Nada Salem and Zahra Nasser, Chemistry co-editors Google searches for ‘insomnia’ have surged in the last few months, reflecting people’s concerns about their changing sleep patterns. Sleep is a complex process involving a network of mechanisms. When one mechanism falters, our sleep is negatively affected. An extreme example of this disruption is insomnia – a […]
Science in Society
Do our dogs feel anything for us?
Dorottya Harangi, Health, Medicine and Veterinary Sciences editor You may have heard the story of a dog named Hachiko. Hachiko met his owner at the train station every day like clockwork to walk home with him. However, one day, his owner suffered a tragic accident and never came home again. Despite his owner’s death, Hachiko […]
Planting cleaner air: Can roadside plants reduce air pollution?
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 […]
Why do we (dis)trust? A look at the science of credibility
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 […]
Bats: COVID-19’s unexpected victim
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 […]