Professor Gail Fraser: Offshore oil board members lack environmental expertise

A biologist and researcher is asking why none of the six men on the board regulating oil activity off Newfoundland lists environmental expertise as a prime credential , wrote The Canadian Press June 6: The head of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board has stressed that environmental protection is a top goal. But Gail […]

Professor Gail Fraser argues relief wells should be dug now for Newfoundland & Labrador's deepwater drilling projects

Newfoundland & Labrador is proceeding with the high-risk game of oil exploration in ultra-deep water, as regulators in the province express confidence in industry’s safety practices despite the ecological catastrophe of BP PLC’s Gulf of Mexico blowout, wrote The Globe and Mail June 3: Canada’s East Coast is now the only region in North America where […]

Get buzzed about pollination and why bees are important to humans at International Pollinator Week

The birds and the bees, the bats and the butterflies all need a little help doing it these days – pollinating that is. So Sabrina Malach, a master in environmental studies student at York, has helped organize several events in Toronto for International Pollinator Week, which will run from June 21 to 27. The events give […]

Disappearing bees may leave us with a bland diet

Bee expert urges public to create bee-friendly gardens in their yards Breakfast may be toast if we don’t take action to save the bees, according to York biology Professor and bee expert Laurence Packer. “Consider breakfast. Eggs, maybe a slice of watermelon, toast with butter and jam, and a cup of coffee with a dash of […]

Professor Bridget Stutchbury warns of declining bird population

Bridget Stutchbury, author of Silence of the Songbirds, recently stopped in Fredericton to warn that the bird population is dwindling, reported the Fredericton Telegraph-Journal May 20. A Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology at York University, Stutchbury says the Canadian bird population has been declining by one to two per cent a year […]

Coffee, pesticides and deforestation contributing to loss of migratory songbirds

The morning serenades of nature in New Brunswick have quieted down over the years and a declining songbird population is to blame, according to a conservation biologist, wrote the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal May 14: “Both at the provincial level, and even at the national level, you have dozens of species of songbirds that are in […]

Video and Audio: Professor Bridget Stutchbury interviewed on CBC's The National

Professor Bridget Stutchbury was interviewed on The National by CBC broadcaster Colleen Jones about the sex lives of birds May 12. Stutchbury, a Canada Research Chair in  Ecology and Conservation Biology and a professor in the Department of Biology, published The Bird Detective: Investigating the Secret Lives of Birds in April 2010. It explains how […]

Professor Bridget Stutchbury's Bird Detective reviewed in the The Globe & Mail

In a May 8 review of Professor Bridget Stutchbury's new non-fiction book,  The Bird Detective, The Globe & Mail compared it to Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood. Stutchbury is a Canada Research Chair in  Ecology and Conservation Biology and a professor in the Department of Biology in York’s Faculty of Science & Engineering: In […]

Audio: Professor Bridget Stutchbury interviewed on Quirks & Quarks about bird research

Professor Bridget Stutchbury was interviewed on CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks on May 1 about her new book, The Bird Detective. Her interview with Bob McDonald is available for download on CBC's Web site. In The Bird Detective, Stutchbury roams forests and jungles studying the sexual antics and social lives of birds, and details the […]

York welcomes Professor Keith Schneider, new researcher in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

University of Missouri professor and brain researcher Keith Schneider will join York University on July 1 as a professor in the Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science & Engineering and as the coordinator of the University’s new Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) brain research facility. The facility will be located in the new Sherman […]