Student film exploring community-based sustainability screens at COP28
Share
A documentary short created by York University PhD student Peyman Naeemi and supported by CIFAL York was competitively accepted to screen on Dec. 11 at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, as part of COP28’s Canada Pavilion events program.
York University PhD student Peyman Naeemi at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai.
In collaboration with CIFAL York and EnviroMuslims, AFaithful Commitment to Sustainability examines an innovative, community-based sustainability program that a group of volunteers at the Jaffari Community Center (JCC) in Vaughan, Ont., undertook during the holy month of Ramadan while hosting and feeding more than 2,000 individuals every night. The film shows how the community was able to significantly minimize food and plastic waste and take major steps towards contributing to sustainability goals at the community level.
“Screening at COP28 is an exciting and exceptional opportunity for me and the film to further spread its message,” says Naeemi, who is currently at the conference in Dubai to take part in events and promote his film. “Considering the focus on the role of culture in climate change action at COP28, this documentary brings an example of such contribution, as faith is rooted in our culture.”
A second-year PhD student in York’s Department of Humanities, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS), Naeemi – who also puts his skills to use assisting CIFAL York’s multimedia unit – filmed, edited, directed and produced the film himself, with support from his PhD supervisory committee.
Using an interview style, Naeemi says the film seeks to highlight the following: the role of faith in initiating sustainable programs; the impact of family and community engagement in teaching sustainable practices; the role of Muslim women as sustainability leaders; and the advantages of using passionate youth to drive innovative sustainability practices.
“This documentary is very much in line with our focus area in developing learning materials around advancing UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” says Ali Asgary, director of CIFAL York, a professor of disaster and emergency management, and one of Naeemi’s PhD supervisors. “Screening this documentary at COP28 is very significant, as it highlights the importance and connections between the SDGs and the climate change.”
Adjunct Professor Mark Terry, another member of Naeemi’s supervisory committee, who helped produce the film through his Youth Climate Report project, calls A Faithful Commitment to Sustainability “a remarkable film.”
“I’m very proud of Peyman for making a film that Canada wanted to showcase at this year’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai,” he says.
At COP28, Naeemi looks forward to receiving expert feedback on the film and learning from peers about how to expand its reach on a global scale. Attending the conference, he hopes, will also enrich the theoretical part of his thesis, giving him exposure to the world’s leading experts on environmental action.
Regarding his future plans, Naeemi says AFaithful Commitment to Sustainability will screen at the JCC, at York and potentially other universities, and at film festivals like the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival. It will then be available for public viewing online, on the CIFAL York and CIFAL Global websites. On the academic side, Naeemi plans to use the documentary as a case study in an upper-level undergraduate course, highlighting the role of digital media in environmental and social movements.
Collaborative project on global climate modelling wins prestigious supercomputing award
Share
Miles Couchman, a York University assistant professor in applied mathematics, Faculty of Science, is part of an international research collaboration featuring a multidisciplinary network of researchers – including applied mathematicians and mechanical, civil and environmental engineers – that has been been awarded a highly competitive 2024 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) Supercomputing Award.
York University Assistant Professor Miles Couchman (left) and collaborator Professor Steve de Bruyn Kops (right) in front of the Frontier Supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest supercomputer in the world.
The winning collaborative project looks to better understand turbulence in stratified flows, notably scenarios where a fluid has variable density. One application of particular interest is developing more robust mathematical models for characterizing the turbulence-enhanced mixing of heat in the ocean, a leading area of uncertainty in global climate modelling and a topic of direct importance to global society.
The INCITE program, run by the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), grants 75 computational intensive science projects access to the world’s fastest supercomputers, located at the DOE’s Argonne and Oak Ridge national laboratories, to further innovation across the fields of science, engineering and computer science.
Couchman’s co-project was among 108 total proposals received by INCITE this year from international researchers or research organizations asking for supercomputer access. The evaluation process was highly competitive, with proposals evaluated over the course of four months based on computational readiness, the scalability of a project’s code and algorithms, and more.
Couchman’s team was awarded use of Frontier, the largest supercomputer in the world, in 2024 to perform numerical research simulations, allowing the researchers to simulate turbulent processes with unprecedented resolution, leading to more accurate and universal turbulent models. They hope what they learn won’t just apply to the mixing of heat in water, but how pollutants mix in the atmosphere and more.
The research team is made up of individuals from Duke University, the University of Washington and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the U.S., as well as the University of Cambridge in the U.K.
York Circle Lecture Series presents experts on topical subjects
Share
In collaboration with Jennifer Steeves, the York Circle Chair and associate vice-president research, the Office of Alumni Engagement invites the community to York University’s Keele campus for a new instalment of the York Circle Lecture series.
Beginning Nov. 25 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Life Sciences Building, prominent faculty members will delve into a diverse array of compelling subjects, reflecting the defining themes of York University.
The York Circle Lecture Series is held four times a year and is open to York’s community, including alumni and friends. Tickets are $5 and include coffee, light snacks and lunch.
Sessions will feature the guest speakers, and attendees will be asked to select one lecture from each session during registration.
10 a.m. sessions
Maxim Voronov
Maxim Voronov, professor, organizational behaviour and industrial relations, Schulich School of Business, presenting “The good, the bad, and the ugly of authenticity.”
Authenticity seems ever-present in today’s society, and it has become an important research topic among organizational scholars. Much of the time, both scholars and practitioners see authenticity as unambiguously good. But we need to acknowledge the darker side of authenticity and explore its implications. The purpose of this talk is to explore “the good, the bad and the ugly” of authenticity, shifting the focus away from authenticity as an attribute of people and things and toward unpacking the process by which people and things are cast as authentic. A particular focus will be on unpacking the contribution of authenticity to both social good and social harm.
Emilie Roudier
Emilie Roudier, assistant professor, School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Faculty of Health, presenting “Wildland fires: studying our blood vessels to better understand the impact on health.”
Over the past decade, the intensity and size of wildland fires have increased. Wildland fire seasons have lengthened, and these fires contribute to global air pollution. This presentation will highlight how wildland fire-related air pollution can impact our heart and blood vessels.
11:20 a.m. sessions
Usman Khan
Usman Khan, associate professor and department Chair, Department of Civil Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering, presenting “Harnessing the power of AI for flood forecasting.”
Floods are the most frequent weather-related natural disasters, affecting the largest number of people globally, with economic damages in excess of $900 billion (between 1994 and 2013). Globally, climate change and urbanization have led to an increase in floods in recent decades and this trend is projected to continue in the coming years, including in Canada. Despite this, Canada is the only G7 country without nationwide flood forecasting systems, which are key to saving lives and reducing the damages associated with floods. Hydroinformatics, the study of complex hydrological systems by combining water science, data science and computer science, attempts to improve traditional flood forecasting through the use of advanced techniques such as artificial intelligence (AI). This talk will outline recent research in this area and plans to build a Canada-wide, open-source, real-time, operational flood forecasting system that harnesses the power of AI to improves our ability to predict and prepare for floods.
Antony Chum
Antony Chum, assistant professor, Canada Research Chair, School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Faculty of Health, presenting “The impact of recreational cannabis legalization on cannabis-related acute care in Ontario.”
This presentation will discuss the effects of cannabis legalization on cannabis-related acute care (emergency department visits and hospitalizations). The research conducted discovered specific impact patterns among different demographic groups. Additionally, the talk will delve into regional disparities and analyze the policy implications arising from the legalization process.
Since 2009, York Circle has showcased the ideas and research being generated by York University’s community. Topics come from every Faculty and have included discussions around gender issues, brain function, mental health, international aid, sports injuries, financial policy and many more evolving subjects.
Experience urban ecosystem through new lens at Keele Campus
Share
The Bentway, a not-for-profit organization and public space nestled beneath Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, recently donated an art installation called the Multispecies Lounge to York University’s Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC).
Photo by Andrea Marie Abello, digital and multimedia specialist, Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change
The art piece, which was on display at the Bentway from May to September of this year, is currently installed near EUC’s Native Plant Garden in front of the Health, Nursing & Environmental Studies (HNES) Building on York’s Keele Campus. It will serve as a site of experiential education and research opportunities related to urban ecology, human-animal relations and public art.
“I hope that Multispecies Lounge will become a site of learning, engagement and place-making for our EUC community,” said EUC Dean Alice J. Hovorka. “It extends our Native Plant Garden ‘living lab’ through artistic expression. And it welcomes all beings in our midst – human and non-human – as we shape a more just and sustainable future.”
The installation consists of specially designed furniture composed of locally upcycled materials for birds, insects and humans alike to enjoy. Created by two artists who are also architects and educators, Joyce Hwang and Nerea Feliz, known collectively as “Double Happiness,” the Multispecies Lounge invites interspecies encounters with urban wildlife. Based out of Buffalo, N.Y. and Austin, Texas respectively, the artists’ work seeks to make visible the under-acknowledged world of the non-human as active participants of urban life, by attracting and magnifying their presence in shared urban spaces.
Through UV-painted details, the Multispecies Lounge offers glimpses of how birds and insects see beyond the human eye and provides a new lens through which to experience the urban ecosystem. Community members are invited to sit back and relax against red cedar chairs and watch swallows nest and sparrows perch above, while small terrestrial beings relax below.
“The Multispecies Lounge offers a welcome opportunity, in the midst of our many comings and goings, to sit in and amongst the home-making of birds, insects and pollinators,” said Phyllis Novak, director of the EUC’s Native Plant Garden. “Quieting our minds and bodies to listen, to tune into our more-than-human relatives, the trees and the elements, is critical to our well-being.”
Osgoode Fellow to focus on environmental law, Indigenous land rights
Share
Osgoode Hall Law School master’s student Julia Brown, the 2023-24 Environmental Justice & Sustainability Clinic (EJSC) Fellow, hopes she can play a part in ensuring the development of Ontario’s mineral-rich Ring of Fire region, on First Nations land in the environmentally sensitive Hudson Bay Lowlands, does not take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous people who live there.
Julia Brown
Brown will work with leaders of Neskantaga First Nation in an effort to draft the terms of a workable partnership with the Government of Canada as it prepares to undertake a regional environmental assessment prior to any mineral development. The assessment is taking place under Canada’s Impact Assessment Act, which replaced the Environmental Assessment Act in 2019.
Brown said the original terms of reference for the regional assessment gave First Nations in the area only token participation in the process. After strong pushback, the federal agency involved agreed to review the terms.
“That was disappointing,” she explained, “because this legislation was supposed to be a real improvement in terms of the roles that First Nations would play.
“That was a glaring omission,” she said. “Whether development should go ahead really should be up to the people who live there and whose land it is.”
While various levels of government have recognized the importance of reconciliation, they are still reluctant to give up control – especially when it comes to mineral wealth, Brown remarked.
The federal assessment will be among the first to look at a whole region; environmental assessments are typically project specific. Brown said the Ontario government has, to date, declined to participate in the federal process and is carrying out separate assessments focused only on proposed roads connecting the area to the provincial highway system.
“There is no precedent for the federal government in terms of how this regional assessment has to be structured,” she explained. “So we’ll be working on how it could be structured so there is a real partnership between First Nations and the federal government.”
Last year, Neskantaga First Nation marked its 10,000th day of being under a hazardous drinking water advisory, despite federal commitments to fix the problem. Located 463 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont., the fly-in community is situated amid a vast wetland that acts as a huge carbon sink.
Some have called the region the “lungs of Mother Earth,” and the First Nations people there call the region the “Breathing Lands.” In total, the Ring of Fire region spans about 5,000 square kilometres and is rich in chromite, nickel, copper, platinum, gold, zinc and other valuable minerals – some of which are required for battery production.
Brown, who previously worked as a lawyer for Toronto-based OKT Law, the country’s largest Indigenous rights law firm, said she feels fortunate to be working with the Environmental Justice & Sustainability Clinic and its current director, Professor Dayna Nadine Scott – and the feeling is mutual.
“We feel very fortunate this year at the EJSC to have someone with Julia’s depth of knowledge and experience to be stepping into the role of clinic Fellow,” said Scott.
As part of her graduate research, Brown will focus on the issue of emotion in judicial reasoning and how that influences Indigenous title cases. Her research adviser is Professor Emily Kidd White.
The next instalment of York University’s Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) 2023-24 Climate Seminar, taking place on Oct. 19 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in 140 Health, Nursing & Environmental Studies Building, features geographer Kai Bosworth speaking about the role of populist environmentalism in contemporary struggles for climate justice.
Kai Bosworth
Bosworth, an assistant professor of international studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, will present a talk titled “Pipeline Populism and the Climate Cycle of Struggles: 2010-2020,” which will describe the rise and demise of left-populist environmentalism as one tendency within the “cycle of struggles” over climate in the 2010s. This tendency, he says, can be found in Upper Midwest pipeline opposition movements, in moves towards mass mobilization such as the People’s Climate March, and in student and youth movements advocating for a Green New Deal.
Bosworth’s book, Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the 21st Century (University of Minnesota Press, 2022), examines pipeline opposition movements in the central U.S. and the ways they have transformed the politics of climate justice. It argues that while a form of environmental populism challenges the climate movement’s history of elitism, it also remakes hierarchies of race, class and nation to compose its political subjects.
York University’s Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change is bringing climate crisis scholars and activists to the University on a regular basis through its Climate Seminar. All are welcome to attend, either in person or virtually via livestream. Those interested in attending can register at tinyurl.com/4zshzzw5.
Watching mushrooms grow: a new lesson in communications
Share
By Ashley Goodfellow Craig, editor, YFile
A cohort of Glendon College students will explore digital innovations in the context of interpersonal and mobile communications through an unexpected pedagogy – a living art installation containing a variety of mushrooms.
The art project, titled Mycosymbiosis and designed by Chinese-Canadian artist Xiaojing Yan, is a time-based and site-specific installation located on the balcony adjacent to Glendon Manor’s ballroom. It will launch on Oct. 2 at 5 p.m., with a viewing event and reception to follow.
Oyster mushrooms growing in the mobile gallery.
“The installation consists of a mobile gallery (Emergent) containing a variety of mushrooms which grow, decay and renew, weaving their intricate forms through its interstitial space and responding to the surrounding natural environment,” explains Buiani.
Emergent – a Living Mobile Gallery is a mobile gallery featuring artworks at the intersection of science and the arts. The goal is to understand and address how life evolves and adapts due to climate change, global mobility, experiments and the shaping of the world. The mobile gallery itself is a porous object, and is designed to explore the role of exhibition spaces.
Yan’s installation combines the complex concept of identity with a perspective on nature that transcends conventional boundaries. Including three types of oyster mushrooms planted along the exterior walls of the mobile gallery, the living art project will showcase how these mushrooms grow through a time-lapse projection inside. This evolving living sculpture will change with varying temperature and humidity, inviting a range of symbiotic organisms that interact with the mushrooms.
Mycosymbiosis art installation in full.
This installation of Mycosymbiosis represents the second phase of a long-term collaboration between Yan and the team behind Emergent: Buiani (Glendon/University of Toronto), Lorella di Cintio (Toronto Metropolitan University) and Ilze Briede [kavi] (York University, PhD student), with scientific advising from James Scott (University of Toronto).
Buiani’s course, which is a recipient of an Academic Innovation Fund grant, presents an examination of emerging trends in communication and media technologies, delving into web-based advancements and exploring novel modes of interpersonal and mobile communication.
Specifically, interacting with and documenting this installation is an important opportunity for students to not only achieve a better and more nuanced understanding of the complexities involved in interspecies communication in relation to our technological networks, but also to develop a better appreciation for responsible consumption and production, collaborative and collective work, communication with different forms of knowledge and ultimately, care, says Buiani.
The installation will be on view throughout the fall semester, and the Oct. 2 launch will kick off a series of public engagements on networks, care and land-based community building and artistic practice. More information will be available at artscisalon.com/COMS4208.
Lassonde researchers pursue sustainable change
Share
Researchers from the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University are gearing up for new interdisciplinary research projects that address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with support from the Lassonde Innovation Fund (LIF), an initiative that provides faculty members with financial support.
This year’s projects aim to find innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, access to clean drinking water, issues in health diagnostics and more. Nearly 80 per cent of this year’s LIF projects involve interdisciplinary work, 50 per cent are led by women and six per cent address multiple SDGs.
Learn more about this year’s LIF projects below.
Project: “Smart contact lenses (SCL) as promising alternatives to invasive vitreous sample analysis for in-situ eye disease studies” by Razieh Salahandish and Pouya Rezai
Razieh Salahandish
Salahandish from the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at Lassonde is collaborating with Mechanical Engineering Professor and Department Chair Rezai along with Dr. Tina Felfeli, a physician at the University Health Network, on an initiative aimed at fabricating smart contact lens (SCL) systems as a non-invasive tool that can detect and analyze disease-indicating biomarkers in human tears. For clinicians, examining biomarkers is an important part of monitoring eye health that can help improve disease detection and patient outcomes.
Pouya Rezai
The SCL systems will be designed to examine two clinically relevant eye condition biomarkers, vascular endothelial growth factor and tumour necrosis factor-alpha. Typically, these biomarkers are isolated from gel-like tissue in the eye, also known as vitreous fluid, using invasive surgical methods. This LIF project poses a convenient alternative that is less complex for medical professionals and more manageable for patients. It also sets a strong foundation for future investigations in this unexplored field.
Project: “Electric gene sensor for disease diagnostics purposes” by Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh
Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are considered the gold standard for detecting genes associated with diseases and were widely used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for diagnostic purposes; however, PCR tests lack portability and cost-effectiveness, so there is a need for more accessible options.
To address this issue, Ghafar-Zadeh, associate professor in Lassonde’s Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, is developing a novel PCR-like mechanism, which offers several advantages for detecting existent and emerging diseases over traditional detection methods. Advantages include low cost, high sensitivity and user friendliness.
With support from the LIF, Ghafar-Zadeh will explore the use of innovative electronic sensors to detect genes associated with different viruses. Substantial preliminary work shows the sensors’ output is significantly affected by the presence of a virus gene, thereby indicating its corresponding disease. Building on this discovery, experiments will be conducted using known genes to develop electronic software and hardware that can prove the presence of a specific virus gene and its respective disease.
Through successful research outcomes, Ghafar-Zadeh aims to secure future funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to support the implementation of this technology in clinical settings.
Project: “Controlling biofilm formation and microbial recontamination in secondary water storage containers with UV light emitting diodes and targeted cleaning procedures” by Stephanie Gora, Ahmed El Dyasti and Syed Imran Ali
Ahmed El Dyasti
Stephanie Gora
Continuous access to clean running water is a privilege that many global communities do not have. In areas such as refugee and internally displaced persons (IDP) settlements, as well as rural and underserved regions in Canada, community members must collect water from public distribution points and store it in secondary containers for future use.
This stored water is highly susceptible to recontamination by various microbial species, including biofilm-forming bacteria, which are microbial colonies that are extremely resistant to destruction.
Syed Imran Ali
Ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are a promising, yet underexplored, method that can be used to inactivate microbial colonies in biofilms and prevent their formation. Civil engineering rofessors Gora and El Dyasti have teamed up with Ali, a research Fellow in global health and humanitarianism at York University’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, on a solutions-driven project to improve water quality in underserved communities using UV LEDs and targeted container-cleaning procedures.
With support from the LIF, the research team will design and develop UV LED-equipped storage containers and analyze their ability to disinfect water in containers with biofilms. Experiments will also be performed to examine the potential benefits of combining UV LEDs with targeted container-cleaning procedures.
Successful results from this project may help ensure clean and safe water for refugee and IDP communities, as well as other underserved regions.
Project: “Smart vibration suppression system for micromobility in-wheel-motor electric vehicles for urban transportation” by George Zhu
George Zhu
Traffic congestion is not only a nuisance for road users, but it also causes excessive greenhouse gas emissions. Recent advances in electric vehicle (EV) technology have found that microvehicles, which are lightweight and drive at speeds up to 35 miles per hour, are a sustainable and convenient alternative to many traditional modes of transportation.
Specifically, micromobility EVs using in-wheel motors (IWMs) are becoming increasingly popular considering their benefits such as high energy efficiency and roomy passenger space. However, these vehicles are susceptible to unwanted vibration and tire jumping, which compromise driving safety and user comfort.
Through his LIF project, Zhu, from Lassonde’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, will design and develop a novel vibration-control technology for micromobility EVs with IWMs. The project will use a SARIT EV to test a smart suspension system, which includes active and passive vibration suppression and absorption systems. This work aims to develop new vibration-control technology, improve user experience and address deficiencies of micromobility IWM EVs. Zhu, who is a co-founding director of the Manufacturing Technology Entrepreneurship Centre, will also use this work to leverage Lassonde’s ongoing collaboration with Stronach International on the SARIT EV project.
Project: “Multifunctional building envelopes with integrated carbon capture” by Paul O’Brien and Ronald Hanson
Paul O’Brien
Global warming is, in part, caused by the energy consumption and generation needed to support daily life, including the operation of buildings. In fact, the building sector accounts for 30 per cent of global energy consumption.
To help reduce greenhouse gas emission from building operations, mechanical engineering professors O’Brien and Hanson are developing and testing energy-efficient building envelopes using Trombe walls.
Ronald Hanson
Trombe walls are a unique technology that can utilize solar energy to provide buildings with passive heat, thereby reducing heating energy consumption of buildings by up to 30 per cent. Inspired by previously conducted studies, this LIF project will explore the multifunctionality of a modified Trombe wall with water-based thermal energy storage, which demonstrates the potential to provide indoor lighting, heated air, heated water and building-integrated carbon capture.
Researchers explore maternal care of wild bees
Share
Two York University researchers have published a paper in the journal Communications Biology that examined the early and late life stages of small, developing carpenter bees in the presence and absence of maternal care.
The research considered how despite most wild bees being solitary, one tiny species of carpenter bees fastidiously cares for and raises their offspring, an act that translates into huge benefits to the developing bee’s microbiome, development and health.
Not unlike the positive affect human mothers can have on their offspring, the maternal care of these carpenter bees (Ceratina calcarata) staves off an overabundance of harmful fungi, bacteria, viruses and parasites in the earliest stage of development.
Without maternal care, the pathogen load of these developing bees ballooned, which can impact their microbiome, a critical component of bee health, as well as their development, immune system and gene expression. This can lead, for example, to changes in brain and eye development, and even behaviour. The biggest single fungus found was Aspergillus, known to induce stonebrood disease in honey bees, which mummifies the offspring. In later stages, the lack of care can lead to a reduced microbiome, increasing susceptibility to diseases and poor overall health.
The researchers looked at four overall developmental stages in the life of these carpenter bees, starting with the larvae stage both in the presence and absence of maternal care.
“There are fitness effects resulting from these fungal infections,” says Rehan. “We are documenting the shifts in development, the shifts in disease loads, and it is a big deal because in wild bees there is a lot less known about their disease loads. We are highlighting all of these factors for the first time.”
The developmental changes sparked by which genes were expressed or suppressed, upregulated or downregulated, along with disease loads, depending on the presence or lack of maternal care, created knock-on effects on the microbiome and bee health. These single mothers build one nest a year in the pith of dead plant stems, where they give birth and tend to their offspring from spring to as late as fall. Anything that prevents the mother from caring for her young increases risks of nest predation and parasitism, including excessive pruning of spring and fall stems, and can have huge consequences on their young.
“We found really striking shifts in the earliest stages, which was surprising, as we did not expect that stage to be the most significantly changed,” says Chau. “Looking at gene expression of these bees, you can see how the slightest dysregulation early in development cascades through their whole formation. It is all interconnected and shows how vital maternal care is in early childhood development.”
This study provides metatranscriptomic insights on the impact of maternal care on developing offspring and a foundational framework for tracking the development of the microbiome. “It is a complex paper that provides layers of data and shows the power of genomics as a tool,” says Rehan.“It allows us to document the interactions between host and environment. I think that is the power of this approach and the new technologies and techniques that we are developing.”
She also hopes it will give people more insight into the hidden life of bees and their vast differences, but also similarities. “Often people see bees as a monolith, but when you understand the complexity of bees and that there are wild bees and managed bees, people are more likely to care about bee diversity,” says Rehan.
Additional authors on the paper are Mariam Shamekh, a former honours thesis student and a Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergrad Student Research Award recipient, and Jesse Huisken, a PhD candidate and an NSERC postgraduate scholarship recipient.
Professors consider long-term health impact of wildfires
Share
Emilie Roudier and Olivier Birot, professors with York University’s School of Kinesiology and Health Science in the Faculty of Health, have published research calling for a rethinking of the potential long-term health risks of wildfires.
“While it’s understandable that initial attention focuses on the immediate impacts of losses and casualties after a wildfire, we know that there are also longer-term impacts from exposure to particulate matter pollution,” says Roudier, who is leading the research project, which involved spending a portion of the summer on the French island of Corsica in the Mediterranean, where summer wildfires are common. There, a partnership was created with the CNRS Wildland Forest Unit at the University of Corsica Pasquale Paoli (UCPP) and the Corsican fire authorities to further research efforts.
“Firefighters think about lung cancer, because they breathe the smoke, but because the fires are getting higher in temperature, the particulate matter is getting really small, so small that some can reach the bloodstream,” continues Roudier. “The PM are then in the cardiovascular system and travelling through our blood vessels. We are questioning whether we are using the right measurements to assess the risk posed to firefighters and the affected population. Having better tools, or additional tools, could hopefully lead to better solutions to mitigate risks.”
The paper notes that in North America, the length of the wildfire season has increased by nearly a fifth in the past 35 years, making the need to answer these questions more pressing. Population growth and development has increased human exposure to wildfire areas, growing the likelihood of both accidental ignition and fire-suppression policies that can lead to an accumulation of biomass fuels. While there is a clear link in the literature between PM pollution and cardiovascular disease, linking this to wildfires has been harder to show, given the complexities of studying this on a population level.
Birot, an associate professor who worked as a volunteer firefighter for seven years during his undergraduate and postgraduate studies, teaches a course at York that looks at extreme environments and their effects on health, including PM exposure and exercise.
“This microcirculation is not only important for delivering oxygen and nutrients to our tissues – it is also key for communication exchanges between organs, for example, between the working muscle and the brain. And it is also this microcirculation that’s key to dissipate excess body heat, moving heat from the core of the body to the peripheral skin. So think about wildland firefighters who are engaging in long periods of intense physical activity in a context where they’re going to produce heat because of their activity, and they are doing that in an environment that is polluted and extremely hot. So you’re combining a lot of stressors,” he says.
The two researchers have obtained samples of PM from wildland fires in Corsica and have started to analyze them back in their lab at York to test their effect on human endothelial cells, which line the inner layer of blood vessels. They are looking for epigenetic biomarkers that could act as early warning systems for those who might be more vulnerable.
A delegation from the UCPP will be coming to York in October, and Roudier and Birot will head back to Corsica in December to do more field work – collecting new PM samples from controlled biomass burning – and to expand their collaboration with Corsican fire authorities.
Watch a video of Roudier and Birot explaining their research:
See more ways York University is making headlines at News @ York.
