Remittances are not always about hardship. Sometimes, the money arrives ahead of a celebration. Each year, Rahim sends part of his Dubai salary home to Dhaka ahead of Eid. He works ten-hour days at a logistics warehouse. At night, he returns to a small, shared apartment. He takes online business classes and hopes for a […]
In my last post, I described the dangers of charging a freezing cold lithium-ion battery and promised to review the regulations meant to protect us from such hazards. So, let’s do that. While science can explain how an e-bike battery can ignite in an apartment, policies should explain how we ensure it never does. In […]
In my last blog post, we talked about the science of cancer heterogeneity and how it can help explain why therapies don’t work the same for everyone. But what about cancer recurrence? It can look like a treatment has been successful on the outside. The tumours have disappeared and the scans are clear. However, if […]
In my first OpenThink blog post, I mentioned that my research focuses on Canada’s Old Age Security (OAS) and Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and their impact on the well-being of older adults. Then, in my second post, I explained Canada’s retirement income system, including OAS and GIS. But if you look carefully at my research […]
Over the past few weeks, I have been consumed by packing and preparing for a move. We’re not moving far—it’s almost comically close, just around the block—but that doesn’t diminish the amount of work required. I’m no stranger to this work, having moved three times in the past two years. Every time I start making […]
Much of my research over the past several years has focused on alternative crisis response models, a broad and increasingly common term for approaches to crisis response that seek to reduce (or remove) reliance on police. Alternative crisis response is not one universal model. In fact, one of the first things you learn when studying […]
A culture and sensitivity report, as I described in my last blog post, can come back as a column of Rs: resistant across all tested antibiotics. This tells us that a bacterium is resistant, but not why. It also does not name the gene responsible. To find those answers, researchers turn to the bacterium’s DNA. […]
A lot of remittance stories begin with something going wrong. Floods. Failed harvests. Illnesses. Funerals. Bills arriving at exactly the wrong moment. In the Philippines, José, who works construction in Qatar, gets photos from his younger sister after monsoon flooding damages the family home. Water sits in the living room. Hairline cracks spread slowly across […]
In my previous post, I discussed why financial security in later life matters for older adults, regardless of their work history, whether they have worked only for part of their lives or have never worked at all in a paid job. I also briefly talked about my research, which focuses on the impact of Canada’s Old Age Security (OAS) and Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) on the well-being of older adults. Before […]
Childhood experiences can shape our mental and physical health for decades. But how do researchers actually measure something as personal and complex as childhood trauma? Adverse childhood experiences (aka ACEs) encompass a range of highly stressful and potentially traumatic events occurring during childhood, such as abuse, neglect and household dysfunction. For nearly 30 years, one questionnaire has shaped how researchers, healthcare providers and policymakers answer that question. It’s called […]