June’s strawberry full moon will light up southern Ontario skies a day after the summer solstice. Catch it while you can as it’s on its fastest orbit of the year

Unexpected diversity of light-sensing proteins goes beyond vision in frogs

This Thursday marks the first day of summer in the Northern hemisphere, the longest day of the year. Living beings have evolved over many millennia to react to varying amounts of sunlight exposure, governing everything from sleep-wake cycles, seasonal changes and more, but the proteins responsible for responding to different light environments for non-visual purposes are an underexplored area of science. New research led by a York University Faculty of Science professor and former York researcher found that frogs have maintained a shocking number, and diversity, of these light-sensing proteins, called opsins, over evolutionary time.

What you need to know about the whooping cough in Ontario

Black hole wind is speeding up, new study finds

Clouds of gas in a distant galaxy are being pushed faster and faster out among neighbouring stars by blasts of radiation from the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s centre, a discovery that helps illuminate the way active black holes can continuously shape their galaxies by spurring on or snuffing out the development of new stars.

Canada announces $6.1M for York-led international research collaborations

Three New Frontiers in Research Fund-International grants, with additional $3.2 million from partner countries, to support climate change adaptation and mitigation research in Global South, Scandinavia and Canadian Arctic 

Wild pollinators and plants evolved to rely on each other could face uncertain future

The loss of even one wild bee species can disrupt the reproductive success of certain plants resulting in fewer vegetables, fruits and flowers, say York University researchers who studied how pollinators and plants rely on each other, specifically in Indigenous gardens in the Great Lakes Region.

Sun bursts, geomagnetic storm could create conditions to see aurora borealis

At least five coronal mass ejections – bursts of plasma coming off the sun – have occurred recently prompting the first severe G4 Geomagnetic Storm Watch issued since January 2005, says York University astronomy Professor Elaina Hyde.

How long immunity lasts after COVID vaccination

COVID-19 booster immunity lasts much longer than primary series alone, York-led study shows

A new study coming out of York University’s Centre for Disease Modelling in the Faculty of Science shows that immunity after a COVID-19 booster lasts much longer than the primary series alone. These findings are among other, sometimes “unintuitive,” revelations of how factors like age, sex and comorbidities do and don’t affect immune response. 

The life aquatic: a game changer for frog vision, but little difference between night and day, York-led study finds

Frogs display a remarkable diversity of species as a whole, but does the same hold true for their visual abilities? A new study led by York’s Faculty of Science sought to answer this question by collaborating with researchers in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, French Guiana, Gabon, Seychelles, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States, to get a sample of a diverse array of frogs to study the visual pigments found in their eyes.