UBC Reports | Vol. 48 | No. 11 | Sep. 5 , 2002

In the News

Highlights of UBC media coverage in August 2002

Compiled by Rosalind Duane

Humble beginnings

At only 15 cm in diameter, Canada's first space telescope has a big job to do. Astronomers at the MOST (Microvariability and Oscillation of Stars) project are using the telescope to measure the age of stars.

"It dawned on me, it's a bit like Galileo," the project's lead scientist and UBC Astronomy Assoc. Prof. Jaymie Matthews told the National Post. "We're in a position to be the first people in human history to directly see the light of a planet from outside our own solar system."

UBC student maps female arousal

UBC Master's student Shona Penhale has boldly gone where no one has gone before by documenting the map of nerves of the female genitalia.

Her research will be included in the next edition of Gray's Anatomy and could help doctors perform more accurate surgery to prevent damage to the female sexual arousal nerves.

"I was stunned," Penhale told the Vancouver Sun. "I thought, 'How could, in the year 2000, we not know how the nerves run through a woman's pelvis and innervate her genitalia?' ".

Media frenzy feeds abduction fears

Numerous recent child abduction cases in the U.S. and Canada have dominated news reports. UBC Journalism Asst. Prof. Mary Lynn Young told the National Post, that some stories seem to seize the public imagination.

"Certain stories tap into archetypal stories that we've been told since childhood in fairy tales said Young. "So these stories sort of snowball in the media."

A dog's good life

Dog owners are spending more and more money to provide worldly pleasures for their pooches. UBC Psychology Prof. and dog expert Stanley Coren told Vancouver Lifestyle Magazine that showering dogs with presents is nothing new.

"We are not only willing to spend money on material things but on overt services for our dogs, to have things done for our dogs that are either too complex or too time-involved for us to do ourselves."

Water intoxication

UBC Human Kinetics Asst. Prof. Karim Khan told City TV that in reasonably hot weather, drinking two to three cups of water per hour is sufficient for most athletes.

"In some people the kidney doesn't control the fluid balance as well as it should," said Khan. "And if a person drinks inordinately large amounts of fluid the body can't get rid of that fluid and this effect [called] water intoxication occurs." Water intoxication can be deadly.

He added that even sports drinks can cause water intoxication if you drink too much of them.

Perilous crowds

Researchers are concerned that there are too many whale-watching vessels getting too close to orca populations.

"Seeing orcas is much easier if you are smack in front of the animals, no matter what boat you're in, but there's widespread agreement that traveling alongside them at a fair distance is best for the orcas," UBC Marine Mammal Biologist Andrew Trites told the Washington Post.

"In the end, orcas need a place to get away from boats, perhaps in reserves where they can be left in peace," said Trites.

PM politics

UBC Political Science Professor Philip Resnick told the Globe and Mail that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's recent trip to a historic Sikh temple in Abbotsford was a political move.

Despite its billing as a non-partisan event the Prime Minister was praised by two cabinet ministers before his speech, and he ended his speech by announcing that Canada would open an immigration and visa office in the Punjab region where Canada's Sikh community has its roots.

UBC sued

A number of incoming business students have filed a lawsuit against UBC over this year's tuition hike for the MBA program.

The Ottawa Citizen reported that the writ filed against the school said the increase is "unfair, unreasonable and unconscionable." Tuition for the program has jumped from $7,000 to $28,000.

Get your Master's downtown

UBC will offer a part-time MBA course at its downtown Robson Square campus next spring.

UBC Finance Professor and chair of the Robson Square Transition Team Stanley Hamilton told Sing Tao Daily that the reason UBC is reaching into the downtown community to meet the increasing demand of students seeking to complete their degree and hold a job at the same time.

InVitro coverage urged

Dr. Anthony Cheung from the UBC InVitro Fertilization program told Sing Tao Daily that only 10 per cent of couples suffering from infertility undergo InVitro treatment, mainly due to the high cost.

He's urging the treatment to be covered under MSP

He adds that infertility creates anxiety and stress for women and can cause self-esteem and tension in the relationship. With the aging population and low birth rate in Canada, Cheung says it may take some political influence to push for medical coverage.

No top women

Not one woman heads up a company on B.C.'s top 100 private companies this year and just one of B.C.'s top 100 public companies has a female CEO.

Only two graced the list of top paid executives in B.C. and one of those, QLT Inc. CEO and former UBC professor Julia Levy, has since stepped down.

"If you asked me 15 years ago I would have told you by now, we would be there," UBC Organizational Behaviour Prof. Nancy Langton told Business in Vancouver. Langton has been studying women in management since the early 1970s. "I just shake my head. I don't know why we haven't done better than we have."