news 2022

If the past is any indication, the face of the boreal forest will not change dramatically in the coming decades Boreal forest trees are sensitive to climate change, but their migration in response to temperature fluctuations is not at a gallop. That's according to a study published today in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States), where a research team calculated how fast jack pine and black spruce moved north after the last ice age.

Arts & Humanities Erik Rolfsen (Dr. Noah Silverberg) Too much screen time can slow children's recovery from concussions, but new research from UBC and the University of Calgary suggests that banning screen time is not the answer. The researchers looked for links between the self-reported screen time of more than 700 children aged 8-16 in the first 7-10 days following an injury, and symptoms reported by them and their caregivers over the following six months.

Neural implants can help treat brain disorders such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy by directly modulating abnormal activities - and the University of Toronto's  Xilin Liu  is working with microelectronics and artificial intelligence to make this emerging technology both safer and smarter. "Neurons talk to each other in part via electrical signals, and a therapeutic neural implant produces electrical stimulation - like a pacemaker for the brain," says Liu, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

Long-held assumption about 14 -century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer are being challenged by new research co-led by the University of Toronto's Sebastian Sobecki and covered by The New York Times .

Hybrid work is better for worker mental health compared to fully remote or in-person formats, according to a new study by Simon Fraser University and Toronto Metropolitan researchers. The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , examined self-reported mental health scores from a survey of 1,576 Canadian workers aged 16 and older during the third wave of the pandemic.

Drawing inspiration from nature, researchers from McGill University have developed a medical adhesive that could save lives Every year around 2 million people die worldwide from hemorrhaging or blood loss. Uncontrolled hemorrhaging accounts for more than 30% of trauma deaths. To stop the bleeding, doctors often apply pressure to the wound and seal the site with medical glue.

Box office earnings create upward pressure on stock prices for at least five days Daily box office earnings can accurately predict stock market returns, according to a new study. Traditionally quarterly and monthly consumption data is used to predict stock market performance. But using box office earnings - a measure that captures consumption on a more frequent basis - offers more timely and relevant data for decision-makers in the financial markets.

Under certain conditions, salmon caught and released have proportionally fewer offspring than salmon that were not caught by anglers Under certain conditions, catching and releasing a salmon would result in a decrease in the number of offspring it produces. This is what researchers from Laval University and their collaborators have shown in a study published in the journal Fisheries Management and Ecology .

A large-scale study of 47 species of monkeys and lemurs has found that climate change and deforestation are driving these tree-dwelling animals to the ground, where they are at higher risk due to lack of preferred food and shelter and may experience more negative interaction with humans and domestic animals.

Science, Health & Technology Alex Walls UBC graduate students trained computers to "read" news articles about landslides on Reddit to bolster a NASA database, which could improve predictions of when and where these natural disasters will occur. For their Master of Data Science in Computational Linguistics capstone project, Badr Jaidi and his team, the Social Landslides group, trained computers to automatically extract useful information from relevant news articles about landslides that were posted to Reddit.

Software tool brings together multiple brain maps in one place The brain is a complex organ, and no one imaging mode can catch everything that's going on inside it. Over the years, multiple -brain maps- have emerged, each focusing on different brain processes, from metabolism to cognitive function. While these maps are important, using them in isolation limits the discoveries researchers can make from them.

Western scientists have developed a new material that could eventually improve the way drugs are administered to patients, by allowing doctors to "see” exactly whether drugs are reaching the targets and working properly. Lijia Liu By combining a material already used to deliver medication to specific sites in the body with another that glows in the dark (optical probe), chemistry professor Lijia Liu and graduate student Ellie W.T Shiu have created a composite that can be used to track the path of a drug carrier through the human body.

New technology makes the process of turning CO2 into valuable chemicals economically viable for industrialization New technology developed at the University of Waterloo could make a significant difference in the fight against climate change by affordably converting harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) into fuels and other valuable chemicals on an industrial scale.

Significant weight loss following bariatric surgery would make the brain about 5 years younger It was known that bariatric surgery led to a spectacular improvement in cardiometabolic health indicators. Now, a study just published in the journal NeuroImage shows that it also brings substantial benefits to the brain.

Team of researchers working to close knowledge gaps in the understanding of potential dangers of cannabis use during pregnancy A team of researchers from Western University is working to improve our understanding of how exposure to cannabis during pregnancy may impact the developing brain of the fetus.

Over a 50-year period, logging on B.C.-s Central Coast preferentially targeted the highest value locations on the landscape, according to new research from Simon Fraser University. The systematic depletion of high-value components of the environment raises concerns about future sustainability and intergenerational access to natural resources.

Arts & Humanities Erik Rolfsen The characters you type out over and over again into your digital devices may impact your mental health more than you might expect. A new UBC and NYU Shanghai research study has found self-affirming written passwords - such as "MusicCalmsMeDown@123"- can offer a boost to one's mental health.

Primary care providers have a critical role to play in the pandemic - and improving access to that care is key, say researchers from the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table. The researchers released a three-part brief ( part 1 ,  part 2  and  part 3 ) this week detailing the work of primary care providers during the first two years of the pandemic.

A new research group is paving Western's way into a domain with potentially life-changing implications for our access to brain scanning technology. In 2006, Western neuroscientist Adrian Owen found landmark evidence for the consciousness of a patient in a vegetative state when a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan revealed her brain activity after his team told her to imagine herself playing tennis.

A team of Canadian astronomers, including experts from the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Arts & Science, have used the James Webb Telescope (JWST) to identify the most distant globular clusters ever discovered - dense groups of millions of stars that may be relics containing the first and oldest stars in the universe.