Food for Thought
BIOCHEMISTRY
For most people, pushing the boundaries of culinary experience might mean switching to an Italian Vermentino after years devoted to drinking...
Read More >>Alberta science teacher wins Beaumier Award
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
Engaging. Exciting. Educational. These words describe the unique teaching style of the 2016 Beaumier Award for High School/Cégep Chemistry Teachers recipient Michael Ng of Paul Kane School...
Read More >>Aboriginal students learn how the Inuit use chemistry
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
For more than 10 years, Geoff Rayner-Canham, FCIC, of Grenfell Campus - Memorial University of Newfoundland and his team of students have organized and run a travelling...
Read More >>Grapevine
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
Hatch’s global lead for water and tailings management, Emily Moore, has been named one of 100 inspirational women in mining from around the globe.
Read More >>Crystal clear winners at CIC national competition
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
The Chemical Institute of Canada’s annual National Crystal Growing Competition took place over a five-week growing period from September to October last year.
Read More >>Pacifichem conference draws record attendance in Hawaii
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
The Pacifichem conference, which takes place every five years, drew a record number of delegates to Honolulu, Hawaii last Dec. 15-20.
Read More >>Carleton’s Maria DeRosa receives appointment as PAGSE chair
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
Canadian Society for Chemistry member Maria DeRosa of Carleton University was appointed chair of the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering (PAGSE) this past January.
Read More >>Overcoming teaching challenges in organic chemistry
EDUCATION
You would not think of touring a foreign country without a decent phrase book in your hip pocket or, better yet, a good grasp of the local language. Yet many chemistry students stumble into the distinctly foreign territory of organic chemistry with no such preparation.
Read More >>Greenhouse gases made to measure with new technology
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
After decades of deliberation and debate, humanity’s efforts to confront climate change remain tangled with a familiar business maxim: you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Although rising levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) within the Earth’s atmosphere have been repeatedly linked to changing weather...
Read More >>Shedding new light on cholesterol in the bloodstream
BIOCHEMISTRY
As tempting as it might be to imagine blood vessels as a network of garden hoses carrying vital agents around the body, the reality is much more subtle and complex. Although blood travels readily...
Read More >>Periodic table welcomes four new elements to the party
FUNDAMENTALS
Copies of the periodic table are found on the walls of laboratories and classrooms around the world, so when an element is added to this iconic fixture, it becomes a global story.
Read More >>Bringing an artist’s sensibility to molecular landscapes
COMMUNICATIONS
JAK-STAT is the biochemical handle for an intricate signalling pathway that cells use to receive chemical information using phosphorylated proteins. Describing this process in words is a challenging...
Read More >>Probing genomes to unearth new uses for old drugs
BIOCHEMISTRY
As much as we might want to pride ourselves on inventing drugs, nature invariably beat us to the punch. Before we got pain relief from aspirin, for example, its key ingredient salicin could be extracted...
Read More >>Reinventing the Wheel
MATERIALS CHEMISTRY
Daan Maijer points to the wheel mounted behind glass outside his University of British Columbia office and tells me why, exactly, it looks the way it does. All those cutouts and bevels and shapes have practically nothing to do with function and everything to do with looks. “About 20 percent of a person’s reaction to...
Read More >>Cyber Hack Attack
SAFETY
It was a steel plant operator’s worst nightmare — a blast furnace that could not be shut down properly. The resulting damage throughout the plant was significant, although its full extent has not been made public. The details were withheld by Germany’s federal office for information security: Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI), which...
Read More >>Numbers guru
POLICY PUNDIT
Ron Freedman contemplates reform of the Scientific Research and Experimental Development program, which hands out $4 billion in tax credits annually to companies undertaking R&D. In the research and development community of Canada, Ron Freedman is known as the numbers guru. In 1999 Freedman and a partner began tracking research and development in the corporate...
Read More >>Fossil fuel future dependent upon innovation
PETROCHEMISTRY
Fossil carbons — coal, oil, and natural gas — have become a mainstay of modern life. Their principal advantage is they are readily converted into energy (heat and electricity), transportation fuels (gasoline, diesel, etc.) and chemicals (principally fertilizers and petrochemicals). They occur in highly concentrated form but typically in remote and environmentally sensitive regions. With...
Read More >>Tough Times
CLASS DISTINCTION
Annicia Phu sports a cauliflower ear, a souvenir from her years as a competitive wrestler in high school in Calgary. Jammed fingers and bruises were also commonplace — not only in wrestling but rugby, another full-contact sport she embraced as a student. Besides being “a great way to relieve stress,” the competitions also forced Phu...
Read More >>Drug pricing can create an ethical conundrum
INTELLECTUAL MATTERS
In my previous column, I wrote that inventors are generally free to exploit their invention as a result of the state-granted monopoly that patents guarantee. In the field of medicine, however, many jurisdictions have laws or regulations that either limit the price for which the inventor can charge for the medicine or, in some cases,...
Read More >>Then and Now
HISTORY
B A. Shawinigan Ltd. may have taken creative liberties with our nation’s iconic beaver, depicting it as a dual-toned animal with a penchant for hard hats, but it was still a Canadian company through and through. Its roots lay with the British American Oil Company Ltd., created by 29-year-old Albert Leroy Ellsworth of Welland, Ont.,...
Read More >>With apples, ethylene gas can be rotten to the core
CHEMFUSION
A rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. That’s not just an old adage, it’s a scientific fact. And it all has to do with ethylene, a gas produced internally by a fruit to stimulate ripening. Basically, ethylene is a plant hormone. Our word “hormone” derives from the Greek “hormon” meaning “to set in motion” and...
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