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 >>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...
Read More >>In liquid form, life-saving agents such as vaccines can be notoriously unstable, often requiring refrigeration or other support systems to preserve them long enough to reach patients in need. International aid missions can easily be foiled by simple...
Read More >>Materials that function on a nanometre scale are a practical reality for Vancouver-based STEMCELL Technologies Inc., which relies on them to contain and handle the sensitive cell lines. Dozens of other firms across Canada are also making use of such nanomaterials
Read More >>Automobile manufacturers have well-established technology for adding an oxygen molecule to the toxic carbon monoxide from vehicles’ tailpipes, so that the output instead consists of CO2. Unfortunately, this active catalytic oxidation does not come chea...
Read More >>Fourteen years ago, David Robertson of Delta, British Columbia was holidaying in Ontario when he stopped at a small antique shop in the community of Bala, two hours north of Toronto in cottage country. An unsigned 1912 oil painting caught his attention.
Read More >>While the industrialized countries of the world eagerly seek ways to cut back on their energy consumption, developing nations face a different challenge — ramping up their energy output as...
Read More >>The stubborn polymer assortment of aromatic alcohols known as lignin continues to be a key factor limiting the efficiency of pulp and paper production. Although it gives physical strength to...
Read More >>In one of many assassination attempts on Grigori Rasputin, the early 20th century Russian mystic and political adviser to the House of Romanov, sweet pastries were laced with cyanide, which he nevertheless survived eating.
Read More >>As Canadian universities and hospitals continue to outfit themselves with the technology to work with radioisotopes for research or medical activities, there will be an ongoing demand for the expertise to carry out this work.
Read More >>Queen’s University chemistry professor Cathleen Crudden admits that neither she nor her Department of Chemistry colleague Hugh Horton had any commercial applications in mind when they began their work into the reaction of carbon-based ligands called ca
Read More >>Using a technique that University of Alberta mechanical engineering professor Dan Sameoto compares to a panini sandwich press, pellets of thermoplastic elastomers are squashed onto a substrate to form an innovative adhesive that mimics the sticky feet
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