University of British Columbia

​If you want to sense the emotion in what someone is saying, it helps if you can see their facial expressions. It's impossible, however, when news programs pixelate the faces of anonymous interviewees. Scientists have now developed a workaround, that uses AI to "paint" those people's faces instead.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have developed a new way to build solar cells containing bacteria, which are more efficient than similar systems and can even work on dim, cloudy days.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have developed a surgery-ready smart stent that keeps watch for the early warning signs of narrowing arteries, and sends out a wireless signal to alert the patient and doctors.

​Sometimes, people want to clean up polluted water, by removing spilled oil from its surface. Other times, they want to purify oil-based fuel, by removing water from it. An inexpensive new "smart" membrane created at Canada's University of British Columbia can switch between doing both.

Fresh air might not be quite as fresh as we think. Viruses and bacteria get swept up into the atmosphere in enormous amounts, and now a new study has quantified that amount, finding that untold billions of microorganisms are raining down across the Earth every day.

​That ground beef that you're buying may not be 100 percent ground beef. Sometimes, unscrupulous meat producers will mix in ground offal, in order to stretch their beef supply farther. A new technique, however, uses a laser to detect the presence of such cow innards.

​​While we may hear about ways of constructing new buildings to make them earthquake-resistant, what about all the buildings that are standing already? Well, that's where a special new concrete comes in. Sprayed onto existing walls, it allows them to withstand major tremors.​

​For some time now, crumbs of rubber from ground-up tires have been used to produce a more resilient form of asphalt. Researchers from the University of British Columbia are taking things in a different direction, however, by using polymer fibers obtained from old tires to make concrete stronger.

Manually putting up a Do Not Disturb note at work can be a hassle. With that in mind, a scientist from the University of British Columbia has invented a desktop LED light that automatically switches between green ("It's OK to talk to me") and red ("Leave me alone").​

Scientists in Canada have carried out a study looking at how marine reserves can increase the numbers of less mobile fish, finding that fishing pressures in the surrounding areas also seemed to influence how quickly that evolution occurred. ​

Why do some cocaine users become addicts while others don’t? One popular theory attributes it to poor judgement. However the accidental creation of a cocaine-resistant mouse suggests otherwise – that for some people, drug addiction might be wired into their genes. ​​

​When it comes to conditions that require patients to administer daily injections or take lots of pills, scientists are increasingly looking to drug-dispensing implants as a more convenient alternative. One of the latest such devices is activated simply by passing a magnet over the skin.