UBC Science News and Features

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Biology

A new home for life science students at UBC

Dark Energy and Matter

Mysterious fast radio burst tracked down to nearby galaxy

Quantum Physics

New laser technique images quantum world in a trillionth of a second

Earth Sciences

Tracking BC’s vanishing glaciers

Bacteria + Viruses

How ancient microbes created massive ore deposits, set the stage for early life on Earth

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Now that’s a job that sounds out of a movie! Jason Kalirai graduated from UBC’s joint Honours Physics and Astronomy program and now heads civil space programs at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Among the projects he supervises is DART — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test. This is NASA’s first planetary defense mission to deflect the orbit of an asteroid. 😲 🚀 https://science.ubc.ca/alumni/notes/rocket-man-ubc-alumnus-explains-his-passion-astrophysics #ubc #science #nasa🚀 UBC Science wishes you a holiday season filled with the joy of discovery. ❄️ ☃️ Flying high, mother goose: Former UBC researcher Jessica Meir, who trained geese to fly in a wind tunnel to study the effect of low oxygen levels, soared to the International Space Station this September. Astronaut, scientist and yes, mother of geese Meet the glacier hunter. #UBC geophysicist Valentina Radic is working to improve projections of glacier loss, and its impact on stream flow and sea level rise. Why is this important for the people of Western Canada? Researchers MengXing Na and Andrea Damascelli, at UBC’s Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (SBQMI), pose with a new extreme-ultraviolet laser. The laser has allowed scientists to record, frame-by-frame, how an electron interacts with certain atomic vibrations in a solid. Such research could allow the development of quantum materials, including superconductors. Photo: Research2Reality. #UBC #science Congrats! Wilfred Jefferies has just become the first Canadian immunologist to be elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. His work has enabled the development of cancer immunotherapies and vaccines. He joined #UBC in 1989 and is currently a Principal Investigator of the Michael Smith Laboratories. Professor Jefferies is also the Head of Immune Oncology at the Vancouver Prostate Centre at Vancouver General Hospital. ⚕️ One of the most exciting moments of 2019 at UBC Science took place in October, when UBC-based TRIUMF completed its first production run of actinium-225, called one of the “rarest drugs on earth.” Earlier in the year physicist Andrew Robertson explained why actinium-225 is so promising for cancer treatments—and so elusive. Actinium-225 is mostly derived from decades-old nuclear weapons material. Producing it in a lab has been a challenge. But TRIUMF’s recent success bodes well and could alleviate scarcity issues.

Alumni

Rocket man: UBC alumnus explains his passion for astrophysics

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November 2019: Tackling our rat problem, tales from the otter side, fun with jellyfish, events, kudos and more.

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