, and Boaty McBoatface
Feldman, who specializes in constitutional law, draws upon established political systems to tackle the emerging, ever-changing domain of the digital world. The man who advised constitutional processes in Iraq and Tunisia now wants to develop systems of governance for social media platforms.
“I Don’t Chase, I Attract”: The Lure of Manifestation TikTok
On manifestation TikTok, superstitions and unfounded techniques promise the fruition of anything you desire. The more I scrolled, the more I was told to repeat phrases, to embrace my delusions, or to use an audio for good luck.
(Comic) Stripping Down the Patriarchy
These scenes are from the panels in “Breaking Out,” one of the stories in the July 1970 edition of “It Ain’t Me Babe Comix,” in which popular female comic characters revolt against the men dominating their lives and defy their creators. The “uprooted sisters” team up “into small groups not unlike witch covens” and go picketing for women’s history and self-defense classes. They consider if they should “take that acid we’ve been saving and commune with the moon,” while Supergirl frees the inmates of a women’s prison.
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?
Half a Million Fish
After the museum processes its newest donation, the collection will include half a million skeletons of three-spined stickleback fish alone. Now, the Harvard Ichthyology collection at the MCZ is in the middle of a year-long process to curate and catalog these fish that, once completed, will help inform ichthyology and evolutionary research at large.
Mike Grant on Leverett, Loss, and Life
His guard office, where he works from 4 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday, overlooks Leverett’s grassy courtyard. It’s a perfect spot for catching the evening traffic of students as they come in and out of the house. Over the course of the interview, more than a dozen students stop by to greet Mike. Their conversations are familiar and easy as they update each other on their days and riff on inside jokes. Beyond these daily encounters, he’s formed a slew of close connections with Leverett students and has heard many of their stories. “They would cry in here,” he says. “It made me feel special that some people trusted me to come and share these types of stories.”
