New CMA Report Warns Poor Air Quality Killing Canadians

OTTAWA, August 13, 2008 – The Canadian Medical Association released staggering new data today showing that this year alone as many as 21,000 Canadians will die prematurely from the effects of air pollution. While most of those deaths will be due to chronic exposure over a number of years, almost 3,000 will be the result of acute, short-term exposure.

The CMA’s report entitled No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution, shows the effects of poor air quality based on the concentrations of two highly predictive pollutants – ozone and particulate matter – on four distinct age groups of Canadians.

“With the start of the Olympics in Beijing, much has been made about the poor air quality in China and the effect it is having on our athletes,” said CMA President Dr. Brian Day. “But we have a serious home-grown pollution problem right here and Canadians, ranging from the very young to the very old, are paying the price.”

Specific findings of the No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution report include:

* By 2031, almost 90,000 Canadians will have died from the acute short-term effects of air pollution. The number of deaths, due to long-term exposure, will be over 700,000 – the population of Quebec City.
* In 2008, 80% of those who die due to air pollution will be over age 65.
* In 2008, 25 Canadians under age 19 will die of the effects of short-term exposure to air pollution.
* Ontario and Quebec residents are the worst hit Canadians, with 70% of the premature deaths occurring in Central Canada, even though these two provinces comprise only 62% of Canada’s population.
* In 2008 there will be over 9,000 hospital visits, 30,000 emergency department visits and 620,000 doctor’s office visits due to air pollution.
* The economic costs of air pollution in 2008 will top $8 billion. By 2031, they will have accumulated to over $250 billion.

“This report shows for the first time the tragic effects of the toxic air that we breathe, whether it is in my hometown of Vancouver, or across the country in St. John’s,” added Dr. Day.

No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution used a software model first developed by the Ontario Medical Association and provides detailed health and economic data relating to changes in air quality. The study uses the best available knowledge and data on air quality, human health and economics to produce accurate forecasts of health impacts and expected costs related to changes in air quality. The tool has also been validated by a panel of international experts on health and the environment.

The full report, including provincial data and tables, is available at www.cma.ca

Posted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

Here is the handout we are going to use for our “Mastering Google for Science and Engineering” workshops this week on August 12th and 13th, 2008

Here is the PDF copy. You can also see the embedded copy below. Please let us know if you have any questions!

By Katherine McAlpine and a few more folks @ CERN.

They do a very nice and concise Rap explanation what LHC does – I loved it…Please see it below 🙂

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

In addition to the pure and applied research published in scientific journals and conferences, UBC researchers also produce a large number of patents.

Dr. Tom Troczynski’s Biomaterials Group is involved with calcium phosphate / hydroxyapatite coatings, composites and cements.

This research is of major importance for bone implants and hip replacement surgery.

Two recent patents from the Espacenet database:

Bioceramic composite coatings and process

Calcium phosphate coated implantable medical devices

Posted by kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca Liaison Librarian for Materials Engineering

Entertainment Software Association has released its 2008 report titled – “2008 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry”

Some interesting stats from there :

* 65% of American households play computer or video games.
* The average game player age is 35.
* In 2008, 26% of gamers were over the age of 50.
* The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is: 40
* Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33%) than boys age 17 or younger (18%).
* 13 is the average number of years adult gamers have been playing computer or video games.
* 59% of gamers play games with other gamers in person.
* 94% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented.
* 63% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.
* 83% of the time children receive their parents’ permission before purchasing or renting a game.
* Parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play 88% of the time.

Read the full text here – “2008 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry”

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

** photo by Earl – What I Saw 2.0

With the recent rock slide on the Sea to Sky Highway, I thought this would be a good opportunity to highlight the research profiles of Dr. Oldrich Hungr and Dr. Erik Eberhardt who are both from the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences.

Dr. Hungr’s research deals with issues related slope stability analysis and risk assessment.

Geertsemaa, Marten; Hungr, Oldrich; Schwab, James W.; Evans, Stephen G. A large rockslide–debris avalanche in cohesive soil at Pink Mountain, northeastern British Columbia, Canada. Engineering Geology 83(1-3): 64-75

Dr. Eberhardt’s research deals with rock engineering as it pertains to rock slope failure and the prediction of rock mass behaviour.

Eberhardt, Erik. The role of advanced numerical methods and geotechnical field measurements in understanding complex deep-seated rock slope failure mechanisms. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 45(4): 484-510.

Posted by kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca Earth and Ocean Sciences liaison librarian.

The New York Times has an article today about an ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism

A very interesting read indeed – Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C.

The NYT article cites a letter published in Nature today –

Freeth, T; Alexander, J, Steele, JM, Bitsakis, Y (July 31, 2008). “Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism“. Nature 454: 614–617.

** Photo from – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanhein/

As part of the UBC Library’s mandate to archive undergraduate research, three EOSC honors theses have just been added to the Earth and Ocean Sciences Community in cIRcle – UBC’s Information Repository.

Bayliss, Sandra M. 2008. Uranium-Lead, Argon-Argon, and Lead Isotopic Constraints of Magmatism and Associated Mineralization within the Stikine Terrane, on the Williams Gold Property, North Central British Columbia. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

Kushnir, Alexandra R.L. 2008. Understanding Multi-Peak Anomalies for Unexploded Ordnance Discrimination. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

Cleven, Nathan R. 2008. Role of Dolomite Content on the Mechanical Strength and Failure Mechanisms in Dolomite-Limestone Composites. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

If you are interested in contributing your undergraduate thesis to cIRcle, please contact me directly kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca

The 6th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH) is an international conference that takes place every three years. This year’s conference took place in Vancouver from July 6-20.

Select conference papers presented at ICGH 2008 are now available online at cIRcle, the UBC Library’s Information Repository. This collection continues to grow as authors contact me about adding their papers to the ICGH 2008 archive.

Dr. Peter Englezos from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering is a member of the International Scientific Committee for the 6th International Conference on Gas Hydrates.

Participating organizations includes

China University of Geosciences
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Colorado School of Mines
Geological Survey of Canada
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan
National Research Council of Canada
Technical University Berlin
United States Department of Energy
United States Geological Survey
University of British Columbia
University of Toronto

as well as a host of other universities, institutes, organizations, and companies.

If you have presented a conference paper at the ICGH 2008 conference and would like it uploaded to cIRcle, please contact kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca directly.

Randy Pausch, the computer scientist from Carnegie Mellon Univ, whose “The Last Lecture” speech on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University inspired so many (including yours truly) had died yesterday night.

Watch Pausch’s last lecture on youtube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

From Carnegie Mellon Univ press release:

Celebrated in his field for co-founding the pioneering Entertainment
Technology Center and for creating the innovative educational software
tool known as “Alice,” Pausch earned his greatest worldwide fame for his
inspirational “Last Lecture.”
That life-affirming lecture, a call to his students and colleagues to go
on without him and do great things, was delivered at Carnegie Mellon on
Sept. 18, 2007, a few weeks after Pausch learned he had just months to
live. Titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” the humorous and
heartfelt talk was videotaped, and unexpectedly spread around the world
via the Internet. Tens of millions of people have since viewed video
footage of it.
Pausch, who had regularly won awards in the field of computer science,
spent the final months of his life being lauded in arenas far beyond his
specialty. ABC News declared him one of its three “Persons of the Year”
for 2007. TIME magazine named him to its list of the 100 most
influential people in the world. On thousands of Web sites, people wrote
essays about what they had learned from him. His book based on the
lecture became a #1 bestseller internationally, translated into 30
languages.