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- 2024 News
- Congratulations to the 2024 recipients of the Faculty of Science Research Awards
- SFU Science recognizes 2024 Outreach Awards Recipients
- Silent damage and rays of hope: Nick Dulvy sheds light on ecological diversity in the world’s oceans
- SFU Science Announces Recipients of 2024 Excellence in Teaching Awards
- Scientists develop tool to predict sepsis in apparently healthy newborns
- Move along moose, SFU study reveals the ‘most Canadian’ animals
- Eve Meyer finds her path to research at SFU Biological Sciences
- New funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation supports health research at SFU Science
- Two Molecular Biology and Biochemistry researchers receive Michael Smith Health Research BC Scholar awards
- Isabelle Côté receives King Charles III medal for outstanding achievements
- SFU scientists working to build neutrino telescope to provide a new window into the universe
- SFU Science Dean elected as Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences
- SFU breakthrough ID’s gene that may reverse Parkinson’s disease
- CIHR contributes $2 million in new funding for health research at SFU Science
- Monster fossils, helicopters and Science in Action: YuYen Pan reflects on nine years of public engagement
- Trio of Simon Fraser University Canada Research Chairs advance an inclusive and sustainable future
- SFU Science researchers receive $9.2 million in new NSERC funding
- Three SFU chemists honoured at national awards
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- SFU Physics collaboration pushes an information engine to its limits
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- B.C. technology pipeline gets a boost with 500 new student spaces at Simon Fraser University
- Asian Heritage Month: Lin Zhang
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- Musical medicine: SFU research highlights health benefits of hearing music for older adults
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- Florence Nightingale Day at SFU inspires students with possibilities in statistics
- CIHR contributes $3.2 million in new funding for health research at SFU Science
- New funding for SFU Institute for Neuroscience and Neurotechnology to investigate dementia risk
- SFU professor and team win women’s class of World’s Toughest Row, cross the Atlantic in 38 days
- Growing pains? SFU research tracks 100 years of salmon adaptation to climate change
- SFU researchers zero in on what makes some people healthier than the rest of us
- 2023 News
- SFU Earth Sciences professor assessing carbon storage potential beneath Metro Vancouver
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- Mining industry competing with salmon for rivers created by disappearing glaciers: SFU study finds
- Trio of new Chairs at SFU to build on Canada’s global research, innovation reputation
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- Learning More About How Flu Strains Evolved May Help Guide Future Vaccine Development
- SFU Science Announces Recipients of 2023 Excellence in Teaching Awards
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- SFU Science recognizes 2023 Outreach Awards recipients
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- SFU scientist captures the beauty of chemistry
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- SFU Science researchers receive over $7 million in new NSERC funding
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- Over $2.6 million in new funding from CIHR for health research at SFU Faculty of Science
- Congratulations to the 2023 recipients of the Faculty of Science Research Awards
- SFU Faculty of Science Celebrates Excellence in Science Outreach
- MBB researcher studying against the grain strategy to improve cancer treatment
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- Asian Heritage Month: Gary Shum
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- Asian Heritage Month: Amy Lee
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- David Lee wins 2022 SFU Staff Achievement award for numerous contributions to the Department of Physics
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- CIHR awards SFU Science researchers $2M in new funding
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- Researchers counter healthy aging issues, isolation in cities with $6.8 million funding
- Natalia Bussard joins SFU Work Integrated Learning (WIL) as the Program Manager, Science and Environment Co-op
- Statistics and Actuarial Science researcher studying the effects of climate change on pension funds
- How salmon feed flowers & flourishing ecosystems: study
- Shark and ray populations rebounding in Northwestern Atlantic: SFU study
- Two-thirds of sharks and ray in coral reefs facing extinction: SFU study
- New Sci-Space creates room to connect for science students at Burnaby Campus
- SFU physicist Stephanie Simmons to help lead Canada's new quantum strategy
- Physics student helps inspire girls in Pakistan with opportunities in STEM
- SFU and UBC researchers receive $1.25M to study cumulative effects on B.C. salmon
- 2022 News
- 2022 Faculty of Science Teaching & Learning Grants Recipients
- SFU mathematician finding new insights on evolution through the lens of infectious disease
- New tool developed to monitor health of marine ecosystems and extinction risk of species
- Scientists reconstruct gravity to better understand the universe
- $2 million gift helps seed new ideas at SFU Science
- Welcome Angela Brooks Wilson, Dean of SFU Science
- Genomic data can improve pandemic modelling, SFU researchers say
- SFU Science Announces Recipients of 2022 Excellence in Teaching Awards
- BPK grad Donya Divsalar brings an interdisciplinary perspective to aerospace research
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- A mid-degree refocus helped new alumnus Melissa Nguyen set her sights on a career in optometry
- Big picture thinking helps Maya Piddocke earn 2021 Staff Achievement Award for Work Performance
- CIHR contributes over $2.5 million in new funding for health research at SFU Faculty of Science
- A new dean for the Faculty of Science—Angela Brooks-Wilson
- Isabelle Côté and John Bechhoefer honoured as 2022 Distinguished SFU Professors
- SFU researchers developing new methods for controlling deadly honeybee parasites
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- SFU alumni levelling the playing field with new Sports Analytics Award for Indigenous Students in Science
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- Proactive approaches needed to enable ecosystems to adapt to climate change
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- Cory Macklin’s hard work leads to a Governor General’s Silver Medal
- Stephanie Simmons renamed Canada Research Chair in Silicon Quantum Technologies
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- Asian Heritage Month: Kero Lau
- Lost or extinct? Study finds the existence of 562 animal species remains uncertain
- Asian Heritage Month: Becky Lin
- Study finds the brain searches for the best way to move the body
- Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology creating a caring community, on campus and online
- Asian Heritage Month: Joanna Woo
- Bridging the gap between disciplines to better understand chemical reactions
- Student satellite project prepares for liftoff
- SFU to advance agritech, wearables sectors with $11.8M in federal research funding
- Department of Biological Sciences faculty member and previous Chair, Dr. Isabelle Côté Awarded as a Healthy Campus Community Champion
- Popular BPK lecturer receives SFU Excellence in Teaching Award
- SFU researchers help develop world’s first autonomous agriculture planning software
- SFU Science researchers among new and renewed Canada Research Chairs
- Prominent neuroscientist to advance brain research through new SFU institute
- Study finds that river flows linked to the ups and downs of imperiled Chinook salmon population
- SFU Science Announces Recipients of 2020/2021 Excellence in Teaching Awards
- Q&A: HOW SFU IS TAKING BRAIN RESEARCH IN PROMISING NEW DIRECTIONS
- 2021 News
- Faculty of Science Canada Research Chairs announcement
- Excellence in Science Public Engagement and Outreach Award winners announced
- Larger households contribute to COVID-19 transmission in Fraser Health Region
- Study finds Sawfish face extinction unless overfishing is curbed
- Astronaut "moves" to help prevent falls among older adults confined to bed rest
- Paleontologists discover major new insect group after solving 150-year-old mystery
- COVID-19 experts share 2020 SFU Media Newsmaker Award
- Chemistry professor awarded the 2021 John C. Polanyi Award for research excellence
- Where do we look when we walk?
- BPK prof honored with SFU Excellence in Teaching Award
- SFU lab one step closer to understanding how life started on Earth
- Research collaboration achieves world’s first laser-cooling of antimatter
- Fossil discovery deepens snakefly mystery
- Rain, rain go away! SFU Chemists develop new waterproofing solution.
- Asian Heritage Month; a profile of Hogan Yu
- IT team wins Staff Achievement Award for keeping us all connected
- Asian Heritage Month; a profile of Liangliang Wang
- New COVID-19 rapid test kit receives scientific seal of approval
- Asian Heritage Month: a profile of Ly Vu
- Asian Heritage Month: a profile of Weiran Sun
- Biology major completes degree while battling long-haul COVID
- SFU physicist Stephanie Simmons receives YWCA Women of Distinction Award
- SFU paleontologist honours Indigenous culture through collaboration
- Math alum creates award to support SFU students with mental health challenges
- SFU alum and scientist Kyle Bobiwash speaks on the importance of diversity of perspectives and worldviews in research.
- First Indigenous and Black Graduate scholarship established for SFU biology graduate students
- Global study shows major seagrass losses around the world
- Regular rapid testing detects COVID-19 soon enough to stop transmission in schools
- SFU Staff Achievement Award winner keeps Faculty of Science running smoothly through pandemic
- Faculty of Science profs receive Distinguished SFU Professorships
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- CFI invests more than $1.6 million in 10 SFU research projects
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- Faculty of Science researchers awarded Canada’s highest academic honour
- Science student graduates after an eight-year hiatus and a change of heart
- Microplastics in belugas worked their way up the food chain, SFU researchers find
- Salmon decline impacted by “squeeze” of combined river and sea stressors
- Melting glaciers could produce 1,000s of kilometres of new Pacific salmon habitat by 2100
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Fainting from needles may be alleviated by reducing pain – study
Feeling faint after your booster shot? A team of SFU researchers found that needle pain may increase the conditions that lead some people to faint. In a recent paper published in the journal Clinical Autonomic Research, the researchers suggest those with a fear of needles or history of fainting could benefit from topical anesthetics to help reduce the pain.
“We know that 16 per cent of adults avoid getting a flu shot because of a fear of blood or needles,” says Victoria Claydon, study lead and professor, SFU Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology. Her team set out to study how psychological and physiological factors influence whether people might faint after receiving needles in their arms.
“By reducing needle pain, we can help alleviate these fears and improve blood pressure control, helping people have a better experience that avoids causing distress and fainting.”
Study participants completed questionnaires to evaluate their general anxiety and fears related to blood donation and medical situations. Over three visits, each was asked to look away as a doctor or nurse inserted an IV into their arm, or pretended to do so, taping the IV in place without piercing the skin. The IV was either inserted after applying EMLA cream, which acts as an anesthetic to numb the skin, or inserted without anesthetic.
The participants then underwent an orthostatic stress test to determine their likelihood of fainting following the procedure. The table the participant was lying down on was tilted up while a device monitored changes in blood pressure. The test was continued until just before a faint would have occurred. Each day, the person was asked to rate the pain associated with the IV procedure on a scale of one (no pain) to five (most painful).
When the IV procedure was painful, blood pressure control was impaired, and blood vessel responses less robust, making fainting more likely. With anaesthetic use blood pressure was stabilised and fainting less likely.
Claydon adds that this is the first placebo-controlled study to investigate the impact of intravascular instrumentation on orthostatic tolerance, or the measure of a person's susceptibility to fainting, looking at the impact of psychological stress, pain and physical trauma to the blood vessels on orthostatic tolerance and orthostatic cardiovascular responses. Moving forward, this study shows that mitigating pain with the use of topical anaesthetics before procedures involving needles is likely to reduce the risk of fainting.