BC Journalism students win documentary Emmy
Journalism students from the University of British Columbia have been awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a News Magazine for a documentary they filmed. The documentary, Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground, focused on the shipment of electronic waste and aired on PBS in June. Thanks to a $1 million donation from the Mindset Social Innovation Foundation, the students were able to travel to locations like India and Ghana during the filming process in 2008. The 10 graduate students are the first ever Emmy-winners from a Canadian journalism school, although their professor, Peter Klein, had already won an Emmy for his work as a producer on 60 Minutes. The announcement was made at the 31st annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Sept. 27.
Facebook okays breastfeeding paintings, but not photos
Facebook has restored the account of B.C. artist Kate Hansen after removing her for three days for posting a photo of herself breastfeeding a child. While she regained access to her page on Saturday, the photograph in question had been removed from the site, the CBC has reported. Hansen’s own paintings, which also frequently feature women breastfeeding, remained on her account despite previously being removed on at least one other occasion last April. Facebook allegedly justified the removal of the art saying that the paintings went against their “posting policies.”
Grunting offers tennis players an advantage
New research out of Canada and the U.S. is showing that there’s more to tennis grunts than just annoying TV viewers. University of British Columbia and University of Hawaii researchers have found that the noises players make during tennis matches may actually slow down the response time of their opponents, and make their returns less accurate. To test the theory, 33 UBC students watched video of a player hitting the ball and had to quickly say which direction it would be headed. Essentially the hits that were accompanied by grunts drew slower reactions, and less accurate guesses from the study’s participants. Based on these findings, we can only assume that hockey and soccer players will soon begin grunting as they wind up for a slapshot or prepare to kick a ball.
Pigs block highway in Toronto
Some 250 pigs (actual pigs, not police) got one last chance to avoid the slaughterhouse when the tractor trailer carrying them overturned on highway 427 in Toronto. At around 4:30 a.m. Monday, the tractor trailer drove onto one of the ramps leading off of the highway when it flipped, allowing 60 of the 235 pigs loose on the highway, forcing the exit to be closed until around noon that day. The pigs, who were on the way to the abattoir and slated to become food, reportedly gave police and firefighters a rough time when they attempted to round them up. The 26-year-old tractor driver, who was uninjured in accident, was charged by the Ontario Provincial Police for careless driving.
