One of the most prominent environmental risk factors described for numerous diseases is chronic exposure to stressful situations. – “Chronic stress and individual vulnerability,” Schmidt MV, Sterlemann V, Müller MB, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, December 2008, 1148, 174-183. Is it really true that autoimmune diseases become more active in response to stress? There are a handful of related but distinct faulty causal inferences about stress and illness in much of the literature on autoimmune disorders. From work on stressful life events and multiple sclerosis relapse (footnote 1), to reports of stress-related onset and exacerbations of Graves…

Watch/Download the movie (~120Mb mpeg file) image from here | slides – – – Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi Canada Research Chair, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Global Change. October 24th, 2008 “It’s Your Experiment!” Science Teacher Conference. Michael Smith Laboratories, UBC – – – Description: A 25 minute lecture looking at the value of integration in the pursuit of science and science education. Prof Dowlatabadi research interests involve systems approach to public policy especially when dealing with scientifically complex issues such as interactions between energy, environment and public health; communicable and vector-borne diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria, dengue, …); and Global change mitigation,…

For some a voyage through the Canadian Arctic may be one of the most exciting and thrilling adventures one could dream of: indeed, hundreds of kilometres of virgin land and cold vastness have challenged thousands of explorers in the past. Many of these arctic adventurers shared a common goal: to seek a navigable passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Thanks to Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, and his crew, a 400 year search for a shorter sea route between Europe and the Orient was finally crowned with success at the beginning of the 20th century. Amundsen was the first…

In recent decades, the search for alternative energies has become increasingly important to the average citizen. Whether it’s due to concerns for the environment or worries about shortages in fuel or rising prices, most people agree that other options need to be found. Considering the amazing amount of energy that is showered down upon us everyday from the sun, it’s no wonder that a lot of research and development is focused on improving our capabilities of capturing this source for electricity generation. As a major bonus solar power is also a renewable energy source that produces no polluting emissions or…

In the last few decades, we have been able to curb the number of children affected by polio and the number of countries harbouring the virus with great success. This is made possible by the introduction of two very efficient vaccines and the establishment of a global mass-scale immunisation campaign that has already administered 10 billion doses of the vaccines[1]. This campaign was set up to eradicate the virus; however, recently, the campaign has been facing many challenges that have made it difficult to complete the mission. The polio virus (PV) part of the Enterovirus genus of the Picornaviridae family…