Randy Mikula: Trading Water for Oil - Tailings Management in Surface-Mined Oil Sands About 12 barrels of water are needed to produce each barrel of bitumen from surface mined oil sands. Most of this water can be recycled, but a significant portion forms a mud-like suspension called fluid fine tailings. These tailings are stored in […]

Dr. Chris Metcalfe: What are we flushing down the drain? Assessing the hazards of pharmaceuticals and personal care products There are a variety of chemicals that we flush down the drain that wind-up passing through municipal wastewater treatment plants and into rivers and lakes. These chemicals include products such as cosmetics, shampoos and toothpaste, as […]

Dr. Eleanor Fish: Se préparer à la prochaine pandémie : comment pouvons-nous avoir le dessus sur les nouvelles maladies Les infections virales émergentes constituent une menace importante pour la santé humaine. Prises ensemble, les trois grandes épidémies de grippe qui ont sévi au cours du siècle dernier ont tué plus de personnes que n’importe quelle […]

Dr. Kevin Englehart: Bionic Limbs - from science fiction to reality Advances in capturing and processing the signals from undamaged nerves are opening the door to prosthetic devices that permit a stunningly fine level of control. Today’s speaker will explain the scientific and engineering basis of these revolutionary new human-machine interfaces and present a short […]

Dr. Bryan Kolb: Understanding the plastic brain Although once considered a static organ, the brain continually rewires its structure and function to adapt to very different environmental, cultural, and developmental conditions. Consider, for example, the very different demands on the brain of an airline pilot, lawyer, musician, and pipe fitter. Each has a complex set […]

Dr. Jeffrey Dahn: Are Batteries and Fuel Cells ready for All-Electric Vehicles? Hybrid electric vehicles have arrived, but they lack a substantial all-electric range. The anticipated next generation of “plug-in” hybrids, however, will have batteries that can deliver up to 60 km of all-electric driving. They will potentially eliminate the consumption of gasoline on short […]

Dr. Bridget Stutchbury: When the canary dies Migratory songbirds are experiencing one of the most spectacular declines in numbers of all animal species. It is a sobering thought that Rachel Carson's conservation landmark book, Silent Spring, fingered agricultural chemicals as a likely cause as far back as 1962. Yet in the ensuing decades, pesticide use […]

Dr. Marc St-Onge: Hot prospects in the cold: the new Geological Map of the Arctic The newly-released Geological Map of the Arctic shows that Canada’s North is much more than just a map of frozen land and ocean. The map is an embodiment of our history, and a record of the planet that spans four […]

Dr. Victoria Kaspi: The Violent High Energy Universe A glance at the night sky during a quiet walk in the dark countryside suggests that our cosmos is calm and largely unchanging. However, X-ray space telescopes reveal a radically different Universe – one of enormous thermonuclear explosions, jets spewing from super massive black holes, and giant […]

Francis A. Plummer: University of Manitoba and National Microbiology Laboratory (Winnipeg), Public Health Agency of Canada In recent decades, more than 40 new or newly recognized diseases have emerged, largely from animal populations, to become local challenges or major pandemics like swine flu. At the same time, familiar diseases have evolved antibiotic resistance or other […]

Dr. David G. Barber: Climate Change and Arctic Sea Ice: So what is all the fuss about? People are becoming increasingly aware that something unusual is happening in the Arctic. The media is full of headlines concerning reductions in sea ice, the opening of northern waterways and the introduction of new species into northern ecosystems. […]