Newsmakers

A new generation of visible minorities in Canada is less likely to tolerate the kind of unspoken racism that persists in this country, said Dr. Francis Adu-Febiri (sociology), in a Globe and Mail series on "The New Canada" (July 1). Minority children of immigrant parents, he says, "see themselves as involuntary minorities and full Canadians" and will be less tolerant of intolerance than their parents' generation.

Alternative logging practices employed by Weyerhauser and other companies on southern Vancouver Island attempt to minimize the damage to ecosystems by cutting smaller swaths of land and leaving more trees behind than logging practices of decades past. But, according to Dr. Neville Winchester (biology), such efforts still aren't enough. Winchester was speaking to the Seattle Times (June 2) about how cutting coastal old-growth forests affects hundreds of insect species that live in the tree canopy. When forests are cut, he says, "there's nowhere for [the insects] to go to colonize. You're going to lose significant parts of the ecosystem."

"We're constantly having to change our theories and understandings of how planetary systems are formed," said Dr. Colin Scarfe (physics & astronomy), in a National Post story (June 4) about the recent discovery of nine new moons of Jupiter. Scarfe says that the ever-changing nature of astronomy is "a good thing because it puts ourselves in context of the universe."