News Category: News
Widely used rat poison threatens local barn owls
People encouraged to switch to old-fashioned traps
Larry Pynn – Vancouver Sun – December 16, 2010, p. A3
Powerful and widely available rat poisons are killing owls, including the threatened barn owl of the Fraser Valley.
Sofi Hindmarch, who completed her Simon Fraser University master’s thesis on barn owl habitat, said Wednesday that people should limit their use of such poisons, try to apply them in closed areas, consider safer alternatives such as old-fashioned traps, and clean up garbage and other attractants that entice rats.
She said barn owls are also at increasing risk from highway development and loss of grass habitat in the Fraser Valley and rural areas of Vancouver Island—and that poison is part of a cumulative problem.
A 2009 Environment Canada study of the livers of 164 barn, barred, and great horned owls from B.C. and Yukon found evidence of at least one anticoagulant rodenticide in 70 per cent of cases. Of those, more than 41 per cent contained more than one rodenticide, most often the second-generation poisons, brodifacoum and bromadiolone.
Six of the owls—three barred, two barn, and one great horned owl—had died of the poison, which is designed to produce a fatal hemorrhage in rats and other rodents.
Hindmarch said the “sublethal” effects of the poison can also contribute to the owls’ demise. “If they are hit by a car, is that because they were hunting and not paying attention because they’d just ingested rat poison?”
Most owls in the study died in rehabilitation centres. Fortythree per cent were from the upper Fraser Valley.
Rodenticides are commonly used to control the proliferation of rats in urban and agricultural areas. The poison is then transferred to non-target species such as owls that devour the rats.
The poison is available in the form of pellets, loose meal, paraffin blocks or packet baits.
Rodents may not die for days, potentially staggering around in open areas where they are easily caught by owls.
In November, the federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada rated the barn owl as threatened in southern B.C.
SCWIST & IWIS Committee member Mayu Ishida - Assoc of Research Libraries’ 2010-12 Diversity Scholar
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Committee on Diversity and Leadership has selected 15 master of library and information science (MLIS) students to participate in the 2010–2012 Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce as ARL Diversity Scholars.
The ARL Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce offers stipend funding in support of MLIS education of up to $10,000 over two years to students from traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups who are interested in careers in research libraries. The program is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and by voluntary contributions from 52 ARL member libraries. This program reflects the commitment of ARL members to create a diverse academic and research library community that will better meet the challenges of changing demographics in higher education and the emphasis on global perspectives in the academy. University of Hawaii director Paula Mochida, who served on the selection committee, offered these reflections on the awardees:
“It was not an easy task to determine the finalists from among so many strong applications. This group of scholarship recipients reflects a diversity of ethnicities, but more than that, an outstanding pool of potential role models and leaders in academic research libraries.”
For more information about the ARL Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce, visit the program website http://www.arl.org/diversity/init/
Mayu’s appointment also supports the ARL’s initiative to promote library science students from science backgrounds. Congratulations Mayu!!
Sponge Bob they’re not—but B.C. discovery suggests sponges, humans are distant cousins
By Randy Boswell – Vancouver Sun – December 14, 2010, p. B1
Canadian researchers who probed the traits of a freshwater sponge from Vancouver Island say their findings about the species’ “skin” could rewrite the history of animal life and illuminate a primordial family connection between humans and the porous organisms best known for mopping up kitchen spills.
A study by three University of Alberta biologists, which appears in a journal published by the U.S.-based Public Library of Science, shows how the outer tissue of the B.C. specimen acts much like the protective layer of skin that distinguishes almost all other animals, including humans, from the seemingly flow-through sponges.
The discovery, the research team concludes, could eventually force scientists to reclassify sponges closer to our own “eumetazoan” set of animals, and to rethink humanity’s evolutionary roots among these absorbent creatures of the deep.
“It doesn’t quite make them into Sponge Bob,” study coauthor Sally Leys told Postmedia News on Monday. “But it very much does put sponges into the fold with the rest of us.”
The U of A team, including Emily Adams and Greg Goss, gathered samples of the common species Spongilla lacustris from Sarita and Rosseau lakes near Bamfield, B.C., about 120 kilometres northwest of Victoria.
Leys said the chief advantage of collecting sponges from Vancouver Island is that their habitats typically don’t ice over in winter—allowing access year-round—and that colder weather triggers a degree of shrinkage and dormancy that makes the specimens easier to handle in experiments.
The researchers tested the sponge’s “epithelial” membrane to determine whether it can effectively block certain molecules from penetrating the organism’s interior—the way a mammal’s skin or an insect’s outer layer does.
They found that the sponge’s membrane provided a “good, tight seal” akin to how a chimpanzee’s skin protects against unwanted microbes and chemical invaders.
“It shows that sponges share a physiology with other animals and are not just some odd offshoot,” Leys said.
Sponges, fossils of which have been found from about 550 million years ago, are known to be among the earliest complex creatures to appear following the evolution of life from unicellular to multi-celled organisms.”
The researcher argue that the specialization of cells resulting in skin “was therefore one of the first defining features of multicellular animals,” including the ancestors of modern sponges and humans alike.
Research opens door to new HIV treatments
29-year-old prof pioneers groundbreaking technique
By Cindy E. Harnett, Vancouver Sun, December 10, 2010, p. A1
Pioneering research by a University of Victoria researcher has “significantly” advanced how HIV is understood and ways to treat it by locating specific genes of the virus that are drug resistant.
And what’s more, UVic biomedical engineer Stephanie Willerth’s new research methods could be used to tackle other serious diseases, such as swine flu, influenza and the deadly Ebola virus.
Willerth and her team studied 15,000 different versions of HIV and replicated them millions of times, an effort never before done on such a large scale. They used a virus from a long-term HIV patient who had become drug-resistant to treatment.
Scientists used “next generation” DNA sequencing to study the virus’s genetic makeup, a new technique that enables researchers to study millions of molecules at a time.
“This information has allowed them to locate the specific genes of the virus that were resistant to the drugs—knowledge that could ultimately help researchers develop more effective treatments for HIV,” UVic said in a news release.
Willerth, who joined UVic a few months ago, carried out her groundbreaking post-doctorate research at the University of California, Berkeley.
“It’s really nice to know people are using the research,” said Willerth, 29, whose work was funded by biotechnology company Virxsys Corporation and published in the peer-reviewed science journal PLoS ONE.
Willerth, UVic’s first assistant professor of biomedical engineering, said her research may be used to help in the long-term treatment of HIV within the next decade.
Willerth’s method allowed her to study about 15,000 different versions of the human immunodeficiency virus. HIV mutates at a high rate, making treatment of patients difficult because the virus eventually develops resistance to medications.
To study complex viruses, such as HIV, they must be replicated millions of times. However, duplicating highly contagious viruses comes with risks and restrictions.
Willerth and her team isolated the genetic material from the HIV so that it was no longer alive when it was replicated.
After replicating the virus from a small sample obtained from a long-term HIV patient, who had developed a drug resistance to treatment, Willerth studied its genetic makeup using so-called next generation DNA sequencing, which allows researchers to study millions of molecules at a time.
The new and expensive equipment for such research can only be found at a few major universities and hospitals in the U.S. and Canada, including the University of B.C.
UVic has given Missouri-born Willerth her own lab, the Willerth Laboratory, in the department of mechanical engineering where she is studying stem cells.
“It’s really cool being at the university as one of the first professors they’ve hired in the field of biomedical engineering,” Willerth said.
Catherine Roome as New President and CEO of BCSA
Peter Cook, Chair of the Board of Directors of the BC Safety Authority (BCSA) today announced that Catherine Roome has been selected as the company’s new President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Ms. Roome – currently BCSA’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) – will formally assume her new responsibilities April 1, 2011.
“Both personally and on behalf of the Board of Directors of the BCSA, I want to congratulate Catherine on her new role,” said Mr. Cook. “Her selection comes after a rigorous and thorough search by our Board, one that was lead by Dan Miller, the Chair of the Governance and Human Resources Committee. Catherine was clearly the most qualified candidate when it came to safety experience, professional background and leadership ability.”
Ms. Roome has been with the BCSA since 2005, when she joined as Vice President Engineering. She was appointed into her current position as Chief Operating Officer in 2007. A professional engineer, Ms. Roome received her Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from the University of Victoria. She was awarded “Business In Vancouver’s” Influential Woman in Business in 2008, and the University of Victoria’s “Distinguished Alumni – Faculty of Engineering” in 2010. Ms. Roome currently is Chair of the Board for Actsafe, the Performing Arts and Motion Picture Health and Safety Association of BC.
“I’m honoured to be asked to lead such an outstanding organization,” said Ms. Roome. “We have extremely dedicated staff who are fully committed to safety. This is a time of huge opportunity for the BCSA and by working closely with others across the province we can deliver the kind of risk management that helps keep the public safe.”
Today’s announcement is the culmination of a process that has been underway since early in 2010, when current President and CEO Harry Diemer informed the Board of Directors of his plans to retire in the near future. He formally announced in April that the actual date of his retirement will be March 31, 2011.
“I was heartened to learn that the next leader of the BC Safety Authority comes from within the Authority and delighted that it was Catherine,” commented Mr. Diemer. “With her at the helm, the BCSA is assured of a strong, exceptionally talented and respected leader who will guide the organization in meeting its objective of inspiring safety excellence in British Columbia.”
Researchers discover new bacteria feasting on Titanic wreck
Organism a threat to offshore drilling equipment, could be used in disposal of naval, merchant ships
By Randy Boswell, vancouver Sun, December 7, 2010, p. B11
A team of Canadian and Spanish researchers has discovered a new—and voracious—species of bacteria that is feasting on the wreck of the Titanic, the famous ocean liner that sank off the coast of Newfoundland nearly a century ago.
In fact, the scientists suggest, the microscopic bugs may have already been on board the luxury cruise ship when it struck an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, killing more than 1,500 passengers in one of the world’s worst maritime disasters.
The previously unknown organism—named Halomonas titanicae in recognition of the location of the find nearly four kilometres below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean—is being described as a “potential new microbial threat” to offshore oil equipment and other undersea metal structures because of its insatiable appetite for iron.
But the microscopic bugs are also being touted for possible use in the eco-friendly junking of retired ships.
“We believe H. titanicae plays a part in the recycling of iron structures at certain depths,” co-authors Bhavleen Kaur, of the Ontario Science Centre, and Henrietta Mann, a researcher with Halifax’s Dalhousie University, stated in a summary of the study, published Monday in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
“This could be useful in the disposal of old naval and merchant ships and oil rigs that have been cleaned of toxins and oil-based products and then sunk in the deep ocean.”
The newly identified organism is one of many forms of deepsea bacteria devouring the world’s most famous shipwreck.
As early as the 1980s, scientists researching the Titanic’s resting site about 600 kilometres off the southeast coast of Newfoundland were reporting the presence of giant “rusticles” on the ship’s hull. Like icicles made from blobs of rusted metal, the strange features were identified as the product of a bacteria-driven corrosion process that was rapidly destroying the sunken vessel.
The research team, which includes Spanish microbiologists Cristina Sanchez-Porro and Antonio Ventosa, said the 50,000 tonnes of metal used to build the Titanic has been “progressively deteriorating for the past 98 years” on the ocean floor.
Air quality tied to risk of ear infection
B.C. study suggests pollutants have impact on children’s vulnerability to ear trouble
By Amy Norton – Vancouver Sun – December 4, 2010, p. B3
Babies and toddlers who live in areas with moderate air pollution may have a higher risk of middle-ear infection than those breathing cleaner air, a study done in the Lower Mainland suggests.
The findings, reported in the journal Epidemiology, do not prove that air pollution directly contributes to middle-ear infections, according to lead researcher Dr. Elaina MacIntyre, of the University of British Columbia and the German Research Centre for Environmental Health in Neuherberg.
There could be other factors, unmeasured in this study, that account for the link, she said.
If the findings stand up, it would allow parents to influence their kids’ risk of infection by moving to a place with better air.
Middle-ear infections, also called otitis media, are common among young children, with those younger than two being most susceptible.
They are caused by a viral or bacterial infection, and usually arise after a child has had a cold, sore throat or other upper-respiratory tract illness.
Earlier studies have suggested that air quality can play a role in young children’s vulnerability to middle-ear infections; exposure to second-hand smoke, for instance, has been linked to an increased risk. But little research has looked at the relationship between outdoor air quality and ear aches.
For the new study, researchers tracked doctor visits for middle-ear infections for the first two years of the life of 45,000 children born in southwestern B.C. from 1999-2000.
The investigators used data from government air-quality monitors to estimate each child’s exposure to air pollutants, based on the family’s home address.
They then looked at the relationship between the children’s ear infections and their air-pollution exposure in the two months before the infection.
Overall, 42 per cent of the children visited the doctor for a middle-ear infection at least once in the first two years of life. When the researchers looked at air pollution levels, they found a correlation between ear infections and exposure to certain pollutants, even after controlling for such factors as the time of year.
For example, when dividing children into four groups of exposure to nitric oxide, a traffic-related pollutant, those with the highest exposure were 10 per cent more likely to have a doctor visit for middle-ear infection than those in the lowest.
Two other pollutants were also linked to moderately increased risks: particulate matter—the fine particles emitted via car exhaust, as well as power plants and other industrial sources—and smoke from wood burning.
Children breathing the highest levels of wood smoke were 32 per cent more likely to have doctor visits for middle-ear infections than those breathing the least.
Among the questions for future studies, MacIntyre said, is whether there are biological mechanisms by which air pollution could raise a child’s susceptibility to middle-ear infections.
Air pollution is known to help trigger airway inflammation, so that is one way it might it be involved.
The risks linked to air pollutants in this study were small, MacIntyre noted, but air quality is a factor that can be changed.
If future studies confirm air pollution as a risk factor for ear infections, then efforts to improve air quality could have the added benefit of curbing a common and costly childhood ill, she and her colleagues say.
Profile: Dr. Jennifer Gardy
“Nerd girl” battles infectious diseases and “really bad powerpoint presentations
Back in high school, Dr. Jennifer Gardy hatched a secret career plan: to become a globe-trotting infectious disease researcher just like the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the 1995 movie Outbreak.
“I was interested in a lot of subjects as a kid, but when I saw the movie I thought it would be cool to fly around the world in rocket-equipped helicopters hunting for deadly Ebola-like viruses. That’s when I decided to study infectious diseases.”
Well, Gardy did end up becoming an infectious disease researcher, but the job isn’t quite like the movie depicts; no ammo-toting helicopters or rogue scientists firebombing infected cities.
Following a three-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Genome BC-supported laboratory of Dr. Bob Hancock at UBC, where she was part of an international team examining innate immunity, Gardy joined the BC Centre for Disease Control in 2009. Along with colleague Dr. Patrick Tang, she launched its Genome Research Laboratory, bringing a new genomics and bioinformatics perspective to the centre’s public health and infectious disease work.
“Genomics and bioinformatics are giving us new and very powerful tools to reconstruct outbreaks of certain infectious diseases,” notes Gardy, who grew up in Port Moody and has a PhD in bioinformatics from SFU. “The idea is to uncover patterns and use that knowledge to prevent future outbreaks.”
But Gardy is not only a top-notch scientist; she’s also a highly experienced science writer and broadcaster. Last year, she co-hosted the CBC science show “Project X”, demystifying scientific principles like zero-gravity and the speed of light, and on a recent episode of the “Nature of Things”, Bugs, Bones & Botany: The Science of Crime, she guided viewers through the world of forensic investigation. She also hilariously blogs about “the ups and downs of being a science nerd” for Globe Campus Life, under nom de plume “Nerd Girl” (http://www.globecampus. ca/blogs/nerd-girl/).
Gardy may have finally let go of the Dustin Hoffman dream, but she’s taken on a new mission: sharing her communication skills with scientists to help them construct and deliver more engaging scientific talks.
“One of my secret missions is to rid the world of really bad PowerPoint presentations,” she says with a laugh. “Believe me, there’s a lot more work to be done.”
Signals No. 32 Fall 2010
Gynecologists defend hormone drug therapy
Campaign stirs intense medical debate over safety of progestin/estrogen drugs in menopause
By Sharon Kirkey – Vancouver Sun – November 19, 2010, p. B4
Women arrive at Dr. Wendy Wolfman’s menopause clinic carrying bags filled with herbal remedies. Most of it, she said, “is just completely a waste of money.”
Some women are willing to try anything to deal with debilitating hot flashes, mood swings and other menopausal symptoms, she said.
Anything but hormones. “They’re afraid to take hormones because the publicity is they’re going to get [breast] cancer,” said Wolfman, director of the menopause unit at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada is urging Canadian women to rethink their aversion to hormone therapy. The doctors’ group says women have been needlessly frightened off a “safe and effective therapy” by reports implicating hormones in breast cancer.
In an article called “Misinformation. Misinterpretation. Missed opportunity,” posted on the gynecologists’ group’s web-site, executive vice-president Dr. Andre Lalonde says the organization has supported the breast-cancer cause “for years.”
“It is becoming increasingly clear that effective advocacy programs, combined with a media focus on breast cancer, has distorted women’s perception of their true risk for this disease”—to the point that “many distressed symptomatic menopausal women are being denied, or are choosing to avoid, a safe and effective therapy for which the overall benefits exceed the risk,” Lalonde said.
That has critics bristling.
“To call this increase in risk of breast cancer [with hormone therapy] a slightly increased risk, it seems to be a message to essentially say ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I was shocked by it,” said Dr. Barbara Mintzes, assistant professor in the department of anesthesiology, pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of B.C.
Prescriptions for hormones plummeted in the wake of the Women’s Health Initiative Trial, or WHI, one of the largest studies ever conducted in the U.S. The trial was prematurely halted in 2002 after researchers found an increased risk of stroke, heart attack and invasive breast cancer in women using an estrogen plus progestin formulation.
Lalonde said the increased risk was small, with eight extra cases of breast cancer among 10,000 women using combination hormone therapy.
“The most recent report from the WHI states that breast cancer accounted for 2.6 deaths/ 10,000 combined hormone users and 1.3 of 10,000 women assigned to placebo,” Lalonde writes. “The actual difference was 1.3 additional deaths per 10,000 women.”
He said the reports are heightening fears of breast cancer and confusion around a woman’s individual risk.
In a recent TV clip to promote breast cancer awareness, CSI star Marg Helgenberger says, “You know what’s a real crime? One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year.”
Lalonde said the “1 in 8” figure has been so misused “that people forget that it represents a cumulative lifetime risk to age 85”, meaning that it applies to a woman who lives to age 85 and does not die of other causes first.
The increased risks for breast cancer in users of combination hormone therapy is about the same risk women accept when they drink alcohol, don’t exercise regularly or gain weight after menopause, Lalonde said.
But women and their doctors are abandoning hormones for “untested and largely ineffective” alternative therapies that have been shown to be little better than placebos.
The number of hormone-replacement-therapy prescriptions filled in Canada fell from 11.6 million in 2002 to 9.5 million in 2003. In 2009, prescriptions for hormones totalled 4.8 million.
“No one is trying to talk women into hormones, only to emphasize that when menopausal symptoms are distressing that hormone therapy is a safe option,” said Dr. Robert Reid, past-president of the SOGC and chair of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Queen’s University.
“The media has tended to focus on hormone therapy as the bad guy, and the public is terrified to death of breast cancer, so the two get linked together, and now women are afraid to use a therapy that’s very effective.”
He said breast cancer advocacy groups “have been a little loose” with the statistics.
“If you have 1,000 women age 40, over the next 10 years, two will die from breast cancer, and 21 will die from something else,” Reid said. In the decade between age 50 and 59, five women out of 1,000 will die of breast cancer, and 55 will die from other causes.
“In those younger ages, it could be leukemia, car accidents, or things like that, but as you get older it starts to be cardiovascular disease. Suddenly, you see cardiovascular disease totally outstrips breast cancer.”
The disparity grows as women age: After age 70, nine women out of 1,000 will die over the next 10 years from breast cancer versus 309 deaths from other causes. “The reality for most women is that they’re going to die from cardiovascular disease,” Reid said.
But women overestimate their breast-cancer risk while underestimating their risk of heart attack and stroke.
Reid said hormone therapy “has become an easy target.”
This fall, Canadian researchers reported that the incidence of invasive breast cancer in Canada dropped by 10 per cent among women aged 50 to 69 from 2002 to 2004—the same time record numbers of women stopped taking hormones.
Reid said the absolute benefit of stopping hormones was 0.28 fewer breast cancers per 1,000 women—about one less breast cancer case per 4,000 women.
“One third of women with breast cancer die, typically, so that’s one less death per 12,000 women. The question is, do you deny 12,000 women improved quality of life and control of hot flashes for one less breast cancer death?”
”[Hot flashes] are not a life-threatening event in any woman,” Mintzes responds. “There is a range of symptoms, from very mild and minor to a very small proportion of women who find more severe effects.”
“It’s a personal decision, obviously, whether to take hormone therapy,” she said, adding the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists “seems to be highly supportive [of hormones] as a first-choice therapy.”
Wolfman said that for women aged 50 to 59 taking estrogen alone, the Women’s Health Initiative Trial “showed no significant increased risks in anything.”
In Canada, record numbers of women are entering menopause, as the largest demographic from the “baby boomer” generation turns 50.
“I have women who the quality of their life is terrible,” said Wolfman. “They’re having maybe 15 flashes a day, they can’t sleep, they can’t work, and this is a time when a lot of women may be at the peak of their careers.
“Over the long term there is an increased risk of breast cancer, and that has to be a decision a woman has to make in conjunction with her doctor about whether the risk-benefit ratio is right for her.”
Year of Science - Science and Health Expo
November 25, 2010 10:30 – 7:00
November 26, 2010 9:30 – 3:00
Fairmont Waterfront Hotel
900 Canada Place Way
Vancouver BC V6C 3L5
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Cost: Free
Audience: General Public
http://yearofsciencebc.ca/events-and-news/events/year-of-science-science-and-health-expo/
Demand for science jobs has students competing for space
University grad finds BCIT opportunity suits her personality
By Scott Simpson – Vancouver Sun – November 18, 2010, p. D3
Jenn Roseboom’s interest in science drove her to take a bold step that has changed her life.
A university graduate, she was a bit at loose ends about finding a career that would be both interesting and rewarding. One certainty was that the handful of chemistry courses she’d taken at the margins of a liberal arts degree had been “really interesting.”
“So I started looking at science programs and particularly health sciences—not just because there was good opportunities, but also because I personally enjoy it,” Roseboom recalled.
She took note of programs at British Columbia Institute of Technology, which trains people as medical imaging technicians.
Those technicians, according to a recent provincial government study, are in huge demand, both in the immediate term and over the next decade, as are a growing number of jobs in both the hard and applied science realms.
“I found that in the Fraser Health region alone, there were 16 job openings for sonographers, so there is definitely availability there, and BCIT has the only [training] program in B.C.”
Roseboom approached officials at Abbotsford Regional Hospital with a request that she be allowed to spend a couple of days in the hospital’s medical imaging department.
“I said to myself, ‘Well, the best way to learn is to go in and watch.’ ”
The radiography, or X-ray, department didn’t seem to have the level of interaction with patients she was hoping for. The radiologists told her to check out the sonography, or ultrasound, lab.
“When I was in ultrasound I found that the personalities of the people who worked there seemed to be more what I was in line with.
“They were really enthusiastic about that job and about having that job as a career.
“We kind of act as more of a detective rather than just taking images, which I found really interesting, as well.”
She applied to BCIT, and was accepted into the sonogram program last September.
The provincial government is hoping many people feel the same way about science as Roseboom does.
A new labour market report, Science Related Occupations, forecasts a 26-per-cent increase in the number of science-related job opportunities in B.C. by 2019, compared with 19-per-cent job growth in the economy as a whole.
Science jobs will grow to 11.6 per cent, from 11 per cent, of the province’s employment demand by 2019—a net gain of 64,450 jobs, according to the report, which was prepared by BC Stats.
The average unemployment rate tends to run at about three per cent—usually at least two per cent lower than the provincial average, and the pay is better as well—$333 to $398 per week higher than the provincial average.
Ida Chong, Minister of Science and Universities, released the numbers as part of a yearlong effort, called Year of Science, to promote science job opportunities.
“Regardless of where we are in the economy, regardless of what business cycle we are going to be in, there is going to be a need for workers in science-related occupations,” Chong said.
“So we are highlighting the Year of Science for that purpose, to ensure that families will encourage their children to think about science … the real sciences.”
Health care sector jobs will account for almost half the total science jobs, and half of total employment growth by 2019.
Bill Dow, health sciences dean at BCIT, noted that programs such as nursing, sonography and radiology are already much-sought by prospective students, with the school turning away six or seven applicants for each one they accept.
“Those are pretty high numbers in the education system,” he says. “It’s an area that many prospective students are interested in. Obviously, lots don’t get in, but there are also lots for whom it’s the wrong occupation, to be honest with you.”
Dow notes that program prerequisites are posted on the BCIT website.
“But generally speaking, it’s not only that you’ve done well in the core sciences—biology and chemistry as examples—but that you have a passion for it. It’s something that really interests you.
“You go above just getting a good mark. You’re keen, you’re inquisitive, you enjoy science.
“That’s kind of what I think the government meant with this whole Year of Science. It’s about creating a passion in that area of learning. It’s about wanting to do it.”
Outside of health sciences, the biggest employment niche is for computer and information systems professionals. B.C. employees more than 37,000 of them, and that’s projected to jump to 47,096 by 2019.
Barb Bahry, vice-president of human resources, for Vancouver-based IT and management consultant Sierra Systems, said the company looks for “people who have a variety of experience in working with different technologies and applications.”
Ultimately, Sierra is looking for people with the same commitment and outlook that BCIT seeks.
“At the core of what Sierra does, and our success, is the deep partnerships we have with our customers and our ability to drive customer loyalty.
“So because of that, we need to bring in talent that really has a passion for customer service and can bring that innovative thinking and creativity—and people that want to collaborate with other colleagues to figure out the best solution for a client.”
Regardless of where we are in the economy, regardless of what business cycle we are going to be in, there is going to be a need for workers in science-related occupations – Ida Chong Minister of Science and Universities
Government of Canada Supports Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology
The Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women, announced November 12th Government of Canada support for a project to promote leadership among women in science, engineering, trades and technology and to encourage greater participation by Aboriginal and immigrant women in these occupational fields.
“As Minister for Status of Women, I am proud to encourage women to contribute as leaders and decision-makers in their workplaces and in their communities,” said Minister Ambrose. “This unique and innovative project will be instrumental in developing and strengthening the knowledge, skills and roles of women in these occupations.”
The WinSETT (Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology) Centre will receive $180,000 for the two-year Women in SETT Leadership . The project will address the priority issues of leadership and economic security and prosperity for women.
“We are very pleased to have the Government of Canada’s support for this promising new project, which will enhance decision-making and leadership roles for women employed in these non-traditional fields,” said Dr. Margaret-Ann Armour, President of the WinSETT Centre. “The project’s other main activities are to develop a career awareness program for Aboriginal and immigrant women and girls, and to provide employers with resources and supports to promote diversity within their workplaces.”
The Government of Canada is committed to supporting worthwhile projects like these because they yield concrete results for women and girls in Canada while strengthening our families, our communities and our country. Through Status of Women Canada, the government’s support for community projects like this has nearly doubled since 2006-2007, growing from $10.8 million to $19 million, its highest level ever.
Wed Feb 01
