Bye-bye bedbugs. SFU biologists Gerhard and Regine Gries and chemist Robert Britton develop a pheromone to attract the nasty critters into traps. Regine Gries (above) allowed herself to be bitten by a thousand bedbugs a week for five years. The story first appeared in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.
Lorne Davies, founding athletic director and head football coach, has died. He was 84. He choose the original Clan colours blue, red, and white, and told audiences that blue represents loyalty, red is for courage, and white for integrity. Davies is credited with masterminding some of the most forward-thinking approaches in university sport, including promoting female participation and awarding scholarships.
Gerontology professor Andrew Wister (above) is currently the lead on the SFU Data Collection Site, part of the Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging. A large national long-term study, it will follow approximately 50,000 men and women between the ages of 45 and 85 for at least 20 years. Wister has been committed to research and training in the field of aging since the mid-1980s, and was the principal architect of SFU’s graduate gerontology programs. He is also collaborating on the five-year SFU Community Trust Endowment Fund LiVWELL grant.
Ever wonder what happens to those little bars of soap left over in your hotel room? SFU students Hangue Kim and Madhev Menon are involved in Soap for Hope, a partnership between SFU Enactus students and Mission Possible Recycling to collect the soap and repurpose it into liquid soap.
B.C. residents now have free access to almost 200 million pages of digital historical content dating back to the Middle Ages, thanks to a new agreement between the libraries of SFU, UBC, and UVic and educational publisher Gale-Cengage Learning. The new Points to the Past initiative expands free access to all Gale digital collections. Researchers can also explore the Indigenous Peoples: North America, Nineteenth and Eighteenth Century Collections Online databases, according to Gwen Bird (above), SFU’s dean of libraries. <www.pointstothepast.ca>
Honorary degree recipient John Ellis turns 100 in May. He is an SFU convocation founder, was a member of the first Senate, and a volunteer with the University’s capital campaign (1989–1992). His lifetime donations to SFU total over $550,000, most of which went to the A. John Ellis Graduate Endowment Fund. He continues to meet with scholarship recipients annually. Thank you John Ellis.
SFU biologist Bruce Archibald and Russian researcher Vladimir N. Makarkin, in cross-cultural collaboration with the Wet’suwet’en Nation, name a fossil species. The green lacewing insect fossil (as seen above) is found in Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park near Smithers and is now known as Archaeochrysa sanikwa. The Wet’suwet’en word sanikwa refers to the transformation of insects.
SFU researchers Stephen Easton and Paul Brantingham, plus alumna Hilary Furness (BA Hons’10) are the authors of a Fraser Institute study that says Canada is a safer place than it was 20 years ago, but justice system costs are increasing.
SFU’s first new undergraduate degree since 1992 is a four-year full-time program to educate the environmental leaders of tomorrow. The degree is offered through collaboration between the Faculty of Environment and the Beedie School of Business. It recognizes that the environmental challenges of today demand an interdisciplinary approach to develop solutions.
SFU mathematician Cedric Chauve and his student Ashok Rajaraman use computational methods to reconstruct ancestral mosquito genomes and analyze their chromosomal evolution over the past hundred million years. The study, appearing in Science Daily, sheds light on how mosquitoes transmit malaria.
Jack Lee, pipe sergeant of the SFU Pipe Band has again won the Bratch Gorm, meaning “blue banner” in Gaelic, a top prize in the piping world. His son Andrew placed fourth in the Stachan Cup MSR (A-Grade) and third in the Donald Forbes Medal Hornpipe and Jig (A-Grade) at the same London event. Lee’s win secures an invitation to one of the world’s premier piping competitions in 2015, the Glenfiddich Piping Championship.
Two key players in SFU’s early years have died. Charter Department of English professor emeritus Ralph Maud was noted for his expertise in the poetry of Charles Olsen and Dylan Thomas. Maud was a colourful and outspoken presence. Registrar Harry Evans was known as a steady hand in turbulent times. During his tenure from 1968 until his retirement in 1985, his common sense, diplomacy, and good nature helped many.
