Psychology professor Dr. Deborah Powell and PhD student Brooke Charbonneau in the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences led three studies that are among the first to investigate what psychologists call “self-verification behaviour” in job interviews.

Those who practise self-verification during interviews offer unembellished information aligned with their own views of themselves.

This study, which appeared in the International Journal of Selection and Assessment and was featured by Psychology Today, found that participants hoped that being completely honest would make them stand out from other applicants.

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Researchers surveyed more than 200 North American veterinarians, mostly Canadian, who self-reported over three months in 2021.

Dogs were the animal most often ingesting cannabis. Cats, iguanas, ferrets, horses and cockatoos were all reported to have experienced cannabis toxicosis, based on clinical signs, history of cannabis exposure and urine tests.

Most pet owners did not know where their animals encountered it, according to the data, although some vets reported exposure from discarded joints, human feces, cannabis-infused butter or oil, and compost.

Edibles were the most common cause of toxicosis, with animals ingesting cannabis while unattended.

Although most of the animals had a complete recovery, suggesting no long-term effects, some deaths were reported, said lead researcher Dr. Jibran Khokhar, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in the Ontario
Veterinary College.

Increased toxicosis may reflect not increasing human use of cannabis but more reporting to veterinarians when animals are exposed, he said.

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Dr. Jamie Gruman, a professor in U of G’s Lang School of Business, says many people confuse the practice with passive acceptance of a problem.

Published in Clinical Psychology Review, the study looked at popular conceptions of mindfulness.

Rooted in Buddhist religious practice, mindfulness became more popular after clinical research began reaffirming its potential for reducing stress and improving well-being. However, when the researchers compared popular interpretations of mindfulness to evaluate how people understand and apply the concept in their daily lives, they found that many confuse acceptance with passivity or avoidance.

“Our results suggest that laypeople may understand what awareness is, but the next step of acceptance may not be well understood, limiting potential for engaging with problems,” says Dr. Ellen Choi, lead author on the paper and organizational behaviour professor at Ryerson University.

Based on these findings, Gruman says, what’s needed is a “contextualized mindfulnessframework” that the average person can follow and understand.

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The one-of-a-kind facility will enable researchers at U of G and collaborators in Canada and abroad to conduct practice-based studies of improvisational performance and audience reception and to hold community workshops for improv research.

Directed by Dr. Ajay Heble, School of English and Theatre Studies, the institute looks at performance as a model of social practice in numerous fields.

“Improvisation feeds into every aspect of life,” said Sam Boer, administrative and communication specialist with IICSI and a performing musician. “Every day during COVID, we’ve had to wake up and improvise aspects of our lives.”

Part of wider renovations to the MacKinnon Building, the ImprovLab will feature a flexible, 140-seat research performance space for varied uses including music, theatre and multimedia.

Live performances in the new space are planned in late summer for the annual Improvisation Festival, a 24-hour online event involving international artists.

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Researchers looked at sustainability performance during the COVID-19 pandemic and before and after the 2007-08 financial collapse.

They found companies that invested in environmental, social and corporate governance during the global pandemic had more positive economic outcomes, whereas the opposite occurred during the 2007-08 financial crisis.

Now, sustainability provides a kind of “insurance” to protect against economic downturns, researchers found.

“If you think that environmental damage isn’t going to impact economic growth, you’remistaken,” said co-author Dr. Kathleen Rodenburg, professor in the School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics. She o-authored the study with Dr. Jing Lu, Dr. Lianne Foti and Dr. Ann Pegoraro, all faculty members in the Lang School.

Companies are now recognizing that sustainability helps with long-term performance, Rodenburg said, leading to improved investor confidence and business reputation, among other advantages.

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The researchers hope their findings will lead to drugs that halt the progression of this neurodegenerative disease, says Morgan Stykel, a PhD candidate and first author of a paper published in the journal Cell Reports.

Parkinson’s disease is the world’s fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease and Canada has some of the world’s highest rates, according to Parkinson Canada. Its exact cause is unknown.

Current therapies only treat symptoms rather than halting the disease, says Dr. Scott Ryan, a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology who led the study.

Parkinson’s disease can be triggered by the misfolding of a protein called alpha-synuclein that accumulates in one part of the brain. The disease causes loss of nerve cells in the brain that produce dopamine, a chemical messenger that helps control motor function.

The misfolded protein eventually spreads to other parts of the brain, impairing areas responsible for other functions such as mood and cognition.

The U of G team found that the affected synuclein inactivates a second protein that normally targets misfolded proteins for degradation. The researchers showed that reactivating the latter protein enables cells to clear the misfolded proteins and prevent disease spread.

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The technology – believed to be the first use of VR for teaching anatomy at a Canadian veterinary college – allows students to move around virtually inside an animal’s body. Using handheld controls, they can manipulate the VR model to examine material from any direction, magnify or reduce body parts, and zero in on organs and tissues in three dimensions. Clicking a button allows users to strip away overlying bone to focus on internal organs and systems.

“Anatomy comes to life,” says Dr. Pavneesh Madan, a professor in the Ontario Veterinary College’s Department of Biomedical Sciences. “The tool is like magic, like something I’ve never experienced before.

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Climate change profoundly affects Indigenous peoples in Canada and abroad, but their concerns continue to gox unheard, according to a new University of Guelph study led by First Nations communities in Ontario.

The study urges decision makers to include Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in discussions about climate change impacts, said Dr. Ally Menzies, a post-doc in the School of Environmental Sciences (SES).

“There are only so many generations that knowledge is passed down,” Menzies said. “When an Elder dies, a chunk of culture and knowledge dies with them. We’re running out of time to have that knowledge and culture
passed down to current generations.”

The study was published in FACETS, the journal of the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Science. Co-authors include Dr. Jesse Popp and Dr. Sue Chiblow, both Anishinaabe professors in SES, along with Uof G students and researchers.

The report pinpoints climate change impacts on the environment and on traditional culture and ways of life and calls for further research on those impacts combining Indigenous knowledge and Western science.

The paper highlights how climate change is increasingly throwing off seasonal timing of life cycles of animals and plants that are key to Indigenous culture and traditional practices.

Those practices are also being affected by changes in water quality, biodiversity, and spread of disease and parasites.

Climate change is making it more difficult for Indigenous people to predict the landscape and ecosystems, said Menzies. “Their knowledge no longer matches what’s happening around them.”

Earlier studies have often focused on climate change impacts in the North, said Menzies. This new report was based on a 2019 workshop with 12 Anishinaabek communities around the Great Lakes involving almost 40 Elders, youth and environmental experts.

Besides calling for more integration of Indigenous knowledge and Western science, the group recommended long term monitoring of plants and animals and more holistic, ecosystem-level approaches to assessing climate change effects.

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Clinics have sought to protect the health and safety of veterinary staff as well as patients with entry restrictions.

The study found dogs separated from their owners during exams showed more physiological and behavioural signs of fear and stress than dogs with owners in the room.

Solutions? Hold the appointment outside, if possible. Clinics with large, well-ventilated exam rooms could also allow owners to remain in the room where the dog can see them, even if they can’t stand close by, said Dr. Lee Niel, Department of Population Medicine and the Col. K.L. Campbell Chair in Companion Animal Welfare.

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Radiation therapy aims beams of intense energy at a tumour to kill cancer cells. But if the ultranarrow beam is aimed inaccurately, it can hit healthy cells and “underdose” the target tumour.

Led by Dr. Dennis Mücher, a professor in the Department of Physics, U of G researchers have come up with a technique called a “hadron tumour marker” to make proton radiation therapy more accurate.

The implications of these findings for human cancer therapy are huge

They tested the technique at TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for nuclear and medical physics in Vancouver.

Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada and half of all cancer patients are treated with radiation therapy.

Cancer radiation therapy using ions, including charged particles such as protons, has become more widespread because it can target tumours and cancer cells with great precision. That makes it especially useful for treating cancers in delicate tissues like the eyes, brain or spinal cord.

In a separate study, U of G scientists harnessed tumour-killing viruses that may one day help treat devastating forms of breast, brain and pancreatic cancer.

We wake up the immune system

A research team led Dr. Sam Workenhe has shown for the first time that a one-two punch of cancer-killing viruses and chemotherapy can help trigger tumour inflammation, stimulating the body’s immune system to control tumour growth.

Workenhe, a professor in the Department of Pathobiology, said the study may ultimately help doctors enlist patients’ immune systems to fight cancers with especially poor treatment outcomes from conventional surgery, chemotherapy or radiation.

“The implications of these findings for human cancer therapy are huge,” he said. “We wake up the immune system.”

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