Research

* Implementation of graphic labels at 80% of the pack size front and back led to increased awareness of the risks of smoking *

* Ban on multiple brand presentations reduced smokers’ false beliefs that some cigarettes (e.g., “light” or “mild” cigarettes) are less harmful *

* Strong support for tobacco control policies among smokers*

Palm trees, an empty stretch of sand and a lacy fringe of surf on a turquoise sea: It is a brochure image that draws millions of work-worn people to brief vacations as pampered castaways.

Kelly is one of many researchers at the University of Waterloo closely studying how climate change will reshape civilization.

Everyone knows that the best way to beat a hangover is to avoid it in the first place.

But that still doesn’t stop many of us from reaching for that next glass of wine.

Judgment is something Mark Zanna has been studying for decades as a professor in the psychology department at the University of Waterloo.

His work on what influences the choices people make, from health warnings on cigarette packages to their views about other cultures, earned him the Killam prize in 2011, a $100,000 nod of appreciation for a lifetime of research.

You’re at a cocktail party, introducing your spouse to a colleague you haven’t seen in years. Suddenly, your brain freezes. Crickets chirp. A dog barks in the distance. Awkward.

People are more likely to believe something given as fact if it is backed up by something authoritative, such as a statistic. Jonathan Fugelsang of Waterloo’s psychology department, and Jason Ozubko of the psychology department at the University of Toronto, teamed up to publish a study that took the search for truth a step farther.

For most people, it’s a cautionary quirk, a redundancy that makes them feel safer. For some, however, it’s a trap. They do a task, such as hand-washing, over and over again, their minds caught in a debilitating loop known as an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

The new technology, which enables wireless signals to be sent and received at the same time on a single radio channel frequency, was developed by a Waterloo research team led by Amir K. Khandani, Canada Research Chair in Wireless systems.