UBC Science

The Biodiversity Research Photo Competition is now open for submissions! 🌿✨

Showcase your amazing research with images captured by you — an affiliated member of the Biodiversity Research Centre (BRC). We want to see your work in action, whether it's at home, in the lab, or out in the field.

Submission Categories:
- Vertebrates
- Invertebrates
- Plants, Algae, & Fungi
- Microbes
- Environment/Other

🏆 Prizes: One overall People’s Choice Winner and five Category Winners (one per category) will receive a prize package!

🗓️ Deadline: 11:59 PM (PST) on October 31, 2024.

👉 Please read the rules and requirements carefully before submitting. We can’t wait to see your incredible contributions to biodiversity research!

🔗 Learn more and submit your photos here at explore.beatymuseum.ubc.ca/BRC-photo-competition

Science alum Sep Kamal built Campus Nutrition, an app to help UBC students—and everyone else—find healthy, affordable food on campus.

alumni UBC

Alum’s app helps UBC students find affordable food on campus It’s September and more than 10,000 first-year students are joining the UBC Vancouver community. And they’re all looking for a place to eat at a reasonable price—between 30 to 40 per cent of students are food insecure according to UBC’s Food Hub.

“In a way, Earth’s lavas are much like humankind itself—a beautifully diverse population with a common ancestor, which developed differently wherever it went,” says Dr. Dr. Matthijs Smit of UBC Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.

New research reenvisions Earth’s mantle as a relatively uniform reservoir Lavas from hotspots—whether erupting in Hawaii, Samoa or Iceland—likely originate from a worldwide, uniform reservoir in Earth’s mantle, according to an evaluation of volcanic hotspots published today in Nature Geoscience.

Take a bite out of science at Homecoming on Saturday, Sept. 21, 10:00-5:00 with our new dinosaur exhibits. Also: free museum admission, $4 day-long parking and hands-on genomics fun.

https://science.ubc.ca/events/homecoming-2024

Come teach at one of North America's top computer science departments, at The University of British Columbia in beautiful , Canada.

We're hiring multiple Tenure-Track Assistant Professors of Teaching! Appointment at a higher rank will be considered for an applicant of exceptional qualifications.

Start as early as Jan. 1, 2025 or July 1, 2025

https://ow.ly/Jpjj50TnlB8

Next Thursday drop in for Beaty Nocturnal! Admission by donation starting at 5PM, a blue whale film screening, and a special collections highlight. September 19! https://beatymuseum.ubc.ca/events/event/beaty-nocturnal

New Canada Foundation for Innovation support will enable Science investigators to advance their work in climate research, advanced materials, natural language processing and TB surveillance: https://research.ubc.ca/2024-cfi-jelf

Early bird tickets are now on sale until September 30th. Come join us to celebrate our 33rd Apple Festival. Check the link in our bio to learn more.

Click here: bit.ly/3Xusq9m to purchase tickets.

Make sure you get the tickets before they're gone! 🍎✨🍏

UBC Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences oceanographer Dr. Evgeny Pakhomov led a study that found that there are an increasing number of invasive peach blossom jellyfish clones in B.C. lakes.

One jellyfish arrived in B.C. decades ago. Thousands of clones spread to 34 waterways VANCOUVER - Some time more than 30 years ago, a single Chinese peach blossom jellyfish made its way into a lake in British Columbia.

Can AI change life for the better? Kevin Leyton-Brown is an optimist about artificial intelligence (AI), but he doesn’t present himself as such. On the contrary, the professor of computer science and director of UBC’s Centre for AI Decision-making and Action (CAIDA) assumes a position that is deeply philosophical. When talking ab...

Volunteer at the Beaty! Apply by September 30, 2024 at beatymuseum.ubc.ca/volunteer.

Museum volunteers engage visitors in the wonder of biodiversity through discussions and activities, and answer questions about the museum, its collections, and its research. Volunteers represent the museum on the floor daily and occasionally provide support for special museum events and lectures.

"We argue that a society collapses when it suffers a loss of collective capacity to meet the basic needs of the majority of the population," say Dr. Amanda Giang of UBC Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and colleagues.

What is societal collapse? Lessons from the past can help us understand our future, but only to a point Societal collapse is a complex phenomemon tied to the abilities of a society to meet its population’s basic needs. Understanding past examples of collapse can provide valuable insights.

Evolutionary mathematicians at UBC and the Hungarian Research Network have found that cooperation between species might unexpectedly decline even as conditions for mutualism improve.

Nature’s Unexpected Rule: Too Much Harmony Can Lead to Chaos Evolutionary mathematicians have found that cooperation between species might unexpectedly decline even as conditions for mutualism improve. This counterintuitive finding highlights the complexity of cooperative behavior, revealing that as cooperation increases, asymmetries can develop, potential

Four UBC Science researchers have joined the The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) / La Société royale du Canada (SRC). Congratulations to Drs. Margo Seltzer (Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia), Marie Auger-Méthé (Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and Statistics), Kayla King (Zoology and Microbiology and Immunology) and Andrea Reid (Centre for Indigenous Fisheries).

https://science.ubc.ca/news/august-08-2024/four-ubc-science-researchers-join-royal-society-canada

“Math is the art of thinking, so it's not just about numbers,” says UBC mathematician Dr. Melania Alvarez. “Math is fun and interesting and a part of what also makes life interesting is the challenges. The rewards of the challenges are tremendous.”

Experts calling on B.C. parents to stop making math a bad word Parents should be their children's cheerleaders when it comes to math and speak positively about the subject.

Hey, parents! Here are some tips from math professors to set your kids up for math success this year.

https://bit.ly/3T8WB3b

Hey students! Are you curious about physics & astronomy programs? Come join us as we present on our Department faculty, courses, clubs and programs at UBC Imagine day on September 3rd. Imagine a place with us! UBC Science UBC Engineering UBC Prospective Undergraduates University of British Columbia AMS of UBC

Orca encounter: “So she would be the matriarch, she is the mom that is leading the group,” said Dr. Andrew Trites of UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. The group was likely hunting for harbour seals. “It is literally the 7-Eleven or the Superstore for killer whales.”

B.C. father and son have seen wildlife before. But this orca encounter was ‘incredible’ | Globalnews.ca Andrew Trites with the UBC Marine Mammal Research Centre said the group was likely hunting for harbour seals, which are abundant along the coast.

Congratulations to the six UBC students who received the prestigious Schulich Leader Scholarships in 2024. They include three UBC Science students who will begin studies at the university this fall: Jenna Hamilton, Emma Creelman and Nathan Zhao.

https://give.ubc.ca/news/schulich-leaders-2024/

"It's like a circular assembly line. It's an ecosystem," says microbiology professor Steven Hallam about biogas, a renewable resource from human waste, created at the Lulu I. sewage plant.

Microbes create energy out of stuff we flush | CBC News B.C. researchers are using tiny microbes to help convert human waste into biogas that can be cleaned and sold back to the provincial gas provider. They hope their small project can be scaled up and adopted by sewage treatment plants across Canada in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Some trees in and around Vancouver are changing colour already. UBC Botany professor Dr. Santokh Singh explains why.

Here's why you might already see leaves changing colour in BC | News Have you noticed the leaves on the trees in your BC neighbourhood already changing colour? Well there could be several reasons for it.

“It feels like exploring a new continent or a new planet,” says Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia prof Dr. Jeff Clune of the possibilities unlocked by large language models. “We don't know what we're going to discover, but everywhere we turn, there's something new.”

An ‘AI Scientist’ Is Inventing and Running Its Own Experiments Letting programs learn through “open-ended” experimentation may unlock remarkable new capabilities, as well as new risks.

Drs. Jeff Clune and Cong Lu of the Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia were part of a team that designed an AI Scientist framework that is capable of independently performing the entire research process, from idea generation and experimentation to paper writing and peer review.

Not Afraid of Being Made Redundant, A Team of Human Scientists Create Framework to Build AI Scientists The AI Scientist is an advanced system capable of independently performing the entire research process, from idea to peer review.

Stroll among the trees on our 308-meter-long suspended canopy walkway. Up high in the forest, participants of all ages experience a wondrous garden filled with rare plants and important tree species. Book a tour for your group https://botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/visit/greenheart-treewalk/

Greenheart is a Vancouver-based company with a global portfolio. An industry leader in the design and construction of nature based walkways and eco-attractions, Greenheart has a proven track record for providing consultation, planning and construction services to numerous eco-attractions across Central and South America and Africa. Greenheart is leading the way in creating innovative strategies that support and protect nature through the development of non-invasive, sustainable eco-attractions.

“When you have an extended summer period, then you would have more productive (jellyfish bloom) conditions later into the year,” says Dr. Brian Hunt of Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

Blooming jellies: a beautiful spectacle or cause for concern? Diving into glowing smacks of jellyfish in səĺilẁət (Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm), a mystery more than 200 metres deep

Shades of Gilligan's Island: Astronomer Dr. Aaron Boley of UBC Department of Physics & Astronomy talks about two astronauts currently stranded in space on CTV News.

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expert on human rights and the environment Dr. David Boyd recommends suspending the expansion of salmon aquaculture in Patagonia pending an analysis of its environmental impacts. Via https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/science/chile-salmon-farms-patagonia.html

UBC fisheries economist Dr. Daniel Pauly comments on a diver’s close encounter with a juvenile bluntnose six-gill shark off Lions Bay: https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/highlights/magical-experience-diver-recounts-swimming-with-shark-off-lions-bay-9333755

“What surprises people is that 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the heating and cooling of buildings, and nearly half of that is due to the inefficiencies of windows,” says UBC Chemistry prof Dr. Curtis Berlinguette. "Windows can eliminate more than electrifying all the vehicles on the planet.”

Vancouver-based Miru Smart Technologies ‘makes the world care,’ raises US$20 million in Series A funding round - BC Business Miru co-founder and CEO Curtis Berlinguette is betting that windows can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.