Highlights of UBC media coverage in April 2011

STUDENTS TAKE ACTION

UBC takes LipDub to  the next level

Maclean’s, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Vancouver Sun and The Province featured UBC’s LipDub video, a video created by UBC students and featuring more than one thousand students lip-synching and performing to pop songs.

The video was posted on YouTube and went viral with almost 500,000 views in the first four days. The video was produced and directed by UBC fine arts student Andrew Cohen and co-produced by Bijan Ahmadian who said he expects the video to be the most watched LipDub ever.

 

UBC Vote Mob

Hundreds of students at UBC gathered to form a vote mob, a popular new strategy on university campuses to mobilize youth to vote on May 2. CTV News, the National Post and The Province covered the UBC Vote Mob.

These students are non-partisan, making sure students know it doesn’t matter who they vote for, as long as they vote. Students are also concerned that most politicians don’t care about the issues that affect them.

“Things like tuition, student loans, the economy, whether they’ll get a job when they graduate, high cost of living, the environment,” said Mary Leong, who organized the vote mob at UBC.

UBC Gifts

$15 million donated to  brain research facility

The Vancouver Sun, Global, City TV, CBC and others reported that philanthropist Djavad Mowafaghian donated $15 million toward a new brain research and patient care facility at UBC. The 135,000-square-foot building, to be completed by 2013, will be called the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health.

“[Mr.] Mowafaghian’s generous gift will unite research in neuroscience, mental health and addiction medicine while bringing research and patient care under one roof,” said UBC president Stephen Toope.

UBC RESEARCH

“Superfish” with bigger hearts better equipped for climate change

According to new research from UBC, sockeye salmon with the most arduous spawning journeys have the strongest hearts. This adaptation may better their odds of surviving projected rises in water temperature because of climate change, reported National Geographic, United Press International, the Globe and Mail, CBC, Postmedia News and others.

British Columbia’s Fraser River is home to 100 distinct populations of sockeye salmon. The new study shows the ones that go the farthest and highest have evolved extremely efficient hearts.

“They have not only the largest hearts, but also special adaptations in their hearts provide them with more oxygen,” said Erika Eliason, a PhD candidate in zoology at UBC.

 

Canadians will not pay for  online news

An online survey by UBC researchers found that 81 per cent of adults would not pay for an online news subscription, reported The Guardian, the Toronto Star, the Canadian Press and the Globe and Mail. The study also revealed that 90 per cent of the respondents indicated they would find free alternatives if their preferred news websites started charging for content.

“These results should give pause to any news corporations in Canada or abroad that are considering erecting paywalls around their content,” says Donna Logan, a professor emerita of UBC’s Graduate School of Journalism.