Research

In a recent study, researchers at Waterloo’s Faculty of Science and Faculty of Engineering found that small wetlands have a more significant role to play than larger ones in preventing excess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer from reaching waterbodies such as the Great Lakes.

Excess nutrients are a primary cause of algal blooms, which have a number of impacts, including impairing drinking water quality, robbing aquatic life of needed oxygen and closing beaches to swimming.

In a study recently published in Energy, Waterloo engineers found a way to capture waste energy from service vehicles, such as buses or refrigerated food delivery trucks, as they are slowing down.

They also figured out how to use that energy to replace the fossil fuels that are currently needed to operate secondary systems, such as air conditioning or refrigeration units, when the vehicles are stopped and idling.

Heidi Fernandes, a graduate of Waterloo's School of Pharmacy

Ever since she travelled to Brazil on vacation, pharmacy student Heidi Fernandes has had a passion for global health. After graduation, she’ll be putting that passion into action.

People whose minds tend to wander are less likely to stick to their long-term goals, according to new research led by the University of Waterloo.

The research found that those who could sustain focus in day-to-day life were more likely to report maintaining perseverance and passion in their long-term objectives.

Half of all people who avoid the flu shot do so because they question its importance and effectiveness, a new study from the University of Waterloo reports.

The study reviewed Ontario health data from 2013/14, where only 34 per cent of people went to get the seasonal flu shot despite universal coverage in the province.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo will work to strengthen health care for older Canadians living with frailty with a new $2.6-million grant from the Canadian Frailty Network.

The money will fund a project that will give primary health-care providers in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta access to efficient screening tools to quickly identify patients who may be at risk for frailty. It will also give health-care providers access to an online platform to initiate referrals and co-ordinate care with other providers.

The study’s findings shed light on a tax planning strategy that is not currently focused on by governments, which tend to focus their efforts on firms who move their money from countries with higher taxes to lower tax-rate countries to save.

“Governments expend considerable effort to prevent their tax bases from being eroded by companies moving their money offshore,” said Ken Klassen, the study’s author and an accounting and finance professor at Waterloo. “This insight could help tax authorities better target their efforts,”.

A recent advancement in microscope imaging technology at the University of Waterloo could soon make diagnosing disease more accessible and affordable.

The advancement, developed by Waterloo researchers Farnoud Kazemzadeh and Alexander Wong, has led to a new form of spectral light-fusion microscope for capturing lightfield images in full-colour. Full-colour images are required in pathology as it enables the microscope user to analyze the behaviour and interactions of different organisms at a scale that much larger than traditional microscopes.

As global leaders react to President Donald Trump pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, a Waterloo researcher says Canadians need a positive vision of the future in order to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon energy system.