What’s the buzz?
ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY
As insects go, bees undoubtedly lead the polls of popular opinion. While most...
Read More >>RSC fetes outstanding Canadian chemists and chemical engineers
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
This past September, The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) announced that Paul Ayers, FCIC, an associate professor of chemistry at McMaster University, is this year’s winner of the Rutherford Memorial Medal for outstanding research in physics and chemistry.
Read More >>CSChE and CGCEN 2014 award winners announced
RECOGNITION
The Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE) and Canadian Green Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Network (CGCEN) have announced the award winners for 2014. Official presentations took place this past October at the 64th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference...
Read More >>CIC recommends additional funding for infrastructure
ADVOCACY
As part of its ongoing commitment to advocacy, the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) Board of Directors submitted a Brief this past summer to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA). CIC recommendations included: targeted fellowship...
Read More >>Tracking the chemical fracking controversy
ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY
The line of wheat waving in a field in the Alberta countryside is broken abruptly by a dark earthen wall. Packed in behind this berm are more than a dozen...
Read More >>Grapevine
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
Robin Rogers of McGill University has been appointed to the latest Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Green Chemistry and Green Chemicals. Rogers comes to Canada from The University of...
Read More >>Alberta oil sands column rankles ACCN reader
LETTER
I noted with astonishment the column “Oil sands phase-out may be Canada’s greatest contribution to the world” in the Sept-Oct, 2014 issue of the Canadian Chemical News (ACCN). Frankly, I am equally surprised by the call for a “phase-out” of the Canadian oil sands. Who are the scientists you claim to have concluded that “fossil fuels must remain in, or return to, the ground if we are to address global warming…?”
Read More >>Student symposium supports self-assembly community
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
The annual Centre for Self-Assembled Chemical Structures (CSACS) Student Symposium took place this past September at the Université de Montréal. The event, which marked its 10th anniversary, brought together more than 100 faculty, students and post docs from CSACS-member...
Read More >>Public embrace of hydrogen vital to its future
LETTER
I read with interest the Letter to the Editor by Nigel Bunce, “Hydrogen is an energy currency, not an energy source,” in the Sept-Oct issue of the Canadian Chemical News (ACCN).
Read More >>Book explores global advances in chemical safety standards
EDUCATION
This December marks the 30th anniversary of a grim milestone for the world’s chemical industry — the accidental release of methyl isocyanate gas from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, which killed about 4,000 people and severely compromised the health of thousands more.
Read More >>Ordering of magnetic properties run hot and cold
MATERIALS SCIENCE
Given how much information we regularly store in magnetic form on everything from computer hard disks to credit card strips, researchers are increasingly interested in the stability of magnetic properties in materials. Mary Anne White, a chemist at Dalhousie University...
Read More >>‘Lazy man’ mineral processing better for environment
FUNDAMENTALS
Tomislav Friscic calls it “lazy man’s chemistry.” At the 23rd Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography in Montreal this past August, Friscic, a McGill University chemist, described experiments where he combined simple, mineral-like metal oxides...
Read More >>Marine natural products research threatened
ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY
The need for new biologically active compounds with applications as pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals is undeniable. In the very near future, there is a serious risk that a significant number...
Read More >>Then and Now
HISTORY
Few modern companies have roots reaching back to the Renaissance. Merck, the oldest pharmaceutical company in the world, is one of them. The company was created in 1668 by German...
Read More >>New technology promises to slake a mighty Yukon thirst
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
The Yukon may be most famous for gold, but water is among its other treasures. For mining companies that are developing operations in some of the territory’s more isolated corners, that includes drinking water for the dozens of people who may be working at any given site.
Read More >>Most innovations are potentially patentable
INTELLECTUAL MATTERS
In my prior column, I wrote how some businesses in Canada are failing to protect and extract value from the intellectual property they are generating. In fact, it’s possible that...
Read More >>Innovative technology could spell the end of toxic red mud
TECHNIQUES
A Quebec firm has solved a critical challenge for the aluminium industry, earning the 2014 Canadian Green Chemistry and Engineering Award (CSA Group Award for Organizations) from the Chemical Institute...
Read More >>Polymeric links in ancient resin perplex researchers
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Amber, a relatively simple resin secreted by trees, is among nature’s sturdiest and perhaps most elegant compounds. It is tough enough to withstand millions of years’ worth of environmental abuse, yet it remains capable of capturing light in a gem-like fashion suitable for jewelry.
Read More >>Can an apple a day keep the bad science away?
CHEMFUSION
Did Eve eat an apple to have a better sex life with Adam? One might come to that conclusion after reading a paper published in the Archives of Gynecology and...
Read More >>Something fishy with nanotechnology?
NANOTECHNOLOGY
Nanotech: Think big by thinking small. That could be nanotechnology’s tagline, if indeed this hot area of science needed a cool slogan — which it doesn’t. That’s because nanotech is...
Read More >>Photonic chips the last frontier for fibre optics
PHOTONIC CHEMISTRY
As the hardware in communications systems has progressed from copper wires to fibre optic cables, the acceleration of data transfer speed has been profound. No one with access to fibre would ever want to go back to copper connections, but there is still one place we are stuck with them...
Read More >>Finding laboratory chemicals through the classified ads
EDUCATION
In laboratories around the world, researchers regularly pay top dollar for specialized materials to conduct their work. Afterward, any leftovers usually go into storage, where all too often they remain...
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