UBC Research News Releases

Scientists at UBC are raising concern about the number of common eastern bumble bees—an introduced species—that they are finding in the wild and in research surveys of pollinators in the Lower Mainland.  

We spoke to associate professor Dr. Risa Sargent, who heads the Plant Pollinator and Global Change lab in the faculty of land and food systems, and lab member and master’s student Sarah Knoerr about what they are seeing and why they are alarmed.

For many people, leaving a job can be like leaving a family — and because of the personal and professional bonds they’ve forged, many naturally stay in touch with their former coworkers and keep apprised of what’s happening in the organization.

But what happens when companies make a concerted effort to bolster those bonds, help former employees in their careers and keep them in the loop? According to new research from the UBC Sauder School of Business, it can have big benefits for both employees and employers.

March 31 marks International Transgender Day of Visibility, a day to celebrate transgender people and their contributions to society, as well as raise awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide.

UBC experts share their insights below.

This article contains information about suicide that may be upsetting to some people. Anyone who is in crisis or considering suicide can call the Canada Suicide Prevention Service toll free at 9-8-8 or visit the online chat service at 988.ca. In B.C., the Crisis Centre BC suicide hotline is at 1-800-784-2433.

UBC sociologist Dr. Seth Abrutyn gained insight into suicide contagion through years of field work in a small U.S. community which he calls Poplar Grove. The name is fake but the community is real. Sixteen young people ended their own lives there between 2005 and 2018. All were connected to the same high school.

LGBTQ+ bars have undergone a startling decline globally over the past 20 years. More than half of London’s LGBTQ+ venues closed between 2006 and 2016, and the in the U.S. an average of 15 gay bars closed every year from 2008 to 2021.

New UBC research reveals a safe path to overcoming food allergies for older children and others who can’t risk consuming allergens orally to build up their resistance.

It’s called sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT), and it involves placing smaller amounts of food allergens under the tongue.

Vancouver may be considered by many as the “best place” to live, but many young people living in the city are facing unprecedented challenges that are making their futures more precarious than ever. Hundreds of youth who call Vancouver home are standing at the intersection of a housing affordability crisis and a toxic drug poisoning public health emergency.

A team of UBC researchers wants to help people living with cancer incorporate exercise as an important part of their treatment and recovery.

The number of B.C. homes owned by people who live outside of Canada is less than half the number of homes that B.C. residents own abroad.

If that surprises you, blame narratives that have arisen during the housing affordability crisis, which often cite foreign home ownership as a major contributing factor with little evidence.

This is a form of nationalism that UBC sociologist Dr. Nathan Lauster and co-author Dr. Jens von Bergmann call “reactionary housing nationalism.” Their new paper in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies explores the trend and reveals more surprising statistics. We spoke with them about the research.

A 48-hour strike has shut down bus and SeaBus service in Metro Vancouver. UBC experts are available to comment.

This month, a group of stroke survivors in B.C. will test a new technology designed to aid their recovery, and ultimately restore use of their limbs and hands.

Participants will wear a new groundbreaking “smart glove” capable of tracking their hand and finger movements during rehabilitation exercises supervised by Dr. Janice Eng, a leading stroke rehabilitation specialist and professor of medicine at UBC.

Hospitalized patients are more complex than they used to be.

That’s the finding of a newly published UBC study which set out to measure something researchers have been hearing anecdotally from hospital-based health-care workers over the past two decades.

As it turns out, they weren’t imagining things.

The roads, bridges and highways that crisscross B.C. take us where we want to go. Unfortunately, they also help leak a toxic chemical shed by car tires—6PPD-quinone—into B.C.’s waterways, posing a serious threat to salmon habitats.

A collaborative project led by UBC and its partners is working to identify and mitigate these toxic hot spots. The researchers are surveying ponds, creeks and streams across the Lower Mainland in hopes of building future rain gardens and other “green infrastructure” that can contain this toxin.

Dr. Rachel Scholes (she/her), assistant professor of civil engineering, and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Timothy Rodgers (he/him) discuss 6PPD-quinone and the role of rain gardens in defusing its impacts.

The Province and the BC Lottery Corporation (BCLC) have renewed their investment of approximately $1.4 million in the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC, signalling a dedicated effort to reduce the potential harms associated with gambling for people in B.C.

“As government continues to work toward its commitments of harm reduction and a public health approach to preventing problem gambling, we are grateful for the work the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC does, said Mike Farnworth, minister of public safety and solicitor general. “Its research and findings are integral to the development of policies within government and the steps we take to protect British Columbians from the harms of problem gambling.”

Bigger animals fared better during a catastrophic tropical cyclone, new research has found.

As extreme weather events become more common due to climate change, the findings published in Nature could help wildlife managers develop strategies to help at-risk animals before such events hit as well as pinpoint general traits that help animals survive.

Using GPS collars, cameras and aerial surveys of animals ranging in size from antelope to elephants, researchers examined how individuals and entire populations responded when Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique in 2019, the deadliest storm on record in Africa.

Three internationally renowned scientists have been named Canada Excellence Research Chairs at the University of British Columbia.

Their research aims to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges, from uncovering disease dynamics in the face of climate change to developing ecosystem conservation strategies and creating more efficient and sustainable processes for manufacturing medicines and agricultural chemicals.

UBC and UBCO math teachers who want to use their math skills for good have collaborated with climate scientists to bring the climate crisis into their classrooms.

More than 5,000 undergraduate students across several math classes this year will learn the tools needed to describe, understand and develop solutions to the climate crisis through problem sets, assignments, modules and activities.

Family was a motivator for two of the professors involved. “It was my daughter and my wife who kicked my butt to do something more useful with my mathematics,” said Dr. Brian Marcus, UBC site director of the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences.

Construction sites will soon evolve into smarter, safer job sites thanks to AI technology, according to UBC structural engineering professor Dr. Tony Yang.

Dr. Yang and his team at the Smart Structures Lab have developed smart construction robots that can perform basic tasks that workers perform, such as lifting and moving objects around a job site, autonomously transporting materials and monitoring sites for safety issues.

The UBC team recently demonstrated the concept at a construction site on Mitchell Island in Richmond, B.C.

Scientists have unlocked the genetic basis underlying the remarkable variation in body size observed in song sparrows, one of North America’s most familiar and beloved songbirds. This discovery also provides insights into this species’ capacity to adapt to the challenges of climate change.

If you’re looking for a horror show to check out this Halloween, look no further than nature itself.

Gruesome parasites abound in the natural world, and UBC experts are here to fill you in.

The good news is, they either don’t infect humans, or are very, very rare – but they’re all pretty creepy.

Smart, stretchable and highly sensitive, a new soft sensor developed by UBC and Honda researchers opens the door to a wide range of applications in robotics and prosthetics.

When applied to the surface of a prosthetic arm or a robotic limb, the sensor skin provides touch sensitivity and dexterity, enabling tasks that can be difficult for machines such as picking up a piece of soft fruit. The sensor is also soft to the touch, like human skin, which helps make human interactions safer and more lifelike.

They’re being hailed as an effective way to lose weight, but diabetes drugs like Ozempic may come with a heightened risk of severe gastrointestinal problems.

That’s according to new research from the University of British Columbia showing that medications known as GLP-1 agonists—which includes brands like Wegovy, Ozempic, Rybelsus and Saxenda—are associated with an increased risk of serious medical conditions including stomach paralysis, pancreatitis and bowel obstruction.

In the world’s first observation of the effect of gravity on antimatter, a group of researchers from Canada and around the world have made an important confirmation: like matter, antimatter does indeed ‘fall downwards’.

Meet Kiwi and Mango, social robots from Japan. They may look like a cuddly cross between Teletubbies and WALL-E, but what lies beneath is advanced AI technology that enables them to learn, speak, recognize faces and voices, move around and even offer hugs, emulating the warmth of a real pet.

Kiwi and Mango are on loan to UBC for a new study exploring interactions between social robots and older adults. Dr. Lillian Hung (she/her), lead researcher, Canada Research Chair in Senior Care and assistant professor of nursing, explains how the study was conceived and what it could mean for elder care.

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.