UBC Faculty of Applied Science appoints two Associate Deans - UBC Applied Science

The National University of Singapore (NUS) has appointed Professor Teo Chung Piaw as the new Dean for the NUS Business School and Professor Koh Lian Pin as the new Dean for the NUS Faculty of Science. Both appointments will take effect from 1 July 2026. They succeed current Deans Professor Andrew Rose and Professor Sun Yeneng respectively, who are returning to their academic pursuits at NUS. Prof Teo will relinquish his role as the Executive Director of the NUS Institute of Operations Research and Analytics (IORA) with effect from 1 July 2026. Prof Koh will continue to serve as the University’s Vice President (Sustainability and Resilience) and Chief Sustainability Scientist until 31 December 2026. He will also continue as Director of the Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions under the NUS Faculty of Science. NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye, said, "We are delighted to appoint Prof Teo Chung Piaw as Dean of NUS Business School and Prof Koh Lian Pin as Dean of the Faculty of Science.

"What makes SPRIZ so unexpected is that it uses a familiar mechanism—a tether—to do something different: it connects the two mitochondrial membranes while acting as a rigid pillar that holds them a set distance apart, so the room between them keeps a defined height," explains Dr. Luca Pellegrini, full professor at the University of Ottawa, who led the study. Credit: Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa Mitochondria are the tiny powerpacks that supply most of the energy our cells need. Their ability to generate this energy relies on a distinctive architecture: two membranes, one tucked inside the other, separated by a narrow gap called the intermembrane space (IMS). This tiny space helps sustain the chemistry of energy production, making its organization critical to how these cellular powerpacks function.

Young chimpanzees enjoy some fruit. (Martin Harvey/The Image Bank RF/Getty Images) Humans and chimpanzees are remarkably similar, despite the major differences in how our societies have panned out. After about 5-6 million years of evolution from a common ancestor, only 1.2 percent of our DNA is different. A virus that infected chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) – but not humans – about 4 million years ago is partly responsible. This ancient retrovirus made a tiny tweak to chimp DNA that has led to some major differences in how our brains develop, according to a new study published in Science Advances today. "We wanted to understand how human and chimpanzee brains could have evolved differently when so many of their protein-making genes are similar," lead author Patricia Gerdes told ScienceAlert. Gerdes is a molecular neurogeneticist at Lund University in Sweden. "We knew that ancient viruses can leave DNA behind in the genome, and those remnants can affect nearby genes," she said. "PTERV1 (Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus-1) was a particularly interesting candidate because it is found in chimpanzees and other African apes but not in humans.

This incredible composite image of Orionid meteors was captured as Earth passed through the debris trail shed by Halley's Comet.