PalaeoPoems: Literary scicomm gives fossils a second chance at life

Artwork by Katrin Emery

Raymond Nakamura and Katrina Vera Wong, Multimedia editors Monsters of the prime Who tare each other in their slime – Thomas C. Weston, “Untitled,” Reminiscences among the rocks: in connection with the Geological Survey of Canada, 1889 ~ Excavating fossilized dinosaur bones or permineralized leaves is something we expect from a palaeontologist; digging up poems […]

Continue reading


Planting cleaner air: Can roadside plants reduce air pollution?

Image by Pexels from Pixabay, CC0

Katie Compton and Silvie Harder, Policy & Politics editors If you’ve gone shopping for a houseplant recently, you might have noticed that some species, like spider plants and peace lilies, are identified as having air-purifying qualities. This labelling isn’t just empty marketing. A study done by NASA 30 years ago tested the air-purifying capacity of […]

Continue reading


Why do we (dis)trust? A look at the science of credibility

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

Alice Fleerackers, Science in Society editor It’s March 9, 2021, exactly one year after the first COVID-19-related death was reported in my home province of British Columbia. I wake up to see Canadian Doctors Speak Out trending on Twitter. Curious, I click through. There, I uncover heated streams of tweets, some calling out misinformation, others […]

Continue reading


Bats: COVID-19’s unexpected victim

It remains unclear how or where these transfers between species occurred. Image: Jody Confer, CC0, via Unsplash.

Elizabeth Benner, Biology & Life Sciences editor COVID-19 was the major villain of 2020. But another biological life form received a lot of press, as media speculation centred on bats as the origin of the virus.   Bats and viruses Virus scientists found that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, came from a virus in […]

Continue reading