UBC Research News Releases

For the past decade, companies across North America have paid more attention to supporting equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). This has prompted many organizations to create a leadership role fully dedicated to advancing EDI — so much so that between 2015 and 2020, the job title “head of diversity” increased 107 percent on LinkedIn. By 2021, more than half of S&P 500 firms had named a chief diversity officer.

But a new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business shows many people have deeply held beliefs about who should be an EDI leader, and they are rooted in racial stereotypes.

New research confirms that Tsleil-Waututh Nation has consistently and sustainably fished for chum salmon for 1,200 years longer than the archaeological record had previously demonstrated.

This supports Tsleil-Waututh knowledge and further demonstrates that Tsleil-Waututh people have been sustainably living on and stewarding their traditional territory for longer than Western science may recognize.

The public has the wrong idea about what homeless people would do after coming into a large amount of money.

A newly published University of B.C. study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences unveils this stark contrast between public perception and reality when it comes to how homeless people manage their finances.

Participants in a U.S. survey of more than 1,100 people predicted that recipients of an unconditional $7,500 cash transfer would spend 81 per cent more on “temptation goods” such as alcohol, drugs and tobacco if they were homeless than if they were not.

AI-generated writing, photography, art and music have been skyrocketing in popularity, but that surging success has also triggered an enormous backlash, with many rejecting AI art — and even asserting that its proliferation marks the beginning of the end for humanity.

So why do some people react so negatively to art made by artificial intelligence? According to a new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business, it’s because for some, it challenges what it is to be human.

Could plants be the answer to the looming threat of microplastic pollution? Scientists at UBC’s BioProducts Institute found that if you add tannins—natural plant compounds that make your mouth pucker if you bite into an unripe fruit—to a layer of wood dust, you can create a filter that traps virtually all microplastic particles present in water.

While the experiment remains a lab set-up at this stage, the team is convinced that the solution can be scaled up easily and inexpensively once they find the right industry partner.

This summer, you can turn your backyard into a raccoon IQ test to help researchers figure out just how brainy your average “trash panda” is.

Raccoons have big brains and thrive in complex city environments. But research on their cognitive abilities, or how they learn and act on information from the environment, is scarce.

Simple home workouts using exercise apps can effectively reduce depressive symptoms in healthcare workers and could be a major tool to combat the global mental health crisis in the sector, says new University of British Columbia research.

The study, published today in JAMA Psychiatry, divided participants into either a waitlisted control group or an exercise group who were given free access to a suite of home exercise apps called DownDog, that included yoga, cardio and strength training. They were asked to aim for at least 80 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week over 12 weeks.

Treatment with modern antidepressants may help prevent patients with bipolar disorder from relapsing into a depressive episode, according to an international clinical trial led by researchers at the University of British Columbia.

The findings, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, challenge current clinical practice guidelines and could change how bipolar depression is managed globally.

Medications for alcohol use disorder are underutilized in British Columbia, despite their safety and effectiveness, according to a new study published today in the journal Addiction.

The study found that between 2015 and 2019 fewer than five per cent of British Columbians who met the criteria for moderate to severe alcohol use disorder (AUD) received medications for the minimum recommended time of three months.

Researchers developed a cascade of care for AUD, a visual tool that describes the effectiveness of the health system in identifying people with AUD, engaging and retaining them in treatment and care, and in identifying gaps in service delivery.

When employees break the rules at work, they can land in hot water — but according to a new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business, bosses may want to think twice about cracking down on those who don’t stick to the script.

In the past, researchers believed that when employees broke the rules, they were doing it for malicious or self-serving reasons: for example, workers might steal, or take longer breaks than they’re entitled to. But it turns out that some employees ignore orders to help better serve customers, which can benefit businesses and improve the well-being of workers.

What if you could drop your drugs off at a vending machine that lets you know they’re safe in seconds, without any stigma?

UBC researchers will take one step closer to that goal this week when they take a prototype testing robot to Shambhala Music Festival in Salmo, B.C.

Current portable testing techniques require technicians and can’t detect more than five compounds in a sample at a time, or specify the levels of any substance below five per cent.

Today, the European Space Agency launched its Euclid satellite from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Twelve years in the making, the Euclid mission will construct a 3D map of the universe by observing billions of galaxies across more than one-third of the sky.

The goals: to understand the physical laws of the universe and explain how the universe originated and what it is made of.

The satellite will spend more than six years in space to accomplish the mission. More than 2,000 scientists will be involved in analyzing the data it sends back to Earth. This group includes Canadians from many leading astronomy research groups across the country.

Substance use and related harms have been a key concern for many Canadians over the last seven years, but there remain troubling gaps in school-based approaches to substance use education and intervention. This leaves children and youth without critical information and supports for their wellbeing now and throughout their lives.

A gel that combines both stiffness and toughness is a step forward in the bid to create biodegradable implants for joint injuries, according to new UBC research.

Mimicking articular cartilage, found in our knee and hip joints, is challenging. This cartilage is key to smooth joint movement, and damage to it can cause pain, reduce function, and lead to arthritis. One potential solution is to implant artificial scaffolds made of proteins that help the cartilage regenerate itself as the scaffold biodegrades. How well the cartilage regenerates is linked to how well a scaffold can mimic the biological properties of cartilage, and to date, researchers have struggled to combine the seemingly incompatible properties of stiffness and toughness.

Approximately one of every five men in Canada will experience a mental health challenge this year. Many will avoid or delay seeking support, which can lead to devastating results.

Dr. Paul Sharp, a postdoctoral fellow with UBC’s Men’s Health Research Program and member of the Reducing Male Suicide Research Excellence Cluster, would like to help men find ways to tackle their mental health challenges through social connections.

A UBC Sauder School of Business study shows that when people buy blush-inducing items, they choose self-checkout—or failing that, the most robotic human available.

It’s an age-old law of marketing that friendly customer service is a sure way to boost your business. But customers who are buying embarrassing products don’t necessarily want a smiling face or pleasant small talk.

B.C. still leads Canada with the highest eviction rate in the country, and the vast majority are no-fault, according to a new report.

Researchers from UBC’s Balanced Supply of Housing research cluster analyzed 2021 Canadian Housing Survey (CHS) data from almost 41,000 Canadian households and found more than one in 10, or 10.5 per cent of B.C. renter households, reported being evicted during the five years prior to data collection, compared with only 5.9 per cent nationally. Prince Edward Island was second at eight per cent, followed by Nova Scotia and Ontario at just over six per cent.

They live among us and eat pesky insects, but unless you’re armed with an ultrasonic microphone you may never notice our nocturnal neighbours: bats.

UBC researchers Dr. Matthew Mitchell (Faculty of Land and Food Systems) and Aaron Aguirre (Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability) want to bring these fascinating creatures out of the shadows, and will spend the summer collecting data on bats in Metro Vancouver.

They’re in a race against time: In early April, evidence of a deadly fungal disease called white-nose syndrome was found in B.C. for the first time.

We spoke with Mitchell and Aguirre about their study and why it matters.

Radiation has been a staple of cancer treatment for decades, with approximately 50 per cent of cancer patients receiving radiation therapy at some point in their journey.

While effective, traditional radiation therapies rely on intense beams of energy shot from outside the body. These beams can kill cancer, but their use is limited to select locations, making them less suited for difficult-to-treat metastatic cancers that have spread to multiple sites.

People leave jobs all the time, whether they’re laid off, fired, or just quit. But how do their departures affect coworkers left behind? According to a new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business, those exits can lead many others to call it quits.

The researchers delved deeply into employment data from a major retailer that was experiencing high turnover to find out why. They reviewed data for roughly a million employees — including when they were hired, which store, which position, when they left, and why.

The study authors also had access to employee performance records, so they could evaluate whether workers were high performers or low performers.

Safer and more effective blood thinners could be on the way following a groundbreaking discovery by researchers at UBC and the University of Michigan, published today in Nature Communications.

By combining their expertise in blood clotting systems and chemical synthesis, the researchers have designed a new compound called MPI 8 that offers the potential to prevent blood clots without any increased risk of bleeding—a common side effect of existing blood thinners.

The prevailing narrative on the climate crisis—and how to address it—is at best bewildering and at worst downright depressing. We’re told we face a doom-and-gloom scenario, and the only way to solve it is to give up simple pleasures and conveniences.

New research into volcanic eruptions could help predict their hazards, including tsunamis and surfing hot rock avalanches.

Volcanic eruptions large enough to create a caldera, or cauldron-like hole, also create flows of volcanic ash and rock, and sometimes tsunamis. But we don’t really understand their behaviour and these resulting hazards.

New University of British Columbia research is challenging a longstanding assumption that a baby’s gut microbiome is primarily shaped by their mother’s vaginal microbiome, while shedding new light on the factors that do influence its development.

When babies are born, their gut is a nearly sterile environment. But that quickly changes as the infant’s digestive tract becomes home to trillions of microbial cells throughout their early development. This gut microbiome is an important part of overall health and alterations early in life have been associated with negative health outcomes later on, including asthma and obesity.

The B.C. government has announced measures to ensure an adequate supply of the diabetes drug semaglutide (Ozempic) in B.C. as demand in the U.S. surges.

UBC experts are available to comment.

Dr. Tom Elliott (he/him) Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine Tel: 360-559-8520 Email: telliott@bcdiabetes.ca Interview language(s): English

A new study has found that a mother’s educational status—the highest level of education that she has attained—plays an increasingly important role in shaping her children’s educational status, while the importance of the father’s educational status has declined.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, women judges throughout the country have lost their jobs, had their lives threatened, and have been forced to evacuate or go into hiding. Last March, the International Association of Women Judges published an open letter to the international community seeking assistance in evacuating and resettling women judges who remained in Afghanistan.

As the United Nations marks World Wildlife Day on March 3, UBC zoology professor Dr. Kaitlyn Gaynor (she/her) discusses how climate change is affecting wildlife, and why that can spell bad news for humans and animals alike.

Health Canada is currently reviewing regulations for pesticides in Canada, and three UBC researchers say regulators might want to consider what happened in Japan.

A lake in Shimane Prefecture has seen its commercial fishery collapse by more than 90 per cent since 1993, when insecticides known as neonicotinoids were first introduced to the area. It just so happens that zooplankton—the tiny creatures in the water that fish feed on—declined by 83 per cent during the same period.

That’s just one example of the unanticipated ripple effects of pesticides uncovered by UBC ecologists Dr. Risa Sargent, Dr. Juli Carrillo and Dr. Claire Kremen in their review of recent science.

A new study from UBC’s Sauder School of Business shows that owners of $3.7-million homes in Vancouver pay just $15,800 in income tax.

“They’re sitting on some of the most expensive real estate in North America, but owners of the priciest properties in Vancouver are paying extraordinarily little in income tax” said UBC Sauder associate professor Thomas Davidoff, who co-authored the study with Dr. Paul Boniface Akaabre from UBC’s school of community and regional planning and Dr. Craig Jones from UBC’s department of geography.

At the turn of the century, Marina Gallagher was a young piano student who played a lot of video games between piano lessons. The Final Fantasy series was her favourite.

Today, Gallagher (she/her) is a PhD candidate at the UBC School of Music whose thesis explores the music of the Final Fantasy series. She will speak next month at the 10th annual North American Conference on Video Game Music.

Gallagher’s field, ludomusicology, combines the study of games and gameplay (ludology) with the study of music (musicology). We spoke with her about her work.

Media are invited to capture the unveiling of two UBC science experiments that have circled the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar mission.

UBC pharmaceutical sciences researcher Dr. Corey Nislow, having hand-carried the samples back from Cape Canaveral, will discuss how space flight has changed baker’s yeast and algae cultures that nestled inside Artemis 1’s Orion capsule for 26 days in space.

Canadian researchers measured wildlife overpasses around the world and found 71 per cent in North America are narrower than recommended.

These bridges let bears and other creatures cross over busy highways, allowing animals to live and breed across their normal habitats—an important factor for biodiversity. Previous research has recommended a minimum width of 50 metres and a width-to-length ratio of 0.8 to ensure larger animals feel comfortable crossing.

Researchers at UBC’s Life Sciences Institute have identified a compound that shows early promise at halting infections from a range of coronaviruses, including all variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the common cold.

The findings, published this week in Molecular Biomedicine, reveal a potential path toward antiviral treatments that could be used against many different pathogens.