News
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UBC researchers peek into pressure valve under Vancouver Island
January 5, 2009
UBC researchers have unearthed new insights into the role that trapped liquids play along a portion of a major fault line off British Columbia's coast, including the possibility that water escaping from pores in the ocean crust deep beneath Vancouver Island might be the cause of regular tremors. … read more
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UBC Cosmologists Poke Holes in Anti-Copernican 'Void' Theory
December 18, 2008
New number crunching by UBC researchers strongly refutes recent theories that propose the Earth holds a central position in the Universe. Advanced analysis and modeling by Physics and Astronomy post-docs Jim Zibin and Adam Moss and astronomy professor Douglas Scott have debunked 'void theory'… read more
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UBC Advances to Battle of the Brains Final Despite Upset
December 10, 2008
Despite being upset by teams from Berkeley and Stanford in the regionals of the International Collegiate Programming contest, UBC has been awarded a wildcard spot in the competition's world finals based on their strong fourth-place finish in a difficult Pacific Northwest Region. Computer Science… read more
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Barlow Awarded Canada's Premier Mathematics Prize
December 9, 2008
UBC mathematician Martin Barlow--the leading international expert in diffusion on fractals--has been awarded the 2009 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize. The award, presented by the Centre de recherches mathematiques, the Fields Institute and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, is worth $10… read more
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Diving and Dining: UBC Zoologist Tags Humpbacks to Reveal Eating Habits
November 26, 2008
UBC zoology PhD candidate Jeremy Goldbogen is revealing how one of the largest animals on earth feasts on the smallest of prey–and how those eating habits impact whale dive times and size. Some large marine mammals are known for their extraordinarily long dive times. Elephant seals can stay… read more
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Breakthrough Technique Might Unlock the Secrets of Plasmas
November 21, 2008
UBC researchers have developed a technique that brings scientists a big step closer to unlocking the secrets of the most abundant form of matter in the universe. Plasmas-or ionized gas-can be found in fluorescent light bulbs, thermonuclear explosions, the Earth's upper atmosphere, lightning bolts… read more
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Taking the Temperature of Salmon Stocks
November 12, 2008
An interdisciplinary team led by UBC zoologist Tony Farrell has developed a way to accurately predict the impact of climate change on imperilled Pacific salmon stocks. The findings, among the first to quantify a relationship between river temperature and salmon mortality, were published in the… read more
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Salmon Survival Rates in Dammed and Undammed Rivers Raise New Questions
November 7, 2008
In a first-of-its-kind study that may raise more questions than it answers, researchers have found that some Pacific salmon stocks are surviving in rivers with hydroelectric dams as well as they do in rivers without dams. The team compared the survival rates of out-migrating, juvenile spring… read more
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UBC Ranks Sixth in The Scientist’s Best Places to Work Survey
November 4, 2008
Readers of The Scientist have ranked the University of British Columbia as one of the top ten places to work in academia–the sixth-place finish in the magazine's international survey makes UBC the top-ranked Canadian institution. The survey, published in the November issue of The Scientist,… read more
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UBC Microbiologist's Work Leads to First E. Coli Vaccine for Cattle
October 28, 2008
Research by UBC microbiologist and bacterial disease expert Brett Finlay has helped develop Econiche--the world’s first vaccine designed to reduce cattle shedding of a particularly dangerous strain of E. coli. Econiche--developed by the Canadian biopharmaceutical company Bioniche in… read more