Put Harvard researchers and world-class chefs together and what do you get? An unexpected combination and a course called Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter.

Earlier this month, Harvard students made their way to the Sanders Theatre for the 2012 edition of Harvard Thinks Big. It’s a TED-style event which gets pitched like this: “8 all-star professors. 8 big ideas. All ten minutes each.” You get the gist.

On December 8th, six “all-star environmental professors” came together at an event called “Harvard Thinks Green” and presented short, TED-style talks about the environment and strategies for reversing climate change.

Last Wednesday, the Occupy movement gained a little more intellectual momentum when eight faculty members from Harvard, Boston College, and N.Y.U. gathered in Cambridge to present a daylong Teach-In.

During his days as Harvard’s influential president, Charles W. Eliot made a frequent assertion: If you were to spend just 15 minutes a day reading the right books, a quantity that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give yourself a proper liberal education. The publisher P. F.

10 Harvard professors. 10 fascinating ideas. 10 minutes each. That was the gist of Harvard Thinks Big, a TED-esque event held on February 11th. Now fast forward several weeks, and the talks all appear online for free. Find them on YouTube, iTunes, or Harvard’s dedicated web site.

Next month’s edition of Fast Company (available online now) brings you a big, glowing tribute to TED and its TED Talks. It’s a lovefest in print, the kind that sells magazines. And, along the way, Anya Kamenetz (author of DIY U) makes some big claims for TED.

Always good to see another major university making a contribution to the open course movement. The Open Learning Initiative undertaken by the Harvard University Extension School now offers eight free courses. This cluster of courses – the first Harvard has put forward – covers a nice range of topics.

Since 2007, Apple has offered universities around the world a way to distribute educational media via iTunes U.

Lecture 3 of Michael Sandel’s ever popular course on Justice is now online. Here’s the summary of material covered by the newly added lecture.