Close to five million smuggled seahorses worth an estimated CAD$29 million were seized by authorities over a 10-year span, according to a new study that warns the scale of the trade is far larger than current data suggest.

Published today in Conservation Biology, the study analyzed online seizure records from 2010 to 2021 and found smuggling incidents in 62 countries, with dried seahorses, widely used in traditional medicine, most commonly intercepted at airports in passenger baggage or shipped in sea cargo.

“The nearly 300 seizures we analyzed were based only on online records and voluntary disclosures including government notices and news stories. This means that what we’re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg,” said first author Dr. Sarah Foster, research associate at UBC’s Project Seahorse and focal point for trade in the International Union for Conservation of Nature global expert group on seahorses and their relatives.

Many parents know that infants love to be sung to; however, there is limited prior research to show the long-term effects on parental singing. In a new study, researchers explored whether using a music enrichment intervention program to encourage parents to sing more frequently to their babies could improve the health of both infants and caregivers (as with skin-to-contact). This research was featured in a new Child Development article with authors from Yale University (United States), the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), the University of Auckland (New Zealand), McGill University (Canada), Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell (United States) and Princeton University (United States). The findings suggest that simple, low-cost interventions, such as increasing infant-directed singing, have the potential to improve health outcomes for both infants and caregivers. 

- EBC-129 is the first made-in-Singapore antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) to enter clinical development. It selectively targets a tumour-specific N-glycosylated epitope on both CEACAM5 and CEACAM6. 

- The Fast Track Designation highlights the potential of EBC-129 to address critical unmet needs in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

- Updated clinical data from the ongoing Phase 1 study of EBC-129 will be presented at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).