Free love at UBC
A group of students at the University of British Columbia are giving out free hugs to make others smile. Juan Mann started the Free Hugs Campaign in Australia over two years ago. The Campaign for Free Hugs Facebook group boasts over 10,000 members.
Coke deal controversy
The University of Alberta Students Union is currently debating the renewal of an exclusive contract with Coke. Coke’s monetary incentives are needed by the school, but opponents cite human rights and environmental abuses by the company as reasons to nix the deal.
York gunplay leads to arrest
At York last week, a student was arrested after voicing opinions on campus racial profiling and waving what appeared to be a gun. Bystanders say he was proving a point by getting himself arrested, and that he was of no threat to others. Police maintain that the possible weapon forced them to act.
Millet made China
The ancient farming practices of the early Neolithic Chinese may seem irrelevant to the development of a central government, but for one of the world’s earliest state-level societies, the sequence in which crops were introduced was essential. Using radiocarbon dating of seeds gathered at sites around the Yilou valley, UTM archeologists recently published a paper detailing the sequence of agricultural crops from 6000 BC to 1300 BC. Their research has found that millet, a grain now fed to birds, was an essential crop for the fledgling Chinese society, and the cultivation of rice and wheat around 2000 BC allowed for the expansion and success of the state-level society.
