News
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UBC Physicists Quiet the Interference that Hampers Quantum Computing
July 20, 2011
UBC researchers have made a major advance in predicting and quashing environmental decoherence, a quantum mechanical phenomena that has proven to be one of the most formidable obstacles standing in the way of quantum computing.The findings--based on theoretical work conducted at UBC and confirmed… read more
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Extinctions at the Top of the Food Chain Have Surprising Cascade Impacts on Ecosystems: UBC Researchers
July 14, 2011
The loss of large predator animals across the globe is having unanticipated impacts on processes as diverse as human disease dynamics, wildfires and biogeochemical cycles, according to new research by an international team of scientists that includes UBC zoologists.The report, published today in… read more
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UBC ‘Megapixel’ DNA Replication Technology Promises Faster, More Precise Diagnostics
July 4, 2011
UBC researchers have developed a DNA measurement platform that sets dramatic new performance standards in the sensitivity and accuracy of sample screening.The advance could improve a range of genetic diagnostics and screenings where precise measurement is crucial--including the early… read more
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UBC Microbiologist Earns Grand Challenges Canada Award for TB Research
June 29, 2011
Santiago Ramón-García, a research associate with UBC Microbiology and Immunology, has received $100,000 in funding from Grand Challenges Canada to investigate new drug combinations for tuberculosis treatment.The grant is one of 19 gawarded to young Canadian research innovators in the… read more
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UBC Botany and Computer Science welcome new heads
June 22, 2011
Lacey Samuels--a cell biologist studying the biosynthesis of plant cell walls who played a key role in designing UBC's first-year science small class seminars--has been appointed head of the Department of Botany. Samuels, a longstanding member of the department, will begin her five-year term on… read more
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Canada-Wide Snapshot of Earth's Crust Reveals How the North American Continent Developed: UBC, Lithoprobe Research
June 20, 2011
A sweeping synthesis of two decades worth of data from Canada's major earth sciences project has yielded an unprecedented geological map of North America that offers researchers a glimpse back in time."This is the most detailed cross-section of a continent ever put together," says Ronald Clowes, a… read more
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UBC Science Researchers Awarded Funding from Two NSERC programs
June 17, 2011
Eight UBC Science researchers are part of a new round of funding that awarded a total of $2 million from two grant programs of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to researchers at the University. More than 140 UBC students also received NSERC scholarships,… read more
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UBC Physicists Set to Help Unravel Elusive Neutrino 'Flavour Oscillation' Mystery
June 15, 2011
An international team of researchers that includes UBC physicists has provided the first hints that muon neutrinos are able to transform into electron neutrinos when they travel over large distances. The new results from the Japan-based Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) project indicate that muon neutrinos… read more
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Shame and honour increase cooperation
June 1, 2011
Honour and shame work equally well in encouraging social cooperation, according to a new study by mathematicians at UBC and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. Published today in Biology Letters, the study reported on the results of a series of experiments with 180… read more
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Endangered Gourmet Sea Snail Could be Doomed by Increasing Ocean Acidity
May 24, 2011
Increasing levels of ocean acidity could spell doom for British Columbia's already beleaguered northern abalone, according to the first study to provide direct experimental evidence that changing sea water chemistry is negatively affecting an endangered species.The northern abalone--prized as a… read more