Elementary students from Providence’s Vartan Gregorian School had close encounters with some sophisticated university laboratory equipment this week.

Brown planetary geologists led by Carle Pieters have discovered evidence of water on the moon. The discovery, published in Science, came from data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), a NASA instrument aboard the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1.

Then, new students had to read a book – and send their comments to Brown. What did they have to say?

Women in the male-dominated earth sciences often experience isolation and low self-confidence. Now, a Brown-based peer support network is helping them succeed.

One hundred and fifty years after publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin’s ideas continue to challenge and pose ever-larger questions about knowledge and belief, the impact of human activity on the Earth, even the future of the planet and the rich variety of life it sustains. Evolutionary biologist Johanna Schmitt addressed newly matriculated students at Opening Convocation Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, at 4 p.m. on The College Green. The text of her address follows here.

At Brown’s Opening Convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, President Simmons urged first-years to take advantage of “the opportunity of a lifetime,” while faculty speaker Schmitt saluted Charles Darwin. (The full text of Schmitt’s address is online.) Watch the video.

A new exhibition, Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964, opened Sept. 9 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Included are powerful voices and stories collected by Matthew Garcia and his students.

A Warren Medical School faculty member concludes, in a report issued by Physicians for Human Rights, that doctors and psychologists who advised the CIA on waterboarding have much to answer for.