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Drunk drivers use social media to evade police checkstops

by on January 11, 2012 in News

When police services in Canada conducted their annual public crackdown on drunk drivers over the recent holidays, many social media users shared checkstop locations and blew police cover.

Ontario’s Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere, or RIDE, program was regularly sabotaged. Many Twitter users announced checkstop locations throughout late December using the hashtags #RIDE and #checkstop, which triggered an online shitstorm between those tweeting locations, concerned citizens and members of the police.

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BRIEF: Peter MacKinnon named officer of the Order of Canada

by on January 7, 2012 in News

utgoing University of Saskatchewan President Peter MacKinnon was recently named an officer of the Order of Canada “for his contributions to education and for his commitment to innovation and research excellence.”

The announcement, which included 66 new appointments, was made by Gov. Gen. David Johnston on Dec. 30. MacKinnon, who will complete his tenure as U of S President at the end June, was the only selection from Saskatchewan this year.

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Rest easy: don’t self-diagnose insomnia

by on January 6, 2012 in News

Generation Y — the Facebook generation, the deeply indebted generation and the spoiled-rotten generation — loves to assume the worst. Students who can’t remain focused on a task for 10 minutes immediately jump to the conclusion that they suffer from attention deficit disorder. Those who prefer keeping their room tidy instead of roaming around in a boar’s nest of clothing and dishes say it’s due to an undiagnosed case of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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Phylo has players around the world compare DNA from different species, improving genetic research

by on January 5, 2012 in News

Imagine if all the hours you spent moving coloured blocks on Tetris or cultivating wheat on FarmVille actually led to something productive — terminal disease research, perhaps?

Two McGill University academics are tapping into our appreciation for simple video games in order to further research into illnesses like cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

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Ilene Busch-Vishniac, McMaster provost, named ninth U of S president

by on January 4, 2012 in News

Although members of the search committee knew the identity of the next University of Saskatchewan president for about a month, few others in Convocation Hall on Dec. 19 knew the name Ilene Busch-Vishniac.

Busch-Vishniac will be the first woman to hold the office, replacing Peter MacKinnon after 13 years as president. After such a long time with MacKinnon at the helm, and “since there’s obviously not a crisis,” she says she will take her time getting to know the school, as well as its students, faculty and staff. But she also says her outsider’s perspective will help.

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U of S student missing

by on December 21, 2011 in News

Hamza Alsharief, a 23-year-old University of Saskatchewan student, has been missing for a week and police are seeking information about his whereabouts.

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Ilene Busch-Vishniac named ninth President of the University of Saskatchewan

by on December 19, 2011 in News

Ilene J. Busch-Vishniac will be the ninth person to hold the office of President of the University of Saskatchewan. She is currently the provost and vice-president academic of McMaster University.

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Simple URL hack in PAWS lets you gain access to old style course members list

by on December 9, 2011 in News, Technology

On Nov. 30, a U of S student discovered a wonderful little trick that lets you access the old style PAWS course homepages, complete with course members list. I’ve put together a quick step-by-step guide on how to access the course members page using this simple URL hack.

Students and professors alike have been lamenting the loss of the course members list, among other useful features of the old style course homepages, since the U of S implemented lacklustre Blackboard based course homepages at the end of last summer.

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World Aids Day reminds there is still work to do

by on December 8, 2011 in News

Robert Birch was 27 years old when he received a phone call from his doctor who told him that he was living with HIV.

“We were doing a performance that day called Happy Virus Day, coincidentally,” said Birch. “So there was this performance piece going on in the middle of the street and me going around with a camera and a mic asking people if they knew anybody with HIV.

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Youth-led advocacy group pressures government to rethink crime bill

by on December 6, 2011 in News

n Nov. 24, Leadnow, a youth-led independent advocacy organization, organized a national day of action to protest the federal Conservatives’ omnibus crime bill.

Citizens from across the country, donning cowboy hats, delivered to MPs’ constituency offices petitions and copies of a condemning report released by the Canadian Bar Association, encouraging their members of Parliament not to “mess up like Texas.”

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