Tag Archives | Harvard

World’s Largest Historical Collection Of Deviant Erotic And Drug-Related Cultural Works Now At Harvard

By on January 11, 2013 in News 4

Harvard Gazette on a treasure chest for anyone looking to explore the darkest corners of human experience:

Harvard’s newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection is the largest of its kind in the world. It includes a vast collection of boxes, drawers, shelves — whole rooms — full of art, literature, and popular culture artifacts dating back to the 16th century, related to the chief avenues to altered states of mind: sex and drugs.

The Santo Domingo collection is on long-term deposit at Harvard. “We do not own it,” said Morris, but the owners “want us to catalog it, and they want it available for research.” The largest collection of its kind in the world, it will gradually be available to scholars of literature, fine art, photography, film, history, medicine, popular culture, and more.

It has an estimated 30,000 books and 25,000 posters, photographs, and other ephemera assembled by Colombian businessman Julio Mario Santo Domingo Jr., who died in 2009.

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See It: Andrew Breitbart’s So-Called Controversial Obama Footage (Video)

By on March 7, 2012 in News 40

Here’s a followup to wild, ungrounded speculation from Zach Lisabeth on Opposing Views (video from BuzzFeed):

Before his unexpected death, conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart was chomping at the bit to release a supposedly “explosive” video of President Obama filmed during the president’s time at Harvard Law School. The video was purported to show a young Obama making racially charged comments that Breitbart hoped might damage the president’s 2012 reelection bid …

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Read/Write Your Own Genetic Code

By on September 19, 2011 in News 4
Prof. George Church. Photo: Steve Jurvetson (CC)

Prof. George Church. Photo: Steve Jurvetson (CC)

Once home genetic engineering kits become standard can we expect home brew X-Men? BBC News‘ Karen Weintraub reports on some experiments at Harvard University that may signal the beginning of DIY genetic engineering:

You have to wonder what’s going on in the DNA of Harvard genetics professor George Church.

What extra bit of code does he have that the rest of us don’t? If genes tell the story of a person’s life, then some altered sequence of ‘A’s, ‘C’s, ‘G’s and ‘T’s must be at play, because his brain works like almost no one else’s.

About 30 years ago, Prof Church was one of a handful of people who dreamed up the idea of sequencing the entire human genome – every letter in the code that separates us from fruit flies as well as our parents. His lab was the first to come up with a machine to break that code, and he’s been working to improve it ever since.

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