Daily News

February 9, 2006

Outstanding students from the Faculty of Humanities were recognized for their achievements at the 25th annual Awards Assembly in Convocation Hall on Friday, Feb. 3. The awards, including scholarships, essay prizes and Dean's Honour List certificates, were presented to students by the associate dean Suzanne Crosta, and John Ferns, chair of the Undergraduate Awards Committee.

February 9, 2006

McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine will launch satellite campuses in two neighbouring areas as part of a provincial government plan announced today to create 104 new medical school places across the province. The satellite campuses will be established in Niagara and Waterloo/Wellington in the next two and a half years, each accommodating 15 first-year medical students.

February 9, 2006

The next time you mutter about the high cost of relationship maintenance, take comfort in knowing that microbes share your pain. In the first study to examine the cost of sexuality in microbes, Jianping Xu, associate professor of biology at McMaster University, found that sex exacts physical, morphological and behavioural stress on microbes. His findings are published in the recent edition of Genetics, published by the Genetics Society of America.

February 8, 2006

Look around, can you tell who among your friends were tiny, preemie babies? As young adults, the majority of extremely low birth-weight infants are attaining similar levels of education, employment and independence as normal birth-weight infants, according to a study by researchers at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in the February 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

February 8, 2006

Companies that cut middle managers jeopardize their productivity more than save costs, a study from McMaster University suggests. "Middle managers are the front line communicators with employees," says Rick Hackett, Canada Research Chair in Organizational Behaviour and Human Performance at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University. "One-on-one social exchanges between bosses and their workers have a real impact on employee productivity, behaviour and commitment, and when you cut middle-management, often you lose that interaction."

February 8, 2006

President Peter George and provost Ken Norrie joined together to congratulate and recognize 78 students who were awarded 2005 President's Honour Awards and 15 in course students who achieved Provost Honour Roll for 2004-5 at a reception in Celebration Hall, Tuesday, Feb. 7. Students entering their first year at McMaster with a secondary school average of 95 per cent or higher received a President's Honour Award while in course students earned Provost Honour Roll distinction through maintaining a perfect 12.0 average on at least 30 units (usually their sessional average).

February 7, 2006

Have you ever thought about the process involved in testing, assessing and approving a drug for public use? Bringing a drug to market can involve extensive costly steps that could take 12 to 15 years of development. It is estimated that the cost involved can surpass $1 billion U.S. and yet only one third of pharmaceuticals successfully brought to market achieve profitability.

February 6, 2006

An evolutionary biologist from Dalhousie University will explore the history of life on earth using DNA at the next Origins Lecture taking place at McMaster on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Ford Doolittle, Canada Research Chair in Comparitive Microbial Genomics, will discuss the billion-year history of multicellular organisms in his talk titled "The Tree of Life".

February 6, 2006

Hamilton residents will be asked to participate in a survey over the next two months to gauge awareness of community support services, and to find out why seniors do not take advantage of the many services available to them. "This is a hot issue particularly as it relates to older adults," says Margaret Denton, director of McMaster University's Centre of Gerontology. "On one hand, we have the growing number of seniors who, for reasons of mobility, illness or isolation, are not accessing some of the resources initially set up to serve them. On the other hand, we have the upcoming generation of seniors whom we currently refer to as the "sandwich generation" - the children of seniors who are trying to help ageing parents while looking after their own families.

February 6, 2006

Both the men's and women's basketball teams defeated The University of Western Ontario Mustangs on the weekend. The men's team outscored the Mustangs 77-48 in the Ontario University Athletics west conference action on Saturday afternoon at the Burridge Gym. They will travel to Waterloo on Wednesday, Feb. 8 to face the Warriors. The action tips off at 8 p.m.

February 3, 2006

Another sell-out is expected this year for the McMaster Mini-Med School, as the public is invited to attend a lecture series organized by the students of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. The seven-session program provides the public with the opportunity to gain in-depth medical knowledge on a variety of topics. In each of the seven weekly classes, two McMaster professors will give lectures exploring the scientific basis on various medical conditions or issues. The professors will gear their talks to the general public with a particular interest in learning more about medicine and health care.

February 3, 2006

The DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University and TSX Group Inc. today announced the establishment of the DeGroote-TSX Research Centre in Capital Markets Studies. The centre, to be based at DeGroote in Hamilton, will focus on identifying and researching important emerging issues in the capital markets industry.

February 3, 2006

Students will dine and dance tonight in support of the MacWheelers Spinal Rehabilitation Program. The eighth annual McMaster Students Union Charity Ball, themed "Vanity Affair", takes place tonight (Feb. 3) at the Hamilton Convention Centre beginning at 8:30 p.m.

February 2, 2006

A field trip to Hiroshima has been organized for students taking Inquiry in Science II course 4SZ3 (also known as Med Phys 777). Aptly named Phoenix: Out of the Ashes and Into the Atomic Age, the course examines the short- and long-term impact of nuclear weapons testing upon humans and the environment. Doug Boreham, associate professor of medical physics and applied radiation, will lead the excursion to the Japanese city in May. Hiroshima, which was bombed by the United States on August 6, 1945, has ironically become a model of the nuclear age.

February 2, 2006

Four-year cumulative averages of 11.8 by McMaster engineering students Gaurav Bahl, electrical engineering, and Andrew Maw, computer engineering, resulted in the first tie at an Ontario university for the most prestigious award in undergraduate engineering. Both students received the gold medal award from the Ontario Professional Engineers Foundation for Education at the Faculty of Engineering's annual Awards Assembly. This is the first time since the award was established in 1961 that two students at the same university have tied for graduating with the highest cumulative average.

February 1, 2006

MBA and commerce students from the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University continue to score among the highest in North America in a recent Major Field Test (MFT) conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) - the largest educational assessment organization in the world. The exam was administered in December 2005 to graduating students, and DeGroote's undergraduate commerce students scored in the 95th percentile in North America while the MBAs scored in the 90th percentile.

February 1, 2006

As human beings, its easy to feel big - we have machines that allow us to see particles that are less than a billionth of a metre big, we've built towering skyscrapers hundreds of metres tall, we fly thousands of kilometres around the world in mere hours and we've even traveled more than 380,000 kilometres to the moon. However, perhaps it is good to be reminded every so often of our size in the scale of things.

January 31, 2006

Upwind Downwind, a biennial conference on air pollution and health, will be held at the Hamilton Convention Centre on Monday, Feb. 27 and Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006. The theme of this year's Upwind Downwind conference is "Cities, Air and Health". "The inter-relationship between air pollution, urban form, and health is a prominent topic, and the Upwind Downwind conference provides an important venue for various stakeholders to come together and discuss research progress," says Bruce Newbold, director of the McMaster Institute of Environment and Health (MIEH).

January 31, 2006

McMaster's School of the Arts is now presenting its annual Directors' Series, a festival of unique shows directed by theatre and film students in their final year of study. The Directors' Series 2006 features eight new plays, six written by the directors themselves. From social realism to absurd comedy, from docu-drama to surreal fantasy, all 12 of the plays dynamically engage with our culture and our times, each in its own unique style.

January 31, 2006

It has been a notable year for McMaster's Gary Warner. On the heels of receiving the Order of Canada, the professor of linguistics and French has been named Hamilton's Distinguished Citizen of the Year. Warner was selected among six recipients (three from McMaster) last night to receive the 2005 Royal Bank Distinguished Citizen of the Year Award.