News
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Newly discovered wasp turns social spiders into zombies
November 27, 2018
It sounds like the plot of the world’s tiniest horror movie: deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, a newly discovered species of wasp transforms a “social” spider into a zombie-like drone that abandons its colony to do the wasp’s bidding. That’s the gruesome, real-life… read more
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New CRCs in oceans research, machine learning and quantum materials
November 14, 2018
The Federal Government’s latest round of Canada Research Chair investments include four new chair-holders at UBC Science investigating ocean sustainability and turbulence, machine learning, and quantum materials. The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, announced… read more
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Eight UBC students receive inaugural women in tech scholarships
November 13, 2018
For Giulia Mattia, a computer science student at UBC, the pathway into the tech sector just got a bit easier thanks to a newly launched scholarship from the Irving K Barber British Columbia Scholarship Society. Mattia is among 11 students in BC awarded the women in tech scholarships based on… read more
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How planets play ping pong with each other
November 6, 2018
Christa Van Laerhoven (BSc 07) is a UBC astrophysicist and post-doctoral fellow who studies celestial mechanics, which she says is a fancy name for orbital shenanigans. After completing a PhD at the University of Arizona she is now back in BC and often involved in public science… read more
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Mountain birds are on an escalator to extinction: UBC, Cornell research
October 29, 2018
Researchers retracing the steps of a 1985 expedition in the Peruvian Andes have documented how the area's bird populations have shifted—and in some cases disappeared altogether—due to warming temperatures in the intervening 30 years. "Mountaintop species are running out of mountain,"… read more
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Scientists develop a new way to remotely measure Earth’s magnetic field
October 2, 2018
Researchers in Canada, the United States and Europe have developed a new way to remotely measure Earth’s magnetic field—by zapping a layer of sodium atoms floating 100 kilometres above the planet with lasers on the ground. The technique, documented in Nature Communications, fills a… read more
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UBC museum welcomes ancient sea monster
September 19, 2018
The cast skeleton of an ancient marine reptile—with a neck so long and heavy it would have barely been able raise its head above water—has taken up residence at UBC's Pacific Museum of Earth (PME). The 13-metre-long, resin-cast Elasmosaurus skeleton was installed in the glass atrium… read more
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Appetite for shark fin soup drives massive shark population decline
September 13, 2018
Consumers need to stop demanding shark fin soup and other products in the absence of robust laws and sustainable practices regulating shark overfishing, research co-authored by the Sea Around Us initiative at UBC has found. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Hong Kong, the… read more
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Climate change fuels accumulation of pollutants in Chinook salmon, killer whales
September 11, 2018
University of British Columbia researchers studying the marine food web of the Northeast Pacific Ocean have found that the exposure and accumulation of chemical pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organic mercury, will be exacerbated under climate change. The study, published… read more
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UBC physicist, computer scientist among new RSC fellows
September 11, 2018
Physicist Andrea Damascelli and computer scientist Uri Ascher are among UBC’s newly named Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) – the highest honour a scholar can achieve in the sciences in Canada. Since 2000, 40 UBC Science researchers have been recognized by the RSC. … read more