IEEE has approved six new publications for 2009.

IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine
IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development
IEEE/OSA Journal of Optical Communications and Networking
IEEE Photonics Journal
IEEE Embedded Systems Letters
IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games

Now, our faculty have even more venues to publish their research in!

Don’t forget that being a UBC faculty, student or staff you have FULL TEXT access to all IEEE publications 24*7 via the IEEE Xplore Digital Library

** Photo by Kevin Steele

A great little article about some wotk done by Bruce Dunham and his colleagues is featured in UBC Reports last week – “Prof Improves Probability of Learning Stats”

Great to know that Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) is involved!

** Photo by Martin Dee

Over the last year, our national broadcaster – CBC came with a series of podcasts called “how to think about science”

Listen to all of them here – they are more than 20 episodes – http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/science/index.html

** Photo by estherase

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14699

The article discusses the experiments, provides a video and the images from the Collider that started to operate TODAY!

** Photo by µµ

Brought to you by the University of Nottingham the Periodic Table of Videos includes 118 videos about each element.

**Image courtesy of NSDL. Reusable NASA images.

Today’s news article from BBC reports that:…”ice shelves in Canada’s High Arctic have lost a colossal area this year”

Also from the article:

Loss of ice in the Arctic, and in particular the extensive sea-ice, has global implications. The “white parasol” at the top of the planet reflects energy from the Sun straight back out into space, helping to cool the Earth. Further loss of Arctic ice will see radiation absorbed by darker seawater and snow-free land, potentially warming the Earth’s climate at an even faster rate than current observational data indicates.

To explore this topic more , take a look on the subject guide we have compiled for Atmospheric Sciences – http://toby.library.ubc.ca/subjects/subjpage1.cfm?id=969

** Photo by Yukon White Light

Here is the NYT article from August 10, 2008 that discusses water-recycling plants. An interesting lunch-time read.

We have hundreds of books on the topic, not to mention ebooks or electronic databases… Check out the following two links:

1. Water–Purification (almost 200 books)

2. Sewage–Purification. (almost 200 books)

Moreover, we have a couple of online books about the topic, for instance – “Handbook of water and wastewater treatment technologies” from Knovel. Check those out!

** Photo by elbisreverri

On August 22, 2008 the Greenheart Canopy Walkway officially opened.

The 308-metre walkway reaches heights in excess of 17.5 metres. Visitors and researchers can experience the unique biodiversity of a Pacific Coastal Rainforest canopy, which includes treetop mosses, lichens, birds, insects and other invertebrates. It also offers “bird’s eye” views of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser River.

Sustainable construction technology has been used to secure the walkway’s eight platforms and nine bridges to trees in the UBC Botanical Garden’s 15-hectare David C. Lam Asian Garden. The walkway is secured by a patented “Tree Hugger” system of interlaced steel cables, provided by Greenheart Conservation Company, a private eco-attraction company from Vancouver. The cable system is designed to expand allowing for normal tree growth.

For more information on Greenheart Canopy Walkway, including hours of operation, fees and group rates, visit http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/visitorinfo/greenheart-canopy-walkway.php.

** Photo by Daniel Mosquin

Here is the handout for the session presented for the UBC JumpStart folks today – August 20th, 2008:

Here is the PDF copy (100KB)

Here is online copy embedded below:

A recent BBC article from last week reports that:

A team of US researchers found that there was a limit on how high the giant trees were able to pull water up their trunks to supply upper branches.

The results are coming from this article –

Domec, J.-C. B. Lachenbruch, F. C. Meinzer, D. R. Woodruff, J. M. Warren, and K. A. McCulloh. 2008. Maximum height in a conifer is associated with conflicting requirements for xylem design. Proc. National Academy of Sciences.

Enjoy your Monday reading!

** Photo by Rob