Tick talk: tick-borne pathogens in Canada

By Sonja Soo, Environmental & Earth Sciences editor Many people know that they risk contracting Lyme disease — a serious illness with symptoms such as a bullseye-shaped rash, fever, chills, fatigue and headaches — if they venture into tick-infested areas. You can contract Lyme disease if a tick carrying a specific bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi […]

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Old growth forests in British Columbia: what they are and why they matter

By Sonja Soo, Environmental & Earth Sciences editor In Canada’s largest act of civil disobedience, over 1,000 people were arrested for protesting against the logging of old growth forests. During these protests, which were concentrated in Fairy Creek, a southern Vancouver Island region, many risked fines and jail time to protect old growth forests. But […]

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Navigating Canada’s path towards open science

By Sonja Soo, Communications, Education & Outreach editor Open science is a movement that encourages scientists to freely share their data, tools, and infrastructure to foster collaboration and accelerate research. Many forms of open science have been gaining traction over the last decade. For example, in 2009, mathematician Timothy Gowers posted a complex unsolved math […]

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When the opioid epidemic met the coronavirus pandemic

Opioids are prescribed as painkillers. Over prescription can lead to addiction or worse. Photo by Halacious, on Unsplash, CC0.

Sonja Soo, Communications, Education & Outreach editor The opioid crisis in Canada has been a public emergency since 2016. According to the Government of Canada, there have been more than 22,000 opioid toxicity deaths in the last five years. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened opioid-related deaths in Canada – in the months that followed the […]

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