Public Information Meeting on APEC ’97

Campaign promotes value of UBC research

UBC President Martha Piper conferred her first “honorary degrees” on eight
diapered infants last week at the launch of the UBC Research Awareness
Campaign.

The one- to two-year-olds received honorary “infant scientist” degrees in the
First Nations Longhouse from Chancellor Bill Sauder and President Piper.
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Nobel laureate Smith heads genome centre

UBC’s Nobel prize winner Michael Smith has been named director of the first
research centre in Canada devoted to decoding human genes.

The $25-million Genome Sequence Centre, a project of the B.C. Cancer Agency,
will be focused on cancer research. Headquartered in Vancouver, it will
collaborate with laboratories worldwide on the International Human Genome
Project whose goal is to decode all of the human genes by 2005.
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Engineer wins B.C. award

Metals, medicine and mobility.

These are the fields of expertise of three members of UBC’s community who will
receive Science Council of B.C. awards at the B.C. Science and Technology
Awards Dinner Oct. 20.
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Werker becomes associate vice-president, Research

Janet Werker has been named associate vice-president, Research, effective Nov.
1, 1997.

Her duties will include all aspects of the research portfolio, with specific
responsibilities for initiatives in the social sciences and humanities.
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Campus pitches in to help cause

Even before the United Way’s campus campaign kick-off Oct. 7, first-year
Forestry students had raised $800 by selling apples.
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Dirty laundry displays compelling message

A tumble of multi-coloured T-shirts, paint brushes and felt pens litter the
floor of the Women Students’ Office (WSO) as small groups of women huddle over
their work.

They are preparing exhibits to be shown Nov. 6-10 in the gallery of the Student
Union Building (SUB) for the Clothesline Project, an international effort aimed
at raising awareness about violence against women.
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Researchers unlock secrets of baby talk

Baby talk. Is it idle infant banter or part of an innate process of language
development?

That’s what UBC psychologists Prof. Janet Werker and graduate student Christine
Stager are trying to find out.
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Diplomat captures Great Trekker honour

Maurice Copithorne, this year’s winner of the Great Trekker Award, joined the
Canadian Foreign Service after graduating with a UBC law degree to see a
little of the world, never intending to make a career of being a diplomat.

“At the time,” he says, “working for the government didn’t seem like a very
prestigious activity.”

Today, much of his spare time is dedicated to conducting regular assessments of
human rights in Iran and reporting back to the International Law Commission and
the United Nations General Assembly.
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Botanist, chemists win top prizes for work in their fields

Botany Prof. Anthony Griffiths received the Genetics Society of Canada Award of
Excellence.
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UBC’s own to play key innovation role

Prof. Keith Brimacombe, director of UBC’s Centre for Metallurgical Process
Engineering, has been appointed president and chief executive officer of the
Canada Foundation for Innovation.
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Whiplash education effort to hit the road

Whiplash is a pain in the neck.

It’s responsible for more than 50,000 soft-tissue injury claims costing close
to $500 million in B.C. every year.

And it hurts.
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Diamond researchers first to publish findings

UBC researchers are about to make diamond exploration history with the
publication of evidence supporting claims that the Slave region in Canada’s
Northwest Territories may hold the biggest diamond find of the century.

What is most intriguing, however, is that the research results — critical to
the diamond exploration industry — are being published, said Prof. Kelly
Russell, head of UBC’s Igneous Petrology Lab.
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Forests earn passing grade, says report

A panel of experts led by Forestry Prof. Gordon Baskerville gave Canada’s
National Forest Strategy Coalition a passing grade after its first five years
of operation.
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Genetic Centre of Excellence gets federal funding guaranteed to 2005

The Canadian Genetic Diseases Network (CGDN), a national Centre of Excellence
based at UBC, has been awarded $18 million in research funding by the federal
government.
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Experts warn Fraser Basin on edge of ecological ruin

A little more than a century ago the area extending from Vancouver to the town
of Hope was a forest of giant trees with extensive swamps and wetlands along
the river courses.

That area is now being swallowed by the growing metropolis of Greater
Vancouver, and the newly released $2.4 million Fraser Basin Ecosystem Study
warns that present trends are leading us directly away from environmental
sustainability.
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UBC’s first resident ensemble goes for baroque this fall

The Pacific Baroque Orchestra, a professional Vancouver group recently named
UBC’s first ensemble in residence, will play a series of concerts on campus
beginning Oct. 19.
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