Harvard Profs' Research Will Be Free on Web

Officer calls for more cars; 911 caller unsure on men's race

(NEWSER) - In audio from the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr, released today by Cambridge police, the arresting officer tells the dispatcher to “keep the cars coming” as he faces an “uncooperative” suspect, the Boston Herald reports. An earlier tape reveals the 911 call in the case, in which a Harvard magazine employee says another woman “had noticed two gentlemen” who “kind of had to barge in.” She notes, "They have suitcases." More»

(NEWSER) - The Internet keeps functioning thanks to the efforts of an army of unsung heroes, a Harvard cyberlaw expert told a tech conference yesterday. The professor used as an example Pakistan's attempt last year to take YouTube offline—the site went down across the world, but volunteers from a tech forum had it back up within hours. "It's like when the bat signal goes up and Batman answers the call," Jonathan Zittrain tells the BBC. More»

Free searchable database includes facts on salary, health, knighthood

(NEWSER) - British researchers have posted records of some 250,000 medieval soldiers in a searchable online database, the BBC reports. Now, interested parties can easily learn about the lives of fighters in the Hundred Years’ War, including salary, health, and knighthood information—for free. The “remarkable” records, says one researcher, names “every soldier from duke to archer.” More»

Execs take teaching jobs amid crisis

(NEWSER) - With the financial tornado buffeting Wall Street, some of its leading figures are ditching their careers for work in academia, Time reports. Merrill Lynch’s former president is teaching at Yale; Citigroup’s former merger boss headed to Berkeley; a onetime Goldman Sachs exec is now at Harvard. “It’s hard work for little pay,” notes a Goldman veteran now at New York University. More»

Med school is in ethics crisis, say some students and profs

(NEWSER) - The tentacles of big pharma have made their way into the upper echelons of academia, the New York Times reports: Harvard Medical School is packed with professors with industry ties, and that has students concerned. With 149 profs connected to Pfizer and 130 to Merck, fears that the influence of industry money—Harvard recently received an “F” grade from a watchdog group—will slant teaching and research have prompted a movement for ethics reform. More»