Gas price spikes reveal the algorithms behind capitalism

Kyle Pearce CC BY-SA 2.0

Robert Gooding-Townsend, Science in Society editor Late this February, gas prices in Vancouver surged to over $1.50 a litre, an increase of 20¢ in just two weeks. This was due to the shutdown of a key refinery in Burnaby. Around the same time, Taiwan was running out of toilet paper, which was partly caused by […]

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Meet the Science Borealis team with #SciBorSelfies!

This year, Science Borealis celebrates our 4th anniversary by paying tribute to our amazing team of volunteers! These are the folks who do the hard work every day to keep things running. We had each team member draw a simple line drawing self-portrait, which was then colourized and SciBorated by art team member Peggy Muddles. […]

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Is extinction really forever?

mammoth-skeleton_Wilhelm-Tilesius

Robert Gooding-Townsend, Science in Society co-editor Can biotechnology bring back extinct species? If it can, should it? In her new book Rise of the Necrofauna, Britt Wray chronicles the nascent movement to bring back extinct species. She calls these resurrected creatures “necrofauna”, conjuring images of undead mammoths, passenger pigeons, and more. As compelling as the […]

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A Q&A with The Atlantic’s Ed Yong

Erin Zimmerman, Science in Society co-editor Following his recent keynote address at the Canadian Society of Microbiology conference in Waterloo, Ontario, my Science Borealis colleague, Robert Gooding Townsend and I chatted with Ed Yong, author of the New York Times bestseller, I Contain Multitudes, about getting started in science communication, using humour in your writing, […]

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Turning science into stories: The craft of Ed Yong

Robert Gooding-Townsend, Science in Society co-editor Last October, at the height of the American presidential election, the internet was talking about nothing else. Well, almost. Amongst all the takes on Sanders and Clinton and Trump and Rubio and the future of America, one story rose to the top of The Atlantic’s website and stayed there. […]

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