In the news

New Hubble pictures suggest Milky Way fell together

Preliminary research led by Harvey Richer at UBC strikes a blow against the prevailing theory of galaxy formation.  His research, which was reported in Science News and Discovery News, suggests that several large chunks of the Milky Way galaxy formed at the same time.

Richer and his colleagues are examining 47 Tucanae, a dense, elderly grouping of more than a million Milky Way stars with two Hubble Space Telescope cameras. The analysis reveals that 47 Tucanae formed between 11 billion and 12 billion years ago.

“This is not a young cluster. That’s definitive,” Richer said. But he cautioned that both the analysis and observations of 47 Tucanae are ongoing, so the precise age determination is still “very preliminary.”

Canadian universities attract top minds

Matthew Farrer was appointed UBC’s first Canada Excellence Research Chair, receiving a grant of $10-million over seven years.

Farrer studies neurodegenerative disorders, with a focus on molecular genetics and modelling of movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

The Globe and Mail, CBC, the National post and Maclean’s reported on the 19 inaugural chairholders appointed to 13 universities across Canada in a $200-million international recruitment drive that signals Canada’s commitment to big science.

UBC’s $50m biodiversity centre opens to world’s researchers

The Globe and Mail, CTV, Global TV, CBC, The Vancouver Sun and the Times Colonist reported on the opening of UBC’s Beaty Biodiversity Centre, which will bring together some of the world’s leading researchers.

The centrepiece of the new facility is the awe-inspiring 25-metre-long skeleton of a blue whale that was washed ashore on Prince Edward Island in 1987.

“The Beaty Biodiversity Centre exemplifies UBC’s goal to engage and inspire,” said UBC President Stephen Toope.  “The curiosity and reflection inspired by the museum’s public programs will have enormous impact on our understanding of our complex and interconnected world.”

Life found in liquid asphalt lake

A Caribbean lake of liquid asphalt, the home of a unique mix of microorganisms, may provide clues to how life could survive in hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn’s moon Titan, as was reported by Fox News, Science News, Discover Magazine and CBC.

Steven Hallam, of UBC, and his colleagues analyzed samples from several different parts of Pitch Lake on the island of Trinidad. They found each gram of sticky black goo in Pitch Lake can harbor up to 10 million microbes that feed on the hydrocarbons and pump out methane and metals.

“Every single sample that we looked at, the bacterial community was different,” says Hallam.