View the May/June 2013 Canadian Chemical News (ACCN) print issue as a PDF.
As the days wax longer, few of us care to dwell on the snow and ice that dominated the landscape only weeks ago. But for the scientists trying to explain and predict the movement of chemicals in our environment — from contaminants like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to atmospheric gases like ozone — snow and ice...
Read More >>The Constituent Societies of the CIC congratulate their members who are celebrating 50-years of membership in 2013: Hanspeter Alder; Howard Alper; John Apsimon; Ronald Brown; Dennis Davies; Peter Grindrod; Ross Hoyle; Matthew Hrabluk; K. Jabalpurwala; Bryan Jones; Photios Kizas; W. Larisch; John McIntosh; Anwer Mehkeri; J. Muchowski; Frederick Otto; J. J. C. Picot; Maurice Servranckx;...
Read More >>For the second year in a row, Attraction chimique has received a grant of $5,000 from the CIC’s Chemical...
Read More >>This summer, ChemEd 2013 — North America’s largest gathering of chemistry educators — will return
Read More >>In addition to those announced in our March/April issue, the following award winners will be honoured at the 96th Canadian Chemistry Conference...
Read More >>Accepting responsibility for one's work is a central tenet of being a professional — in practical application this means taking financial responsibility should there...
Read More >>Charles Lucy, a professor in the chemistry department at the University of Alberta, prepares to do a Diet-Coke-and- Mentos demonstration as part of an evening event organized by the Edmonton Local Section in March. Lucy’s presentation, called “Colour, Catalysts and Coca Cola” focused on the use of “student world examples” in teaching and public outreach...
Read More >>Laurence Meadows of Mitacs, a not-for-profit organization that funds internships and fellowships to encourage innovation, presents at a Vancouver Local Section event in...
Read More >>The Association of the Chemical Profession of Saskatchewan (ACPS) — the voice for professional chemists in Saskatchewan — held their inaugural meeting in Regina on December 8, 2012. Welcoming the announcement is Canada’s Professional Chemists, a member organization of provincial professional chemist associations and the Canadian Society for Chemistry. The ACPS is also a signatory...
Read More >>A new technique for capturing glycosylated proteins, developed by a researcher at Simon Fraser University, has provided fresh insight into the relationship between the structure and function of these biomolecules, knowledge that could advance fields from immunology to cancer research. From bacteria to humans, many cell surface proteins are decorated with glycans: sugar moieties whose...
Read More >>A clever combination of functional DNA and gold nanoparticles has produced a point-of-care diagnostic system that could allow medical workers in developing countries to achieve faster and cheaper detection of many common diseases. ...
Read More >>A new class of compounds that can fight influenza by preventing the virus from spreading has been developed by an international team led by chemists...
Read More >>A Canadian team of researchers has identified a molecule used by a bacterium to convert soluble gold ions into insoluble elemental gold. Although soluble gold ions are inhibitory to most microorganisms, two species of bacteria are known to survive in their presence. The first, Cupriavidus metallidurans, has been studied for about a decade by researchers...
Read More >>A new nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy technique developed at the University of Ottawa allows physical chemists to...
Read More >>University of Calgary researchers have developed a new family of amorphous catalysts based on iron oxide — rust — that turns water into hydrogen fuel. The innovation could improve systems for storing energy from intermittent, renewable sources like solar and wind. Currently, expensive materials like iridium or ruthenium oxide are used to overcome the activation...
Read More >>A collaboration between Harvard University and the University of Waterloo has produced a carbon nanotube-reinforced scaffold for growing cardiomyocytes — heart muscle cells — in the lab.
Read More >>A team of engineers at Université Laval has developed a new system for efficiently extracting high-value bioactive molecules — potential nutraceuticals or pharmaceuticals — from plant and animal proteins. In our gut, enzymes break up plant and animal proteins into hundreds of smaller peptides. Some of these reportedly have health benefits such as antioxidant or...
Read More >>After the March 2013 federal budget, our chemical sciences and engineering community seemed to be staying mum on what the academic research community had received. Perhaps the changes made by the Conservative government and carried out by the granting councils over the past several years were sinking in for the research community — and are...
Read More >>The discovery of new chemicals has always supported new functionalities and rising standards of living. But when it comes to applying those discoveries to industry — including resource extraction, chemical processing, biotechnology transformation and efficient product applications — public scrutiny is greater than it has ever been. The future success of the chemical industry will...
Read More >>At a recent symposium I attended, several “studentpreneurs” were showcasing their innovations which had been supported by a local technology incubator. It was heartening to see how passionate the students were about their innovations, and the determination they brought to their projects. One chemical invention particularly caught my eye, as it purportedly solved a problem...
Read More >>On my last visit to London, England I made a point of going to Waterloo station. I wasn’t interested in taking a train, I just wanted to stand at the bus stop in front of the station. I wanted to see with my own eyes the famous spot where one of the most ingenious chemical...
Read More >>From the beginning, the history of the companies that would become Canadian Industries Limited (C-I-L) have been entangled with that of the nation itself. The Hamilton Powder Company, founded in 1862, manufactured black powder — and later, dynamite — which was used in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1885 the American A....
Read More >>These days, technical skills alone do not an engineer make. Over the last decade, engineering schools across Canada have focused increasingly...
Read More >>Richard Boudreault was lying awake at night, pondering two seemingly disparate things: stomach acid ...
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