Articles

  • August 04, 2020
    Global News: Early Mars was covered in ice rather than warm, free-flowing rivers, new study shows
    Mars may have been icier and colder than previously thought, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed more than 10,000 Martian valleys and found that most on Mars’ surface were carved by water melting beneath glacial ice sheets, rather than free-flowing rivers. The joint study was conducted by Western University and the University of British Columbia and was published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience on Monday.

  • April 20, 2020
    Western Science Steps Up
    The magnitude to which the current Covid-19 pandemic has galvanized Canadians has not been seen in the better part of a century. From staying home to donating to food banks, there is no shortage of ways in which anyone can contribute; where there is a shortage, however, is in the personal protective equipment (PPE) required to safeguard our heroic essential workers. While Western has closed down many of its operations, we certainly have a bounty of PPE from labs across campus to contribute.

  • June 11, 2018
    Reflections of a 21st Century researcher: scientists must speak the language of policy to have a lasting impact
    Towards the end of my masters degree in biology, I came across a disturbing statistic published by the Ontario Science Centre in 2017: 43 percent of Canadians believe scientific findings to be a matter of opinion. Here I am, a freshly minted grad, and the seemingly unshakeable body of knowledge upon which I based my research is seen by nearly half my country as “opinion”. Let’s not even delve into the fact that I studied climate change... I trudged through mountains of evidence, defended a thesis, I was vetted by other profs, yet when I step out of the ivory tower the only thing on my mind is this shrieking wake-up call of how easily I could take for granted the validity and importance of scientific research.