Passages built beside dams to allow trout and salmon to continue moving upstream are common mitigation tools but do these structures work for little fishes too? In a new study published in Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences researchers from Kansas State University track the movement of smaller-bodied fishes (<100 mm in length) up and over a dam.  By Casey Pennock From Montana down to Texas and Colorado across to Missouri, rivers in the American Great Plains formed roughly…

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Canadian Science Publishing sponsors the Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism Undergraduate Research Excellence Awards, which are awarded in partnership with the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology and the Canadian Nutrition Society. Award winner Caroline Anderson shares her research on eating disorders, muscle dysmorphia, and exercise addiction. By Caroline Anderson This past year I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Kyly Whitfield, Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent…

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Domesticated cats and dogs are intertwined with modern society influencing both their owners and the environment. Researchers from Carleton University have published a new paper in Environmental Reviews on the diverse impacts these animals can have on wildlife. By: William Twardek, Kathryn Peiman, Austin Gallagher, and Steven Cooke Domestic relationships among humans and wild animals extend back to the last Ice Age with the wolf and wildcat—among the earliest animals domesticated by humans—becoming the cuddly…

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By Sarah Boon, Ph.D. Tara Macdonald grew up surrounded by science: her mom was a biologist who had run her own consulting company since 1994, and her dad was a geologist. "I inherited an intense curiosity about the natural world from my parents," she says. "My dad especially is always analyzing, working things out, and asking questions, which as a teenager I found irritating. But now I realize I do the same thing!" So it…

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The Canadian Science Publishing family of journals grew this year with the introduction of Anthropocene Coasts, a new international, interdisciplinary open access journal.  Founding co-editor Prof. Ian Townend (University of Southampton) shared with us how global perspectives of how humans are impacting coastal ecosystems are needed to inform social, economic, and legal processes.  Welcome aboard! What is your favourite feature of coastal regions? Being there. I like the contrasts between the tranquil and the raging…

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By Colin Guthrie, Ph.D. This week we’ve been celebrating Peer Review Week, a time to salute and discuss the sometimes controversial process that remains an important cornerstone of scientific research. The theme of the week this year is Transparency in Review.  What does the word transparency mean in the context of peer review? Peer review is a process that has traditionally taken place behind the curtain. It’s a process that usually happens anonymously: the reviewer…

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By Jenny Crick In science there are always icons, household names. Some are ubiquitous; most people could quote Einstein’s most famous formula, even if they couldn’t tell you what it actually means. Others are more niche; the name Barbara McClintock, who first recognized that genes could "jump" into new positions within a genome, would be instantly familiar to a geneticist, though maybe not to the world at large. Within each field of science, certain names take…

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By Jeff Clements, Ph.D. In 1665, the concept of scholarly peer review was introduced by Henry Oldenburg, the founding editor of the scientific journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society —a highly regarded journal that continues to publish high-quality science today. In general, the process of peer review involves submitting one’s work to scrutiny by topical experts in a given field of research. Such a process is meant to serve a gatekeeping function, preventing the propagation of…

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Published this month in Arctic Science, a special issue on Arctic museum collections highlights how natural history museums are more than "cabinets of curiosities." Arctic collections are biodiversity and cultural repositories that help monitor rapidly changing ecosystems, preserve cultural heritage, and enhance public engagement in science and culture. The special issue entitled "Arctic Museum collections: Documenting and understanding changes in biological and cultural diversity through time and space" brings together multi-national teams of researchers to discuss…

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By Erin Zimmerman, Ph.D. Attending grad school is expensive and can mean heading into the working world with student debt that follows you around for years afterward. One way to minimize this problem is to apply for as much scholarship support as you can leading up to and while you’re doing your degree. While the most well-known funding opportunities tend to be the larger and more competitive ones, there are also many smaller scholarships and…

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