Mollusc shells consist largely of chalk, the same soft stuff that comes apart so easily on blackboards. Yet this material provides aquatic life with protection tougher than advanced engineering ceramics. The difference can be seen at the microscopic level, where the shell is revealed as an interlocking series of small tablets, intricately connected to provide remarkable resilience.
Read More >>Three researchers at Polytechnique Montréal have published a paper that was featured as the cover story for the Wiley publication Small, which has an impact factor that puts it among the world’s leading publications covering topics in nano-scale and micro-scale chemistry, physics, materials science, engineering, medicine and biology.
Read More >>Beer brewing is one of humanity’s oldest chemical undertakings, undoubtedly dating from a prehistoric period when we first began to appreciate how to employ yeast for converting sugars and grains to alcohol.
Read More >>The advent of electronic systems that can operate at the level of quantum interactions promises to usher in an era of unprecedented computer processing speed and information storage. Before this revolution can begin, however, scientists need to make the raw materials that will go into this new equipment. This past December, the University of Waterloo opened up a laboratory to do just that.
Read More >>The same tomographic imaging technique that provides doctors and surgeons with vital views inside their patients is now being adapted to improve the performance of hydrogen fuel cells. Researchers at Simon Fraser University are working with Burnaby-based Ballard Power Systems to apply a new tool for testing and characterizing these devices.
Read More >>Radiographic images produced by X-rays have been a staple tool of medical diagnosis for many decades and this technology remains one of the health care system’s workhorses. Nevertheless, important physiological features, such as the emergence or growth of tumours, ...
Read More >>This past fall, the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) opened the Mineral Processing Pilot Plant to enhance the Canadian mining industry’s capabilities in Western Canada and beyond.
Read More >>Doing science in space is always a difficult business, where even the best laid plans suffer from the challenges of cold, vacuum and radiation.
Read More >>A team of chemists from McGill University has developed a new method for incorporating hydrophobic groups into nano-sized cubical cages made of DNA.
Read More >>Researchers at the University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus have discovered 23 new stilbenoid compounds in red wine that had previously gone unnoticed and which could be exploited for potential beneficial health benefits.
Read More >>A team including researchers from McGill University, Concordia University and the Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron have used crystallography to confirm a 50-year-old hypothesis: chains...
Read More >>An international team, including researchers at McGill University, has discovered that low-oxygen aquatic environments around the world contain dissolved manganese (III), which was previously thought to exist only in solid oxides. The finding...
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