A&S scholars sharing their expertise in the media this week

Scholars from a range of disciplines across the Faculty of Arts & Science are sharing their expertise on a variety of issues in the media — from the question of the impact of climate change on weather to links between food security, transit and urban planning.

Here’s some of what A&S scholars had to say this week.

July 17, 2020

• Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology assistant professor Chelsea Rochman describes sterilization practices in her lab in a Globe and Mail op-ed exploring microfibres and microplastics pollution.

July 18, 2020

• Professor Miriam Diamond in the Department of Earth Sciences speaks about climate change as a factor in recent weather events across North America in the Toronto Star (paywall). “The climate forecast models are predicting overall increased heat, overall increased extreme weather. Even climate modellers have been taken aback by the speed at which the globe is heating up,” Diamond says.
• Renée Hložek, an assistant professor in the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, comments on new research that puts the age of the universe at 13.77 billion years old in a CBC News story.

July 20, 2020

• Lynette Ong, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, speaks about China’s challenge with balancing the risk of COVID-19 infections with easing lockdown restrictions in the Nikkei Asian Review. “When people are fighting wars, I think people are more willing to accept coercive measures," Ong says. "But you can't put people in a war mode over a prolonged period of time."
• Professor Eyal de Lara in the Department of Computer Science speaks about the COVIDFREE@Home app he helped develop that monitors COVID-19 patients while recovering at home. “A big part of being at home with COVID is that people are very anxious,” says de Lara in the Toronto Star (paywall). “This can help reassure someone they are doing well.” 

July 22, 2020

• In a podcast about a 1999 homicide rebroadcast on CBC Radio’s The Current (listen at 47:00), professor Morgan Barense in the Department of Psychology speaks about the complexity of long-term memory and the capacity for the human brain to reconstruct decades-old information.
• Department of Physics professor Aephraim Steinberg describes new research that may deepen the understanding of quantum physics in Wired.
• Clementine Van Effenterre, an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, discusses the link between the reopening of schools and the post-COVID-19 economic recovery in an episode of the Financial Post’s Down to Business podcast. “It’s very clear right now that the issue of childcare is not an issue only for women or as a personal problem, but is an economy question,” Van Effenterre says.

July 23, 2020

• Professor Donna Orwin in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures contributes to a discussion about Russian author Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace on the BBC World Service’s The Forum.
• Department of Geography & Planning assistant professor Michael Widener describes how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed challenges with relying on public transit for grocery shopping in the Toronto Star (paywall). “The city has really turned to the car in this moment for people to continue to enjoy the things prior to the pandemic and it shone a light on what it means to be without a car and be transit dependent,” he says. “It really increased the gap between those who have a car and those who don’t.”