UBC Reports | Vol. 51 | No. 9 | Sep. 7, 2005

In the News

Highlights of UBC Media Coverage in August 2005

Compiled by Ai Lin Choo

Brain Proteins Affect Memory

The discovery of an association between low levels of brain proteins called complexins and impairments in memory and other cognitive functions in people with schizophrenia could lead to new treatments for the illness, reports Maclean’s Magazine.

“If we can successfully treat the cognitive problems associated with schizophrenia, there is a much better chance of a successful recovery from this illness,” says Dr. Bill Honer, a schizophrenia researcher at UBC.

Survival Instincts Took Over Passengers

UBC psychiatry professor Steven Taylor says the primitive, survival instinct that swept over some of the desperate passengers of Air France Flight 258 -- after the plane skidded off a Toronto runway and burst into flames August 2 -- have evolved with us from the earliest days of life on the planet.

“We have a bunch of primitive reflexes in which we exhibit behaviour like animals in certain situations,” Taylor explained to The Globe and Mail.

Some Westerners Think Splitting from Canada Should be Explored

According to a recent poll, more than one-third of Westerners under the age of 30 think their provinces should consider quitting Canada, reports the National Post.

Gerald Baier, a UBC professor of political science, said young people are more likely to support the idea of sovereignty because they are often more open-minded than older generations.

“The question doesn’t ask them to state support for the idea of sovereignty but for the idea of exploring it. Why shouldn’t you look into all ideas? It might even be a matter of idealism.”

Canadian Cops Track Pregnancy as Factor in Homicide

Police departments across Canada have started specifying on homicide forms whether slain women were pregnant.
A study by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control published this year in the American Journal of Public Health concluded homicide is a leading cause of pregnancy-associated injury deaths in the U.S., reports CanWest News Service.

“I think there’s reason to be alarmed and concerned and presume that there will be some relationship (to U.S. rates), but it is a different context,’” says Colleen Varcoe, an expert on women and violence and an associate professor of nursing at UBC.