The Conversation Canada
The University of Saskatchewan has become a founding partner of a new national academic newswire,The Conversation Canada, which provides independent, high-quality journalism.
What is the Conversation?Get in touch, submit a story or opinion piece.
The throne speech: Fiscal prudes are fretting about the wrong issues
While those on the left, right and middle worry about the federal deficit, the real world that we live in is in trouble. The fiscal prudes are fretting about the wrong issues.
Northern fish are tough, but climate change is causing some to dwindle
As climate change warms northern rivers and changes precipitation patterns, some types of cold-loving fish are failing.
Vaccinations skipped during COVID-19 shutdown may lead to outbreaks of other diseases
Children may have fallen behind on their vaccination schedules during the pandemic, increasing the risk that COVID-19 may be followed by outbreaks of once-eradicated diseases.
Canada’s farmland is a wise investment — during and after the coronavirus
As the world's population grows, agriculture and related industries will grow in size and importance in Canada. Smart investors should bet on Canadian farmland.
Coronavirus halted years of research and Canada needs a strategy to fight back
Graduate students are suffering, public investments in research are at risk and we need to face implications of growing reliance on international graduate students when borders are...
Why do chipmunks live on the ground but squirrels live in trees?
Squirrels and chipmunks are distant cousins who have grown a little more apart from each other over millions of years.
Coronavirus cases in Africa could top 1 billion: Response must battle unique challenges
As the SARS-CoV-2 virus sweeps across the globe, African countries are bracing themselves for grave consequences. The projections released on April 17 estimate more than a billion ...
Distinguishing between wants and needs during the coronavirus pandemic
COVID-19 has brought about unprecedented unemployment and financial insecurity, but it's not the first time people have faced challenges fulfilling some of their most basic needs.
More young people vaping, despite growing evidence of risks
Even as evidence of its adverse effects emerges, vaping is growing more popular among young people.
The Bank of Canada must do more to help provinces tackle the coronavirus crisis
It's time for the Bank of Canada to do more to help provincial governments deal with the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
Why Canada’s equalization program needs a major overhaul
It's virtually impossible to determine if Canada's equalization program is succeeding or failing. That means it's in dire need of a major overhaul rather than small tweaks here and...
Climate change, pollution and urbanization threaten water in Canada
The water that replenishes groundwater, rivers and lakes is under threat from climate change, pollution and aging infrastructure.
Google claims to have invented a quantum computer, but IBM begs to differ
A paper published by researchers at Google claimed that they had achieved computing quantum supremacy, but leaks and counter-claims have created a stir.
Universities should stand up for integrity and public trust in university teaching
Those teaching in publicly funded universities should be held accountable for denying the public record, whether in their classrooms or beyond.
‘The Prime Effect’ means retailers must innovate during the holidays and beyond
The year 2019 will be known as the year of retail closures in Canada and the United States. Canada’s Home Outfitters and Payless ShoeSource have recently announced they’re beginnin...
Chrystia Freeland will have to navigate misogyny in her new roles
If successful, Chrystia Freeland could help bolster national unity and Canada’s relationships with the U.S. and Mexico. But relentless sexist attacks against her could derail progr...
Bring back Beardy's Blackhawks: Indigenous hockey team eliminated from Sask. league
The Saskatchewan Hockey Association (SHA) recently eliminated the Beardy's Blackhawks Midget AAA team -- but needs to reconsider the team's crucial community role in an era of reco...
Your electronic health data: Understanding the different records, systems and how they connect
Know the difference between an EMR, EHR and PHR? Our digital data expert sets the record straight.
What’s going on in South America? Understanding the wave of protests
Tailored strategies to address students' finances, academic success and socio-emotional connections with an institution or program can help keep students in school.
Warmer, wetter climate benefits some birds as wetlands vanish
The Canadian Prairies are vanishing more quickly than the Amazon rainforest as they are converted for agriculture and industrial uses.
What universities can do to keep students from dropping out
Tailored strategies to address students' finances, academic success and socio-emotional connections with an institution or program can help keep students in school.
At the ballot box, cast a vote for climate change innovation and investment
The costs, and the pain, of climate change only increase the longer we wait to act.
PhD students should prepare for careers beyond becoming professors
PhD students can't wait for universities and governments to reconcile the demands for a more educated workforce and a scarcity of academic jobs -- they should plan their own career...
Growing a garden can also bloom eco-resilient, cross-cultural, food-sovereign communities
Community gardens with land-based activities can impact community food security and are a good way to forge relationships among new immigrants, Indigenous and non-Indigenous commun...
More frequent fires could dramatically alter boreal forests and emit more carbon
The boreal forest is being reshaped by wildfire. As climate change intensifies wildfire activity, the boreal forest will likely become a carbon source.
Technology start-ups that fail fast succeed faster
Canadian technology start-ups that incorporate an approach that learns from failure tend to perform and innovate with greater success than start-ups that seek to assign blame.
Expanding pharmacy services increases both health-care and profit outcomes
Expanding the services offered by pharmacies can have positive effects on health outcomes — and profits.
People living with HIV struggle to access much-needed dental care
Research shows that many people living with HIV struggle with tooth decay, bleeding gums and tooth sensitivity -- due to the costs of dental care and discrimination by dental profe...
Scientists work to solve phosphate shortage – the dwindling resource required to grow food
Global phosphate production is set to peak in 2030, around the same time the world's population will reach nine billion. As a finite resource, a phosphate shortage will effect glob...
Water-sharing experiment suggests people put their own survival first
Imagining how to increase water managers’ empathy for others in a holistic way is critical for our human and planetary future.
Motivation matters – so this summer, rekindle your energy and your leadership style
Motivation means to move. That means leaders must not only be aware of their own roles, but others' needs, goals and journeys.
Brazil's Operation Car Wash: A corruption investigator is accused of his own misdeeds
Operation Car Wash is an ongoing investigation by Brazilian federal police into a money laundering scheme in which black market money dealers used small businesses to launder dirty...
Canada: Is it really a country divided?
Despite decades of bickering and hand-wringing, Canada continues on. National tensions, in and of themselves, are not leading us to poor policy outcomes.
As Dead Poets Society turns 30, classroom rapport is still relevant and risky
A USask researcher discusses how personal interaction between teacher and students impacts learning, just as it does in the movies.
Canadian schools spend more as enrolment and test scores fall
USask research shows that the provinces vary widely in their ability to produce academic results for money they spend, and PEI shows the most efficient results.
Ontario public health cuts will endanger the public
Public health is essential for a healthy state in general, and we are in a moment in time that requires especially strong public health infrastructure, USask researcher says.
Work on climate, not weaponizing the Constitution
Researchers urge that we have to stop weaponizing the Constitution and start working together, across party lines at all levels of government, on urgent and ambitious climate actio...
Faster, more accurate diagnoses: Healthcare applications of AI research
USask research team has developed a system that can segment retinal blood vessels simply by reading a raw retinal image. It is a computer-aided diagnosis system that reduces the wo...
Immigrant children’s health declines rapidly after arrival in Canada
USask researchers have found that newcomer children were found to have borderline or elevated blood pressure— substantially higher than that of Canadian children, and some of them ...
The new Brazilian government is devoid of ideas
Just a few months after Bolsonaro’s election, many Brazilians are waking up to the reality that if they’d hoped to escape political corruption, they have chosen a seemingly ill-pre...
Why agricultural groups fiercely oppose the carbon tax
The bulk of Canada’s agricultural production is in the Prairie provinces.
How Canada can solve its emerging water crisis
USask researchers offer water solutions that could save Canada billions of dollars by preventing damage to infrastructure and ecosystems, and reducing disaster payments.
Monopoly was designed 100 years ago to teach the dangers of capitalism
Toys and games offered a way for teachers and parents to prepare children for their adult lives. It was one way to take complex ideas about society and translate them into forms ch...
Good nuclear policy should combine research, innovation and public engagement
USask researcher discusses how dialogue between researchers and the public is needed to facilitate public policy that takes advantage of new innovations and reflects our values as ...
Back pain? A physiotherapist may offer the most effective treatment, if you can afford it
Many individuals suffering chronic back pain are not able to access non-physician options like physiotherapy, a USask study shows.
Benefits of pulses: Good for you and the planet
Pulses naturally produce their own nitrogen. Since nitrogen is a primary component of fertilizer, pulses basically produce their own fertilizer.
How to keep your pets safe from marijuana poisoning
Intoxication typically occurs from eating recreational or medical cannabis, but second-hand smoke can affect animals as well.
A new board game designed to teach the old rules of masculinity
USask researcher has discovered that the mechanics of the game promoted natural alliances between clerics and laymen. They were mostly not in competition with each other for common...
Stoking conflict between farming and conservation hurts everyone
Usask researchers discuss how issues like climate change require rapid transformations in both conservation and food production practices.
The global race for groundwater speeds up to feed agriculture’s growing needs
Researchers discuss how understanding how extensive groundwater is and developing better management strategies is urgently needed.
Transparency and privacy: Empowering people through blockchain
A USask researcher has been researching how a blockchain-based system can keep users data safe, provide access control and provenance of their ownership.
Understanding apocalyptic events through literature
A Usask researcher discusses how the study of apocalypse is a deeper well than most people can fathom.
How robots are helping doctors save lives in the Canadian North
Remote presence technology is currently in use in Saskatchewan, Canada — to provide care to acutely ill children living in remote Northern communities.
Back-to-work legislation may come back to haunt Justin Trudeau
The Justin Trudeau government’s use of back-to-work legislation could haunt the governing Liberals in the months and years to come.
Canada's shameful history of sterilizing Indigenous women
USask historian discusses the history of Alberta’s eugenics program, which sterilized nearly 3,000 people between 1928 and 1972.
Educating nurses to support digital health
A USask researcher discusses the current state of digital health in Canada.
Donald Trump’s populism preys upon collective anxieties
Anxieties create fertile ground for populism as it intersects with the politics of insecurity.
Children with arthritis lack vitamin D
A new study points to a clear link between childhood arthritis and abnormally low levels of vitamin D, especially ion northern countries.
We found grizzly, black and polar bears together for the first time
North America’s three bear species — black bears, grizzly bears and polar bears — are living together for the first time. Climate change may be the answer.
Victoria votes: your guide to the 2018 election health promises
With health care spending accounting for 30% of the Victorian budget, or A$20 billion, health is a major policy area for the Victorian election on Saturday.
Bad molars? The origins of wisdom teeth
Because wisdom teeth aren’t essential to modern human survival, people often ask whether evolution is weeding out this bothersome trait. But USask researcher doesn't think so.
Memorials give us the chance to sit and think about the First World War
Just as the First World War demanded increasingly greater sacrifices, Canadians need to be continuously reminded to never forget.
Hello magic and witchcraft, goodbye Enlightenment
USask researcher discusses how a law about witchcraft, on the verge of disappearing from the Canadian Criminal Code, is s a sign of the Canadian inheritance of the Enlightenment pr...
Kill Bill C-69 – it undermines efforts to tackle climate change
USask researcher discusses how neither the detractors nor the defenders of Bill C-69 appear to grasp the urgency of radically reorienting our assessment processes toward sustainabi...
What the Supreme Court ruling means for Indigenous consultation
Must governments in Canada consult with Indigenous communities prior to adopting legislation that could affect their rights? A USask researcher discusses the topic.
Poor women who use midwives have healthier babies
Women who are marginalized by poverty may be reaping the greatest benefits from midwifery care, USask research team has found.
How a new vaccine could save cattle herds - and livelihoods
USask researchers have developed a new vaccine to help fight the spread of a lethal disease that kills cattle in Africa.
How to make computers faster and climate friendly
At the University of Saskatchewan’s computer engineering lab, researchers are proposing to design and implement new computing solutions that they can trade off accuracy and efficie...
Broke your arm? Exercise the other one to strengthen it...
When you injure an arm, exercising the same healthy limb on the other side of the body may be key to maintaining strength and muscle size in the injured limb, a University of Saska...
How naming poison frogs helps fight their illegal trade
It's impossible to legally protect what is not identified.Governments may use this information to develop targeted conservation strategies.
Everyone needs to take a deep breath after the Trans Mountain ruling
Indigenous communities and other Canadians have to be consulted on major resource projects through a better, faster and more effective process, USask professor says.
How parents could revolutionize education and boost results
“Walking alongside” philosophy may be key to place parents at the centre to the work of the school, not separate or apart from it.
How Africa can up its game on water management for agriculture
African governments need to pursue collaborations with international institutions interested in working with the continent, professor advises.
How to beat the ‘freshman five’ weight gain
Students need to be aware of their physical activity choices, ensuring that they are maintaining or increasing physical activity to meet guidelines and maintain normal weights, a P...
Reconciliation requires more than symbolic gestures
True and effective reconciliation must involve going beyond apologizing and renaming buildings to remedying with targeted actions, a U of S emeritus professor discusses.
The real promise of LSD, MDMA and mushrooms for medical science
USask researcher discusses how scientific pursuits need to be coupled with a humanist tradition — to highlight not just how psychedelics work, but why that matters.
John A. Macdonald should not be forgotten, nor celebrated
Few Canadians know the history of McDonald's genocidal policies inflicted on First Nations and Métis people. This speaks to how statues and commemorations can act to actually erase...
How to improve farm safety for kids
USask researchers are studying why parents chose to bring their kids into the farm work environment and what can be done to improve safety.
Who gets the frozen embryos in the divorce?
U of S researcher discusses how the research on decision making related to embryos suggests that one should be able to change their mind, and the regulations under the Assisted Hum...
After the Humboldt crash: Truck driver health and training must be a priority
Truck drivers are exposed to many risks affecting their health and their ability to drive safely, due to the nature of the job and the job market, U of S research shows.
Nature can heal itself after an oil spill, it just needs a little help
Moving oil across the Rockies is dangerous.
How to fight desertification and drought at home and away
U of S visiting scholar discusses how desertification is a problem of global proportions and requires a unified strategy among all countries.
How to show consumers the benefits of genetically modified foods
USask researchers have found that changing the value proposition from industry-centric to consumer-centric may help to mitigate the negatives associated with GM food.
Toxic leftovers from Giant Mine found in snowshoe hares
Even though it was closed decades ago, the Giant Mine on the outskirts of Yellowknife has left a long environmental legacy. High arsenic levels explain why hares living near the mi...
Canada's Paris-pipeline paradox
Researchers reflect upon the interesting paradox and national challenge surrounding the Canadian government’s decision to purchase Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline project s...
What the Kinder Morgan decision says about investing in Canada
USask professors comment on the impact that the acquisition of the Trans Mountain pipeline will have on the investment community, particularly relating to natural resource developm...
Viruses can cause global pandemics, but where did the first virus come from?
Researchers discuss the origins of viruses that often make headlines such as Ebola, influenza and Zika.
The hidden history of Indigenous stereotypes in tabletop games
While games today often sanitize conquest in North America rather than glorify it, they continue to grapple with the same questions about race, culture and history, a U of S resear...
The fishy problem of underwater noise pollution
U of S researchers discuss how boat noise can have negative impacts on fishes. Noise can force fishes to live in bad habitats, decrease their ability to feed, and avoid predators....
Paying surrogates, sperm and egg donors goes against Canadian values
The need to avoid both the commodification of the human body and the twin risks of exploitation and coercion among reasons why paying for surrogacy is illegal, researchers said.
New research partnership makes childbirth safer in Mozambique
U of S project in partnership with Mozambique's government, local communities and an NGO aims to offer women better access to healthcare services.
New NAFTA or no NAFTA? How Trump's ire could affect Canadian agri-food
U of S professor discusses the implications of the ongoing NAFTA negotiations.The U.S. demands on dispute settlement and five-year reviews would nullify many of the benefits of NAF...
Can exercise help tackle the opioid crisis?
U of S researchers discuss how exercise is an effective alternative to non-opioid strategy for non-cancer pain such as chronic low back pain.
How to improve government's use of science
As more top scientists are brought within government to be part of the decision-making process, three U of S student debate how much influence they will have.
Social media full of vitriolic myths in the aftermath of the Stanley trial
Myths we tell about ourselves and those we tell about Indigenous peoples serve corrosive purposes that risk driving Indigenous and settler Canadians farther apart, and making recon...
As a water crisis looms in Cape Town, could it happen in Canada?
In Canada, the greatest natural disasters come from floods, fires and droughts — and they are getting worse as our climate changes, U of S researcher say.