Coffee chemistry — good to the last drop!
CHEMFUSION
Caffeine can make you jittery. It can keep you awake. And it can make you pee more often. This much we know for sure. But as for other allegations against...
Read More >>Canadian universities need re-schooling
POLICY PUNDIT
Wendy Cukier, vice-president research and innovation at Ryerson University, says that universities need to focus on the employability of their graduates. Ryerson University in Toronto is different from many Canadian...
Read More >>Teach the chemical sciences like a superhero
EDUCATION
Hey Ms P.L., if you could be a superhero based on an element in the periodic table, who would you be?” Hardly the ground-breaking, significant question a teacher might want...
Read More >>Company trade secrets a high-stakes game
INTELLECTUAL MATTERS
Espionage. Double agents. Betrayal. Theft. While I could be describing the latest James Bond film, these elements were all part of a trade secret lawsuit in the United States involving...
Read More >>An economist’s take on Canadian science
POLICY PUNDIT
In Alberta, ATB Financial is a household name and so is Todd Hirsch, its chief economist. What makes ATB Financial well known in the province is the wide range of...
Read More >>Trade secrets can protect better than patents
INTELLECTUAL MATTERS
I love sushi, especially when it comes with a large heap of wasabi. What, you may ask, does this have to do with chemistry? Well, not much actually, although I...
Read More >>1951 Chemistry in Canada
HISTORY
Spectrochemical analysis, which is an integral instrument in many university and industrial chemistry laboratories, rests — like so many modern-day innovations — upon the shoulders of giants. The giant, in...
Read More >>Opium and laudanum history’s wonder drugs
PHARMACEUTICALS
Victor Frankenstein, who incidentally was a medical student and not a doctor, was very disturbed when the creature he created killed his friend Henry Clerval. Unable to sleep, he dosed...
Read More >>The science network
POLICY PUNDIT
Alan Bernstein, head of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, calls for greater involvement from the private sector to ensure our nation stays abreast of rapid advances in the technology...
Read More >>NSERC brings companies and researchers together
RESEARCH
Innovation is the bread and butter of chemists. Chemistry is a central science and our discoveries are innovation drivers in almost every field. Yet, many chemistry researchers appear to struggle...
Read More >>I call the next chemistry professor to the stand
INTELLECTUAL MATTERS
If I had to, I would estimate that more than 50 percent of all patent litigation in Canada involves chemical subject matter. That shouldn’t come as a shock; chemistry, after...
Read More >>1951 Chemistry in Canada
HISTORY
In 1901, Thomas Leopold Willson, Canadian inventor of the calcium carbide manufacturing process, created the Shawinigan Carbide Company. The facility was located near Shawinigan Falls, Que., benefitting from the surplus...
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