News
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Deglaciation will cause water shortages for Alberta’s Bighorn Dam and other sites
August 6, 2020
Alberta’s largest water reservoir, the Bighorn Dam, is among four locations in the province most at risk of summer water shortages due to future glacier loss, according to new research from the University of British Columbia. In a study outlined in Nature Climate Change, researchers… read more
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Early Mars was covered in ice sheets, not flowing rivers
August 3, 2020
A large number of the valley networks scarring Mars’s surface were carved by water melting beneath glacial ice, not by free-flowing rivers as previously thought, according to new UBC research published today in Nature Geoscience. The findings effectively throw cold water on the dominant … read more
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Astronomers pinpoint the best place on Earth for a telescope: High on a frigid Antarctic plateau
July 29, 2020
Dome A, the highest ice dome on the Antarctic Plateau, could offer the clearest view on Earth of the stars at night, according to new research by an international team from China, Australia and the University of British Columbia (UBC). The challenge? The location is one of the coldest and most… read more
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Lead from Notre Dame Cathedral fire detected in Parisian honey
July 29, 2020
Elevated levels of lead have been found in samples of honey from hives downwind of the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, collected three months after the April 2019 blaze. In research outlined in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, scientists from UBC’s Pacific Centre for Isotopic and… read more
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COVID-19 pandemic causes ‘quiet period’ for seismic noise
July 23, 2020
Seismometers are used to detect vibrations travelling through the ground after an earthquake, but they also pick up the background “buzz” of human activity at the surface. According to new research published today in Science, lockdown measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 led to a… read more
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Teaching chemistry in an online world
July 22, 2020
Associate Professor of Teaching Jay Wickenden (PhD '14) has taught chemistry for over 10 years at UBC. With lab classes interrupted by COVID-19, he explains how he handled the switch to online classes and offers tips for teachers and students engaged in distance learning. What were some of the… read more
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Researchers call for support for BIPOC in ecology and evolutionary biology
July 20, 2020
Recently, a group of researchers from five different institutions collaborated on a commentary piece in Nature Ecology & Evolution, outlining strategies and support for Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC) in ecology and evolutionary biology. In this Q&A, we speak with… read more
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New insights into the origins of our universe
July 15, 2020
New data released today by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile indicate our universe is around 13.8 billion years old, matching the measurements made by the Planck satellite in 2015, and calling into question the 2019 findings of another research group that determined the age of… read more
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Extreme rainfall events cause top-heavy aquatic food webs
July 8, 2020
An expansive, multi-site ecology study led by UBC has uncovered new insights into the effects of climate change on the delicate food webs of the neotropics. In research recently outlined in Nature, scientists across seven different sites throughout Central and South America replicated the extreme… read more
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Supergenes play a larger role in evolution than previously thought
July 8, 2020
Massive blocks of genes—inherited together ‘plug and play’ style—may play a larger role in evolutionary adaption than previously thought, according to new research in Nature. Biologists identified 37 of these so-called ‘supergenes’ in wild sunflower populations… read more