News
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Canadian nuclear physicist and UBC professor Erich W Vogt passes away
February 19, 2014
Erich W Vogt, the Canadian nuclear physicist and UBC professor who helped found Canada's national nuclear and particle physics lab and Science World BC, has passed away. He was the recipient of the Order of Canada, the Order of British Columbia, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. "As… read more
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UBC and SAP partner to foster girls’ love of technology
February 19, 2014
UBC and international software developer SAP Canada have joined forces to deliver technology workshops for Grade 7 girls at the company’s Vancouver offices. The GIRLsmarts program, organized by UBC’s Computer Science department, has been active for a decade, but this is the first year… read more
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Low levels of atmospheric oxygen might not have delayed animal evolution
February 17, 2014
Challenging a long held view that low levels of atmospheric oxygen prevented the evolution of animals, new findings show that primitive animals can survive under extremely low oxygen conditions, according to researchers at the University of British Columbia, the University of Southern Denmark, and… read more
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'Big thaw' brings pathogens north: Infectious cat parasite found in western Arctic Beluga
February 13, 2014
University of British Columbia scientists have found for the first time an infectious form of the cat parasite Toxoplasma gondii in western Arctic Beluga, prompting a call for caution for the Inuit people who eat whale meat. The same team discovered a new strain of the parasite Sarcocystis,… read more
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UBC applauds boost in federal research investment, commitment to physics, math
February 11, 2014
The University of British Columbia celebrates the significant increase in federal government support for research announced today in Budget 2014, in particular the creation of the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. Announced by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty as part of the budget tabled today… read more
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UBC computer scientist wins $250,000 fellowship for research on how markets make decisions
February 3, 2014
UBC computer scientist Kevin Leyton-Brown is one of six Canadian researchers awarded an EWR Steacie Memorial Fellowship today, valued at more than $250,000. The fellowship recognizes the work of young scientists at Canadian universities. Leyton-Brown’s research focuses on how financial… read more
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UBC, TRIUMF physicists earn national award for antimatter research
February 3, 2014
A Canadian team including UBC physicist Walter Hardy and TRIUMF researchers have won the NSERC John C Polanyi Award for their work in creating, capturing and characterizing the antihydrogen atom. The award "honours an individual or team whose Canadian-based research has led to a recent… read more
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How the UBC creators of AutoStitch revolutionized computer vision and sparked a spinoff tsunami
January 31, 2014
When David Lowe first wrote a computer algorithm to identify objects in images, he never envisioned it popping up on nearly half a million iPhones and in supermarket checkout lines. But since its research publication in 1999, the Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) algorithm, developed by… read more
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Climate change-related temperature swings leave insects vulnerable
January 29, 2014
Increasingly extreme swings in temperature may put some insects at higher risk than previously thought, according to a new study published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. An international team of scientists tested the impact of temperature patterns on 38 species of… read more
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Ocean acidification research should increase focus on species’ ability to adapt
January 27, 2014
Not enough current research on marine ecosystems focuses on species' long-term adaptation to ocean acidification, creating a murky picture of our oceans' future, according to an international study led by a UBC zoologist. "We can't measure evolutionary responses in all organisms, so we need to… read more