Scientists around the world study cell cultures laid out in flat, two-dimensional (2D) arrays — a highly practical but ultimately limited way of understanding how those cells behave. “Everyone — and I mean everyone — can agree that three-dimensional (3D) tissue models are far superior...
Read More >>Our modern world continues to be built on physical foundations that would have been all too familiar to the ancient Romans: cement and concrete. These products loom large across the...
Read More >>Mollusc shells consist largely of chalk, the same soft stuff that comes apart so easily on blackboards. Yet this material provides aquatic life with protection tougher than advanced engineering ceramics. The difference can be seen at the microscopic level, where the shell is revealed as an interlocking series of small tablets, intricately connected to provide remarkable resilience.
Read More >>The extraordinary properties of superconductivity have regularly frustrated researchers, who have successfully identified it in many different materials, but always at temperatures too low for a widespread technological impact. The search for superconducting materials — which lack any resistance to electrical flow — has regularly frustrated researchers; while many such materials have been discovered, they only work at temperatures too low for widespread application.
Read More >>A handheld system developed through an India-Canada research network promises to provide on-the-spot testing of drinking water sources in more remote locations, immediately confirming the absence or presence of harmful E. coli bacteria and transmitting the results electronically to all interested parties. This approach represents a significant improvement over standard...
Read More >>The best way of applying medicines powerful enough to kill cancerous tumours is to ensure that they wind up in those tumours and nowhere else in the body. In a recent Nature Nanotechnology paper, researchers at the University of Toronto point the way to just this kind of targeted delivery, which takes advantage of the properties of gold nanoparticles.
Read More >>Thunder Bay, Ont. is home to the Resolute Forest Products laboratory and demonstration plant, where researchers can explore possible uses of lignin — along with cellulose and hemicellulose, the key biopolymers that make up wood — which is typically burned for want of any other use.
Read More >>While untold numbers of plants have carried out photosynthesis for hundreds of millions of years, the nature of this subtle process continues to elude us. Scientists are, however, focusing increasingly sophisticated tools on this problem, raising hopes that this fundamental biological activity will eventually reveal its secrets.
Read More >>Basic chemistry has seldom been better captured by Hollywood than when Tom Hanks built a fire in Castaway. Stranded alone on a desert island...
Read More >>Three researchers at Polytechnique Montréal have published a paper that was featured as the cover story for the Wiley publication Small, which has an impact factor that puts it among the world’s leading publications covering topics in nano-scale and micro-scale chemistry, physics, materials science, engineering, medicine and biology.
Read More >>Beer brewing is one of humanity’s oldest chemical undertakings, undoubtedly dating from a prehistoric period when we first began to appreciate how to employ yeast for converting sugars and grains to alcohol.
Read More >>The advent of electronic systems that can operate at the level of quantum interactions promises to usher in an era of unprecedented computer processing speed and information storage. Before this revolution can begin, however, scientists need to make the raw materials that will go into this new equipment. This past December, the University of Waterloo opened up a laboratory to do just that.
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