U of G In the News
July 19, 2013 - In the News
Ian Mosby, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of History, continues to make headlines with his research that shows hungry aboriginal children and adults were used in nutritional experiments by Canadian government bureaucrats between 1942 and 1952. In addition to generating news reports around the country, the research has prompted calls for action. CBC published a story today quoting former prime minister Paul Martin urging the government to disclose all records about the situation. Numerous other articles quote Aboriginal leaders asking for apologies and reviews.
Mosby was featured in the lead story on CBC's The National Wednesday night. The story was also reported in the Globe and Mail, the National Post, on CTV news, CBC Radio's As It Happens, Yahoo! news, and on Global news, among others.
The research appeared in the May edition of Social History, published by the University of Toronto Press. A graduate of York University, Mosby researches and teaches about politics, culture and science of food in Canada during the 20th century.
A column by Prof. Sylvain Charlebois, associate dean, research and graduate studies, in the College of Management and Economics (CME), appears today in the Globe and Mail. The opinion piece discusses the impact of Loblaw’s purchasing Shoppers Drug Mart, and the competition posed by other retailers, particularly Wal-Mart.
Charlebois is an award-winning researcher and teacher and an expert on global food systems. He studies food distribution and safety and has published two books and numerous articles. He is currently writing a third book on global food safety systems.
Integrative biology professor Robert Hanner was featured on CBC TV Thursday night, discussing DNA barcoding technology, including how it can be used to detect mislabelled food products, trace food contamination and improve trade regulation. The story was featured on The Lang and O'Leary Exchange, a Canada business news television series that airs on CBC TV and CBC News Network.
Hanner is associate director of the U of G-based Canadian Barcode of Life Network and co-ordinates the Fish Barcode of Life campaign intended to barcode the world’s fish species. DNA barcoding is a molecular technique honed at Guelph that allows scientists to match up barcodes from specimens of unknown identity to those derived from expert-identified reference specimens. It has led to the discovery of hundreds of overlooked species and been used to help alleviate consumer fears and improve pest and disease control.
Prof. Emma Allen-Vercoe, Molecular and Cellular Biology, is featured in latest issue of Popular Science magazine and in a recent issue of Maclean’s magazine. Allen-Vercoe was part of a Canadian research team that discovered a synthetic “poop” may be used for fecal transplants to cure nasty gastrointestinal infections caused by Clostridium difficile, a toxin-producing bacterium. The article also discusses possible treatments for heart disease and autism.
Allen-Vercoe made the synthetic stool from purified intestinal bacterial cultures in the “Robo-gut,” equipment in her U of G laboratory that mimics the environment of the large intestine.The robo-gut grows the complex ecosystems of bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms found in the human intestines. It also produces waste full of microbes never before grown in a lab. The facility allows Allen-Vercoe and other researchers to learn more about the 1,000-odd bacterial species living in our “inner ecosystem.”
Pam Jacobs, U of G’s information resources librarian, was on CBC radio Thursday morning discussing the new Gryph Reads collection. She was interviewed live for the Morning Edition show in CBC’s Kitchener-Waterloo station. (To hear the report, scroll down the left side of the page to 'Morning Edition').
The Gryph Reads, which was launched today, is aimed at promoting leisure reading. The collection is housed on bookshelves on the library’s main floor, surrounded by comfortable chairs. There will also be a website with more information about the program plus links to sources for free e-books people can download. Learn more
Wade Cormack, a recent U of G graduate, has been making international headlines recently. He was recently asked to document the origins of golf in Scotland as part of a three-year doctoral research position. Golf is a pillar of Scottish identity and one of the country's most distinctive contributions to global culture. News articles about his project have appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and in the The Scotsman, one of Scotland’s leading newspapers. The story was also covered by BBC news. Cormack completed both master's and undergraduate degrees at Guelph.
Research by graduate student Cameron Hudson and integrative biology professor Jinzhong Fu appeared in a recent issue of New Scientist. The story highlighted their research on the mating habits of male Emei moustache toads. The toads grow distinctive spines on their upper lips during mating season used in competing for partners. The researchers monitored moustache toads on a 300-metre stretch of river near Mount Emei in Sichuan, China, over two breeding seasons.
New research by Prof. John Cranfield and graduate students Tor Tolhurst and Shuang Li was featured in the Globe and Mail recently. Cranfield, of the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, and his students found a “statistically significant positive relationship” between Conservative power and subsidies to farmers dating back three decades in Canada. They will present their paper next month at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
