2008

The new campaign aims to have a single clear message for foreign students

It’s called Espresso, but this machine at the University of Alberta bookstore doesn’t brew coffee. Rather, it prints paperback books on demand in mere minutes. The bookstore has the only Espresso Book Machine in Canada and just the fourth in the world. Since the machine’s arrival in early November, it has been running virtually non-stop, […]

Clear policies are needed on how they’re used

The stethoscope has undergone few changes since its invention in 1816, but a cheap MP3 player may push it into retirement if early research from the University of Alberta proves correct. Bill Hodgetts, a U of A audiologist, is part of a research team that is exploring the use of a $40, off-the-shelf MP3 player […]

The University of Manitoba is putting its money where its mouth is, so to speak, with the creation of a new Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture, where scholars, students and storytellers from many disciplines and cultures will gather to research oral traditions and create new oral works. Reportedly the first such institute in […]

André Costopoulos has been digging for bones in an animal cemetery – and no, this isn’t the plot of a Stephen King novel. The McGill University anthropology professor was called into action when a zoo an hour’s drive south of Montreal approached the university with a request to dig up some animal skeletons buried on […]

Universities are calling on the federal government to invest in three key areas to meet some of the challenges facing Canada. In a brief to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty leading up to the 2008 federal budget, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada proposed that the government increase financial support for graduate students, contribute […]

Some experts feel Canada’s universities have been slow to support security and intelligence studies post-9/11

A heated debate over how to train PhD students for the jobs awaiting them has percolated for 15 years in Europe and the U.S. It’s high time for a Canadian discussion

Only a tiny fraction of bees produce honey. Researcher Laurence Packer’s mission is to learn everything he can about the vast majority that don’t

As with all professions, academe presents different issues at different stages – especially mid-career

Science’s demand to scientists to cut the jargon was a shot heard around the world, and long overdue. Now let’s talk about story telling

But rising workload a concern as demands on professors’ time multiply

Canadian universities graduate plenty of people who can deal with the intricacies of molecular biology and genetic manipulation, but few who understand the basic mechanics of defending the country’s plants, including crops and forests, from biological threats responsible for billions of dollars worth of damage every year. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency wants to fill […]

Teaching conference attracts hundreds of faculty

University of Alberta part of UNESCO program to train teachers

Touched by a chance encounter on an earlier trip to Cambodia, Toronto-based photographer V. Tony Hauser returned to that country in May 2006 to photograph Cambodian children who had survived land-mine accidents. The 14 children live in Siem Reap in the Cambodia Land Mines Museum, which offers a dormitory, schooling and a medical clinic. Not […]

When you’re given lemons, the old saying goes, make lemonade. That’s the situation at the University of Northern British Columbia, where at least a dozen researchers are working on 28 different projects to understand and mitigate the devastating impact of the mountain pine beetle. Over the past several years, large swaths of the normally green […]

Here’s some good news for a change from northern B.C.’s pine-beetle ravaged forests: a PhD student at the University of Northern British Columbia has discovered an ancient rainforest with massive red cedars, some estimated up to 2,000 years old. This type of forest is more typically found in B.C.’s southern coastal regions, but the stand […]

Five totem poles located in Simon Fraser University’s Naheeno Park were once considered a landmark but in recent years risked being forgotten as trees and brush filled in the area where they were standing. This prompted the university this past fall to remove the poles, which will be restored and relocated to a more prominent […]