Tag Archives: BC

High speed rail link for Cascadia Innovation Corridor

In a Feb. 28, 2017 posting I featured an announcement about what I believe is the first  project from the British Columbia (province of Canada) and Washington State (US) government’s joint Cascadia Innovation Corridor initiative:  the Cascadia Analytics Cooperative, During the telephone press conference a couple of the participants joked about hyperloop (transportation pods in vacuum tubes) and  being able to travel between Vancouver (Canada) and Seattle (US) in minutes. It seems that might not have been quite the joke I assumed. Kenneth Chan in an Aug. 14, 2017 posting for the Daily Hive announced a high-speed rail feasibility study is underway (Note: Links have been removed),

According to KUOW public radio, the study began in late-July and will be conducted by a consultant at a cost of US$300,000 – down from the budgeted USD$1 million when the study was first announced earlier this year in Governor Jay Inslee’s proposed state budget. The budget bill proposed Washington State stations at locations such as Bellingham, Everett, SeaTac International Airport, Tacoma, Olympia, and Vancouver, Washington.

The idea has received the full backing of Washington State-based Microsoft, which supported the study with an additional $50,000 contribution. [emphasis mine] Engineering consultancy firm CH2M, which has offices in Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland, has been contracted to perform the study.

Interest in such a rail link is spurred from the Cascadia Innovation Corridor agreement signed by the government leaders of BC and Washington State last fall. The agreement committed both jurisdictions to growing the Vancouver-Seattle corridor into a tech corridor and innovation hub and improving transportation connections, such as high-speed rail.

“Why not a high speed train from Vancouver to Seattle to Portland? If we lived in Europe it would already be there,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer, at a recent Portland conference on regional policy. “We need to raise our sights and our ambition level as a region.”

Microsoft is very interested in facilitating greater ease of movement, a development which causes me to to feel some unease as mentioned in my February 28, 2017 posting,

I look forward to hearing more about the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative and the Cascadia Innovation Corridor as they develop. This has the potential to be very exciting although I do have some concerns such as MIcrosoft and its agendas, both stated and unstated. After all, the Sept. 2016 meeting was convened by Microsoft and its public affairs/lobbying group and the topic was innovation, which is code for business and as hinted earlier, business is not synonymous with social good. Having said that I’m not about to demonize business either. I just think a healthy dose of skepticism is called for. Good things can happen but we need to ensure they do.

Since February 2017, the government in British Columbia has changed hands and is now led by James Horgan of the New Democratic Party. Like Christy Clark and the Liberals before them, this provincial government does not have any science policy, a ministry of science (senior or junior), or any evidence of independent science advice. There has been (and may still be, it’s hard to tell) a Premier’s Technology Council, a BC Innovation Council (formerly the Science Council of BC), and #BCTECH Strategy which hie more to business and applied science than an inclusive ‘science strategy’ with attendant government agencies.

Café Scientifique (Vancouver, Canada) November 29, 2016 talk: Climate change and moving mountains

Vancouver (Canada) Café Scientifique’s next talk is at Yagger’s Downtown (433 W. Pender). From the November 19, 2016 notice received via email,

Our next café will happen on Tuesday November 29th, 7:30pm in the back room at Yagger’s Downtown (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Michèle Koppes, from the Department of Geography at UBC. The title of her talk is:

Can climate change move mountains?

Climate change is causing more than warmer oceans and erratic weather. It can also change the shape of the planet. Glaciers are a fundamental link between climate and the tectonic and surface processes that create topography. Mountain ranges worldwide have undergone large-scale modification due the erosive action of ice, yet the mechanisms that control the timing of this modification and the rate by which ice erodes remain poorly understood. We find a wide range of erosion rates from individual ice masses over varying timescales, suggesting that modern erosion rates exceed long-term averages by two to three orders of magnitude. We also see that glaciers in Patagonia erode 1000 times faster than they do in Antarctica today. These modern rates are likely due to the dynamic acceleration of these ice masses as air and ocean temperatures warmed and they retreated over the past few decades. The repercussions of this erosion add to the already complex effects of climate change in polar and high mountain regions. Shrinking and accelerating glaciers destabilize slopes upstream, increasing the risk of landslides, and deposit more sediment in downstream basins, potentially impacting fisheries, dams and access to clean freshwater in mountain communities. And the dramatic increase in modern erosion rates suggest that glaciers in the Canadian Arctic, one of the most rapidly warming regions in the world, are on the brink of a major shift that will see them speeding up and eroding faster as temperatures warm above 0ºC.

Michele Koppes is an Assistant Professor in Geography at UBC, a Canada Research Chair Tier II in Landscapes of Climate Change, a faculty affiliate at IRES and a Senior TED Fellow. Her passion is forensic geomorphology: the art of reading landscapes to decipher the forces that shaped them.  Her particular expertise is in glaciers, and their impact in shaping mountains and polar regions at a variety of time scales, from last year to the last million years. Her research focus is two-fold: to determine the efficacy of glaciers as agents of erosion, and to determine the climatic and oceanic drivers of glaciations in high mountains and coastal settings. She has current field projects in high places all over the world, from BC to Patagonia, Alaska, the Himalayas, Greenland and Antarctica, where her team combines detailed field observations with numerical modeling of ice-ocean dynamics and glacier mass balance.

Have fun!

A study in contrasts: innovation and education strategies in US and British Columbia (Canada)

It’s always interesting to contrast two approaches to the same issue, in this case, innovation and education strategies designed to improve the economies of the United States and of British Columbia, a province in Canada.

One of the major differences regarding education in the US and in Canada is that the Canadian federal government, unlike the US federal government, has no jurisdiction over the matter. Education is strictly a provincial responsibility.

I recently wrote a commentary (a Jan. 19, 2016 posting) about the BC government’s Jan. 18, 2016 announcement of its innovation strategy in a special emphasis on the education aspect. Premier Christy Clark focused largely on the notion of embedding courses on computer coding in schools from K-12 (kindergarten through grade 12) as Jonathon Narvey noted in his Jan. 19, 2016 event recap for Betakit,

While many in the tech sector will be focused on the short-term benefits of a quick injection of large capital [a $100M BC Tech Fund as part of a new strategy was announced in Dec. 2015 but details about the new #BCTECH Strategy were not shared until Jan. 18, 2016], the long-term benefits for the local tech sector are being seeded in local schools. More than 600,000 BC students will be getting basic skills in the K-12 curriculum, with coding academies, more work experience electives and partnerships between high school and post-secondary institutions.

Here’s what I had to say in my commentary (from the Jan. 19, 2016 posting),

… the government wants to embed  computer coding into the education system for K-12 (kindergarten to grade 12). One determined reporter (Canadian Press if memory serves) attempted to find out how much this would cost. No answer was forthcoming although there were many words expended. Whether this failure was due to ignorance (disturbing!) or a reluctance to share (also disturbing!) was impossible to tell. Another reporter (Georgia Straight) asked about equipment (coding can be taught with pen and paper but hardware is better). … Getting back to the reporter’s question, no answer was forthcoming although the speaker was loquacious.

Another reporter asked if the government had found any jurisdictions doing anything similar regarding computer coding. It seems they did consider other jurisdictions although it was claimed that BC is the first to strike out in this direction. Oddly, no one mentioned Estonia, known in some circles as E-stonia, where the entire school system was online by the late 1990s in an initiative known as the ‘Tiger Leap Foundation’ which also supported computer coding classes in secondary school (there’s more in Tim Mansel’s May 16, 2013 article about Estonia’s then latest initiative to embed computer coding into grade school.) …

Aside from the BC government’s failure to provide details, I am uncomfortable with what I see as an overemphasis on computer coding that suggests a narrow focus on what constitutes a science and technology strategy for education. I find the US approach closer to what I favour although I may be biased since they are building their strategy around nanotechnology education.

The US approach had been announced in dribs and drabs until recently when a Jan. 26, 2016 news item on Nanotechnology Now indicated a broad-based plan for nanotechnology education (and computer coding),

Over the past 15 years, the Federal Government has invested over $22 billion in R&D under the auspices of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) to understand and control matter at the nanoscale and develop applications that benefit society. As these nanotechnology-enabled applications become a part of everyday life, it is important for students to have a basic understanding of material behavior at the nanoscale, and some states have even incorporated nanotechnology concepts into their K-12 science standards. Furthermore, application of the novel properties that exist at the nanoscale, from gecko-inspired climbing gloves and invisibility cloaks, to water-repellent coatings on clothes or cellphones, can spark students’ excitement about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

An earlier Jan. 25, 2016 White House blog posting by Lisa Friedersdorf and Lloyd Whitman introduced the notion that nanotechnology is viewed as foundational and a springboard for encouraging interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers while outlining several formal and information education efforts,

The Administration’s updated Strategy for American Innovation, released in October 2015, identifies nanotechnology as one of the emerging “general-purpose technologies”—a technology that, like the steam engine, electricity, and the Internet, will have a pervasive impact on our economy and our society, with the ability to create entirely new industries, create jobs, and increase productivity. To reap these benefits, we must train our Nation’s students for these high-tech jobs of the future. Fortunately, the multidisciplinary nature of nanotechnology and the unique and fascinating phenomena that occur at the nanoscale mean that nanotechnology is a perfect topic to inspire students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

The Nanotechnology: Super Small Science series [mentioned in my Jan. 21, 2016 posting] is just the latest example of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)’s efforts to educate and inspire our Nation’s students. Other examples include:

The announcement about computer coding and courses being integrated in the US education curricula K-12 was made in US President Barack Obama’s 2016 State of the Union speech and covered in a Jan. 30, 2016 article by Jessica Hullinger for Fast Company,

In his final State Of The Union address earlier this month, President Obama called for providing hands-on computer science classes for all students to make them “job ready on day one.” Today, he is unveiling how he plans to do that with his upcoming budget.

The President’s Computer Science for All Initiative seeks to provide $4 billion in funding for states and an additional $100 million directly to school districts in a push to provide access to computer science training in K-12 public schools. The money would go toward things like training teachers, providing instructional materials, and getting kids involved in computer science early in elementary and middle school.

There are more details in the Hullinger’s article and in a Jan. 30, 2016 White House blog posting by Megan Smith,

Computer Science for All is the President’s bold new initiative to empower all American students from kindergarten through high school to learn computer science and be equipped with the computational thinking skills they need to be creators in the digital economy, not just consumers, and to be active citizens in our technology-driven world. Our economy is rapidly shifting, and both educators and business leaders are increasingly recognizing that computer science (CS) is a “new basic” skill necessary for economic opportunity and social mobility.

CS for All builds on efforts already being led by parents, teachers, school districts, states, and private sector leaders from across the country.

Nothing says one approach has to be better than the other as there’s usually more than one way to accomplish a set of goals. As well, it’s unfair to expect a provincial government to emulate the federal government of a larger country with more money to spend. I just wish the BC government (a) had shared details such as the budget allotment for their initiative and (b) would hint at a more imaginative, long range view of STEM education.

Going back to Estonia one last time, in addition to the country’s recent introduction of computer coding classes in grade school, it has also embarked on a nanotechnology/nanoscience educational and entrepreneurial programme as noted in my Sept. 30, 2014 posting,

The University of Tartu (Estonia) announced in a Sept. 29, 2014 press release an educational and entrepreneurial programme about nanotechnology/nanoscience for teachers and students,

To bring nanoscience closer to pupils, educational researchers of the University of Tartu decided to implement the European Union LLP Comenius project “Quantum Spin-Off – connecting schools with high-tech research and entrepreneurship”. The objective of the project is to build a kind of a bridge: at one end, pupils can familiarise themselves with modern science, and at the other, experience its application opportunities at high-tech enterprises. “We also wish to inspire these young people to choose a specialisation related to science and technology in the future,” added Lukk [Maarika Lukk, Coordinator of the project].

The pupils can choose between seven topics of nanotechnology: the creation of artificial muscles, microbiological fuel elements, manipulation of nanoparticles, nanoparticles and ionic liquids as oil additives, materials used in regenerative medicine, deposition and 3D-characterisation of atomically designed structures and a topic covered in English, “Artificial robotic fish with EAP elements”.

Learning is based on study modules in the field of nanotechnology. In addition, each team of pupils will read a scientific publication, selected for them by an expert of that particular field. In that way, pupils will develop an understanding of the field and of scientific texts. On the basis of the scientific publication, the pupils prepare their own research project and a business plan suitable for applying the results of the project.

In each field, experts of the University of Tartu will help to understand the topics. Participants will visit a nanotechnology research laboratory and enterprises using nanotechnologies.

The project lasts for two years and it is also implemented in Belgium, Switzerland and Greece.

As they say, time will tell.

Of Canadian 2015 election science debates and science weeks

You’d think science and technology might rate a mention in a debate focused on the economy but according to all accounts, that wasn’t the case last night in a Sept. 17, 2015 Canadian federal election debate featuring three party leaders, Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party, Thomas Mulcair of the New Democratic Party (NDP), and Stephen Harper, Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party. BTW, Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, was not invited but managed to participate by tweeting video responses to the debate questions. For one of the more amusing and, in its way, insightful commentaries on the debate, there’s a Sept. 17, 2015 blog posting on CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] News titled: ‘Old stock Canadians,’ egg timer, creepy set top debate’s odd moments; Moderator David Walmsley’s Irish accent and a ringing bell get reaction on social media.

As for science and the 2015 Canadian federal election, Science Borealis has compiled an informal resource list in a Sept. 18, 2015 posting and while I’ve excerpted the resources where you can find suggested questions for candidates, there’s much more to be found there,

 

 

Interestingly, the journal Nature has published a Sept. 17, 2015 article (h/t @CBC Quirks) by Nicola Jones featuring the Canadian election and science concerns and the impact science concerns have had on opposition party platforms (Note: Links have been removed),

Canadians will head to the polls on 19 October [2015], in a federal election that many scientists hope will mark a turning point after years of declining research budgets and allegations of government censorship.

In an unprecedented move, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada — a union in Ottawa that represents more than 57,000 government scientists and other professionals — is campaigning in a federal race. “Here’s how we do things in the Harper government,” declares one of the union’s radio advertisements. “We muzzle scientists, we cut research and we ignore anyone who doesn’t tell us what we want to hear.”

Science advocates see little chance that their issues will be aired during a 17 September [2015] debate in Calgary that will pit Harper against NDP [New Democratic Party] leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. But concerns about the state of Canadian science have nevertheless influenced party platforms.

The middle-left Liberal Party has made scientific integrity part of its election campaign, proposing the creation of a central public portal to disseminate government-funded research. The party seeks to appoint a chief science officer to ensure the free flow of information.

Similarly, the NDP has called for a parliamentary science officer, a position that would be independent of the majority party or coalition leading the government.

Adding to the concern about the practice of science in Canada is the delayed release of a biennial report from the government’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC). Paul Wells in a June 26, 2015 article for Maclean’s Magazine discusses the situation (Note: Links have been removed),

It is distressing when organizations with no partisan role play the sort of games partisans want. The latest example is the advisory board that the Harper government created to tell it how Canada is doing in science.

I have written about the Science, Technology and Innovation Council every two years since it produced its first major report, in May 2009. STIC, as it’s known, is not some fringe group of pinko malcontents trying to stir up trouble and turn the people against their right and proper governing party. It was conceived by the Harper government (in 2007), appointed by the Harper government (in bits ever since), and it consists, in part, of senior officials who work with the Harper government every day. …

This group gives the feds the best advice they can get about how Canada is faring against other countries in its science, research and technology efforts. Its reports have been increasingly discouraging.

Perhaps you wonder: What’s the situation now? Keep wondering. Every previous STIC biennial report was released in the spring. This winter, I met a STIC member, who told me the next report would come out in May 2015 and that it would continue most of the declining trend lines established by the first three reports. I wrote to the STIC to ascertain the status of the latest report. Here’s the answer I received:

“Thank you for your interest. STIC’s next State of the Nation report will be released later in the Fall. We will be happy to inform you of the precise date and release details when they have been confirmed.”

There is no reason this year’s report was not released in the spring, as every previous report was. None except the approach of a federal election.

Getting back to a national science debate, I have written about a proposed debate to be held on the CBC Quirks and Quarks radio programme here in a Sept. 3, 2015 posting which also features a local upcoming (on Weds., Sept. 23, 2015) election science and technology debate amongst  federal candidates in Victoria, BC. I cannot find anything more current about the proposed national science debate other than the CBC radio producer’s claim that it would occur in early October. Earlier today (Sept. 18, 2015) I checked their Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/CBCQuirks) and their website (http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks). I wonder what’s taking so long for an announcement. In the space of a few hours, I managed to get Ted Hsu and Lynne Quarmby, science shadow ministers for the Liberal and Green parties, respectively, to express interest in participating.

Well, whether or not there is a 2015 national science debate, I find the level of interest, in contrast to the 2011 election, exciting and affirming.

In the midst of all this election and science discussion, there are some big Canadian science events on the horizon. First and technically speaking not on the horizon, there’s Beakerhead (a smashup of art, science, and engineering) in Calgary, Alberta which runs from Sept. 16 – 20, 2015. Here are a few of the exhibits and installations you can find should you get to Calgary in time (from a Sept. 16, 2015 Beakerhead news release),

The five days of Beakerhead officially get rolling today with the world’s largest pop-up gallery, called a String (Theory) of Incredible Encounters, with a circumference of five kilometres around downtown Calgary.

The series of public art installations is an exploration in creativity at the crossroads of art, science and engineering, and can be seen by touring Calgary’s neighbourhoods, from Inglewood to East Village to Victoria Park, 17th Ave and Kensington. The home base or hub for Beakerhead this year is at Station B (the Beakerhead moniker for installations at Fort Calgary).

Station B is home to two other massive firsts – a 30-foot high version of the arcade claw game, and a 6,400 square foot sandbox – all designed to inspire human ingenuity.

Beakerhead 2015 event will erupt on the streets and venues of Calgary from September 16 to 20, and includes more than 160 collaborators and 60 public events, ranging from theatre where the audience is dining as part of the show to installations where you walk through a human nose. More than 25,000 students will be engaged in Beakerhead through field trips, classroom visits and ingenuity challenges.

Just as Beakerhead ends, Canada’s 2015 Science Literacy Week opens Sept. 21 – 27, 2015. Here’s more about the week from a Sept. 18, 2015 article by Natalie Samson for University Affairs,

On Nov. 12 last year [2014], the European Space Agency landed a robot on a comet. It was a remarkable moment in the history of space exploration and scientific inquiry. The feat amounted to “trying to throw a dart and hit a fly 10 miles away,” said Jesse Hildebrand, a science educator and communicator. “The math and the physics behind that is mindboggling.”

Imagine Mr. Hildebrand’s disappointment then, as national news programs that night spent about half as much time reporting on the comet landing as they did covering Barack Obama’s gum-chewing faux pas in China. For Mr. Hildebrand, the incident perfectly illustrates why he founded Science Literacy Week, a Canada-wide public education campaign celebrating all things scientific.

From Sept. 21 to 27 [2015], several universities, libraries and museums will highlight the value of science in our contemporary world by hosting events and exhibits on topics ranging from the lifecycle of a honeybee to the science behind Hollywood films like Jurassic World and Contact.

Mr. Hildebrand began developing the campaign last year, shortly after graduating from the University of Toronto with a bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology. He approached the U of T Libraries for support and “it really snowballed from there,” the 23-year-old said.

Though Mr. Hildebrand said Science Literacy Week wasn’t inspired by public criticism against the federal government’s approach to scientific research and communication, he admitted that it makes the campaign seem that much more important. “I’ve always wanted to shout from the rooftops how cool science is. This is my way of shouting from the rooftops,” he said.

In the lead-up to Science Literacy Week, museum scientists with the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada have been posting videos of what they do and why it’s important under the hashtag #canadalovesscience. The end of the campaign will coincide with a lunar eclipse and will see several universities and observatories hosting stargazing parties.

You can find out more about this year’s events on the Science Literacy Week website. Here are a few of the BC events I found particularly intriguing,

UBC Botanical Garden – Jointly run as part of National Forest Week/Organic Week

September 20th, 10 a.m-12 p.m – A Walk in the Woods

Come discover the forest above, below and in between on our guided forest tour! Explore and connect with trees that hold up our 300-metre long canopy walkway. [emphasis mine] Meet with grand Firs, Douglas Firs and Western Red Cedars and learn about the importance of forests to biodiversity, climate change and our lives.

September 24th, 7:30-11 P.M – Food Garden Tour and Outdoor Movie Night

What better way to celebrate Organic Week than to hear about our exciting plans for the UBC Food Garden? Tour renewed garden beds to see what’s been growing. Learn about rootstocks, cultivars, training techniques and tree forms for fruit trees in this area.  Then make your way to out enchanting outdoor Ampitheatre and watch Symphony of the Soil, a film celebrated by the UN for 2015, the International Year of the Soil.

I highlighted the UBC Botanical Garden canopy walkway because you really do walk high up in the forest as you can see in this image of the walkway,

[downloaded from http://www.familyfuncanada.com/vancouver/canopy-walk-ubc-botanical-garden/]

[downloaded from http://www.familyfuncanada.com/vancouver/canopy-walk-ubc-botanical-garden/]

This image is from an undated article by Lindsay Follett for Family Fun Vancouver.

While it’s still a month away, there is Canada’s upcoming 2015 National Science and Technology Week, which will run from Oct. 16 – 25. To date, they do not have any events listed for this year’s week but they do invite you to submit your planned event for inclusion in their 2015 event map and list of events.

NanoXplore: graphene and graphite in Québec (Canada)

For the second time this week I’m going to be mentioning the province of Québec (Canada) in relation to its ‘nanotechnology’ businesses (see: Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), also known as nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), and toxicity; some Celluforce news; anti-petroleum extremists posted on Feb. 19, 2015). A Feb. 20, 2015 news item on Azonano announces a graphene production facility in the Montréal area,

Group NanoXplore Inc., a Montreal-based company specialising in the production and application of graphene and its derivative materials, announced today that its graphene production facility is in full operation with a capacity of 3 metric tonnes per year. This is the largest graphene production capacity in Canada and, outside of China, one of the 5 largest in the world.

A Feb. 19, 2015 NanoXplore news release on MarketWire, which originated the news item, provides a bit more detail in amidst the promotional hype,

NanoXplore’s production process is unique and the core of the company’s competitive advantage. The proprietary process gently and efficiently creates pristine graphene from natural flake graphite without creating the crystalline defects that can limit performance. The process also functionalises the graphene material during production making subsequent mixing with a broad range of industrial materials simple and efficient. NanoXplore’s facility is routinely producing several standard grades of graphene as well as derivative products such as a unique graphite-graphene composite suitable for anodes in Li-ion batteries. [emphasis mine]

Another graphite connection in Québec

Interestingly, back in 2012 Hydro-Québec signed a deal with another Québec-based company, Focus Graphite (which owns a graphite deposit in the northeastern part of the province) to explore ways to produce more efficient lithium-ion batteries (my Nov 27, 2012 posting).

Getting back to the news release, it also provides a summary description of NanoXplore,

NanoXplore is a privately held advanced materials company focused on the large-scale production of high quality graphene and the integration of graphene into real world industrial products. NanoXplore achieves significant improvements in performance for its customers with very low levels of graphene because its material is of high quality (few defects, highly dispersible), because the production process can easily tune the dimensions of the graphene platelets, and because NanoXplore has specific expertise in dispersing graphene in a broad range of industrial materials. NanoXplore partners with its customers to integrate graphene into their products and processes, providing them with innovative products and a strong competitive advantage.

Graphite mines

NanoXplore, too, has some sort of relationship with a graphite mine or, in this case mining company, Mason Graphite (from the NanoXplore website’s Investors’ page),

FROM MINE TO PRODUCT

Partnered with Canadian mining company Mason Graphite, NanoXplore has access to lower quartile graphite/graphene production costs as well as a stable, long term, large flake source of raw material. Local government bodies have embraced the graphite-graphene cluster. With production and R&D centrally located in Montreal, NanoXplore offers world class innovation and true intellectual property safety for its formulation partners.

By the way, Benoit Gascon, NanoXplore’s board chair (scroll down to the bottom  of the team list) is also Mason Graphite’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The company has recently announced a detailed study on large-scale production of value-added graphite products (from a Feb. 11, 2015 Mason Graphite news release),

Mason Graphite Inc. (“Mason Graphite” or the “Company”) (TSX VENTURE:LLG)(OTCQX:MGPHF) announces that it has initiated a detailed study for large scale processing of value-added graphite products.

Value-added processing includes micronization, additional purification, spheronization and coating, resulting in graphite products that are suitable for a wide range of electrochemical applications (including alkaline batteries, lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells), technical applications (including carbon brushes, brake linings, plastics and lubricants), and other specialized uses.

The development and validation of the fabrication processes for these graphite products will be carried out by the National Research Council of Canada (“NRC”) along with Hatch, and is expected to conclude by the end of 2015. Following initial scoping work, equipment trials and product testing, the Company intends to provide preliminary results and an updated work program by mid-2015.

The NRC is the Government of Canada’s premier research and technology organization. Hatch is an engineering firm located in Montreal which is already working closely with Mason Graphite on the development of the Lac Gueret Graphite Project.

Other parts of Canada and the graphite/graphene enterprise

NanoXplore and Focus Graphite are not the only companies with connections to a graphite mine in Québec. There’s also Vancouver (Canada)-based Lomiko Metals (mentioned here in an April 17, 2013 posting [for the first time]. A. Paul Gill, Lomiko’s CEO, seems to be pursuing a similar business strategy in that Lomiko, too, has a number of business alliances, e.g., the mine, a research and development laboratory, etc. Moving out of Québec, there is also a graphite mine in Ontario owned by Northern Graphite (my Feb. 6, 2012 posting). It seems Canadians in eastern Canada have a valuable resource in graphite flakes.

India’s S. R. Vadera and Narendra Kumar (Defence Laboratory, Jodhpur) review stealth and camouflage technology

Much of the military nanotechnology information I stumble across is from the US, Canada, and/or Europe and while S. R. Vadera and Narendra Kumar (of India’s Defence Laboratory, Jodhpur [DLJ]) do offer some information about India’s military nanotechnology situation, they focus largely on the US, Canada, and Europe. Happily, their Jan. 30, 2014 Nanowerk Spotlight 6 pp. article titled, Nanotechnology and nanomaterials for camouflage and stealth applications offers a comprehensive review of the field,

This article briefly describes how nanomaterials and nanotechnology can be useful in the strategic area of camouflage and stealth technology. …

The word camouflage has its origin in the French word camoufler which means to disguise. In English dictionary, the word meaning was initially referred to concealment or disguise of military objects in order to prevent detection by the enemy. In earlier days, specifically before 20th century, the only sensor available to detect was human eye and so camouflage was confined to the visible light only. The rapid development of sensor technology outside the visible range has forced to use new definition and terminologies for camouflage.

Modern definition of camouflage may be given as “delay or deny detection of a military target by detectors operating over multispectral wavelength region of electromagnetic spectrum or non-electromagnetic radiation e.g., acoustic, magnetic, etc. Multispectral camouflage, low-observability, countermeasures, signature management, and stealth technology are some of the new terminologies used now instead of camouflage.

In modern warfare, stealth technology is applied mostly to aircrafts and combat weapons. Stealth technology can improve the survivability and performance of aircrafts and weapons to gain the upper hand. Stealth technology involves the minimization of acoustic, optical, infra-red, and electromagnetic signatures. Among them, the minimization of electromagnetic signature, particularly in microwave region, is the most important. It can be realized in several ways which include stealth shaping design, radar absorbing material (RAM), and radar absorbing structures (RAS)1.

Unexpectedly, there are multiple reference to Canadian stealth and camouflage technology all of them courtesy of one company, HyperStealth Biotechnology Corp. based in Maple Ridge, BC, Canada. mentioned in my Jan. 7, 2013 post about an invisibility cloak.

Getting back to the article, the authors have this to say about the international ‘stealth scene’,

Today virtually every nation and many non-state military organizations have access to advanced tactical sensors for target acquisition (radar and thermal imagers) and intelligence gathering surveillance systems (ground and air reconnaissance). Precision-guided munitions exist that can be delivered by artillery, missiles, and aircraft and that can operate in the IR [infra red] region of the electromagnetic spectrum. These advanced imaging sights and sensors allow enemies to acquire and engage targets through visual smoke, at night, and under adverse weather conditions.

To combat these new sensing and detection technologies, camouflage paint, paint additives, tarps, nets and foams have been developed for visual camouflage and thermal and radar signature suppression. …

One comment, thermal and radar signature suppression sounds like another way of saying ‘invisibility cloak’.

The authors also had something to say about the application of nanomaterials/nanotechnology,

Nanotechnology has significant influence over a set of many interrelated core skills of land forces like protection, engagement, detection, movements, communications and information collection together with interrelated warfare strategies. Additionally, nanotechnology also has its role in the development of sensor for warfare agents, tagging and tracking and destruction of CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] warfare agents, besides many other possible applications.

There’s a very interesting passage on ‘stealth coatings’ which includes this,

These new coatings can be attached to a wide range of surfaces and are the first step towards developing ‘shape shifting clothing’ capable of adapting to the environment around it. …

In another example, an Israeli company, Nanoflight has claimed to develop a new nano paint, which can make it near impossible to detect objects painted with the material. The company is continuing their efforts to extend the camouflage action of these paints in infrared region as well. BASF, Germany (uses polyisocynate dendrimer nanoparticles) and Isotronic Corporation, USA are among the very few agencies coming up with chemical agent resistant and innovative camouflage (CARC) coatings using nanomaterials. In India, paints developed by Defence Laboratory, Jodhpur (DLJ) using polymeric nanocomposites, nanometals and nanometal complexes are perhaps the first examples of multispectral camouflage paints tested in VIS-NIR and thermal infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum at system level. The nanocomposites developed by DLJ provide excellent scope for the tuning of reflectance properties both in visible and near infrared region6 of electromagnetic spectrum leading to their applications on military targets (Fig. 4).

For anyone interested in this topic, I recommend reading the article in its entirety.

One final note, I found this Wikipedia entry about the DLJ, (Note: A link has been removed)

Defence Laboratory (DLJ) is westernmost located, an strategically important laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Its mission is development of Radio Communication Systems, Data links, Satellite Communication Systems, Millimeter Wave Communication systems. There are two divisions in laboratory

NRMA (Nuclear Radiation’s Management and Applications) Division
Camouflage Division

That’s all folks!

A new science magazine edited and peer-reviewed by children: Frontiers for Young Minds

November 15, 2013 article by Alice Truong about Frontiers for Young Minds (for Fast Company), profiles a new journal meant to be read by children and edited and peer-reviewed by children. Let’s start with an excerpt from the Truong article as an introduction to the Frontiers for Young Minds journal (Note: Links have been removed),

Frontiers for Young Minds is made up of editors ages 8 to 18 who learn the ropes of peer review from working scientists. With 18 young minds and 38 adult authors and associate editors lending their expertise, the journal–an offshoot of the academic research network Frontiers …

With a mission to engage a budding generation of scientists, UC [University of California at] Berkeley professor Robert Knight created the kid-friendly version of Frontiers and serves as its editor-in-chief. The young editors review and approve submissions, which are written so kids can understand them–“clearly, concisely and with enthusiasm!” the guidelines suggest. Many of the scientists who provide guidance are academics, hailing from Harvard to Rio de Janeiro’s D’Or Institute for Research and Education. The pieces are peer reviewed by one of the young editors, but to protect their identities only their first names are published along with the authors’ names.

Great idea and bravo to all involved in the project! Here’s an excerpt from the Frontiers for Young Minds About webpage,

Areas in Development now include:

  • The Brain and Friends (social neuroscience)
  • The Brain and Fun (emotion)
  • The Brain and Magic (perception, sensation)
  • The Brain and Allowances (neuroeconomics)
  • The Brain and School (attention, decision making)
  • The Brain and Sports (motor control, action)
  • The Brain and Life (memory)
  • The Brain and Talking/Texting (language)
  • The Brain and Growing (neurodevelopment)
  • The Brain and Math (neural organization of math, computational neuroscience)
  • The Brain and Health (neurology, psychiatry)
  • The Brain and Robots (brain machine interface)
  • The Brain and Music (music!)
  • The Brain and Light (optogenetics)
  • The Brain and Gaming (Fun, Action, Learning)
  • The Brain and Reading
  • The Brain and Pain
  • The Brain and Tools (basis of brain measurements)
  • The Brain and History (the story of brain research)
  • The Brain and Drugs (drugs)
  • The Brain and Sleep

I believe the unofficial title for this online journal is Frontiers (in Neuroscience) for Young Minds. I guess they were trying to make the title less cumbersome which, unfortunately, results in a bit of confusion.

At any rate, there’s a quite a range of young minds at work as editors and reviewers, from the Editorial Team’s webpage,

Sacha
14 years old
Amsterdam, Netherlands

When I was just a few weeks old, we moved to Bennekom, a small town close to Arnhem (“a bridge too far”). I am now 14 and follow the bilingual stream in secondary school, receiving lessons in English and Dutch. I hope to do the International Bacquelaurate before I leave school. In my spare time, I like to play football and hang out with my mates. Doing this editing interested me for three reasons: I really wanted to understand more about my dad’s work; I like the idea of this journal that helps us understand what our parents do; and I also like the idea of being an editor!

Abby
11 years old
Israel

I currently live in Israel, but I lived in NYC and I loved it. I like wall climbing, dancing, watching TV, scuba diving, and I love learning new things about how our world works. Oh, I also love the Weird-but-True books. You should try reading them too.

Caleb
14 years old
Canada

I enjoy reading and thinking about life. I have a flair for the dramatic. Woe betide the contributor who falls under my editorial pen. I am in several theatrical productions and I like to go camping in the Canadian wilds. My comment on brains: I wish I had one.

Darius
10 years old
Lafayette, CA, USA

I am in fifth grade. In my free time I enjoy reading and computer programming. As a hobby, I make useful objects and experiment with devices. I am very interested in the environment and was one of the founders of my school’s green committee. I enjoy reading about science, particularly chemistry, biology, and neuroscience.

Marin
8 years old
Cambridge, MA, USA

3rd grader who plays the piano and loves to sing and dance. She participates in Science Club for Girls and she and her Mom will be performing in their second opera this year.

Eleanor
8 years old
Champaign, IL, USA

I like reading and drawing. My favorite colors are blue, silver, pink, and purple. My favorite food is creamed spinach. I like to go shopping with my Mom.

….

At age 8, I would have been less Marin and more Eleanor. I hated opera; my father made us listen every Sunday afternoon during the winters.

Here’s something from an article about brain-machine interfaces for the final excerpt from the website (from the articles webpage),

[downloaded from http://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/brain-machine_interfaces/7/]

[downloaded from http://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/brain-machine_interfaces/7/]

Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI), or brain-computer interfaces (BCI), is an exciting multidisciplinary field that has grown tremendously during the last decade. In a nutshell, BMI is about transforming thought into action and sensation into perception. In a BMI system, neural signals recorded from the brain are fed into a decoding algorithm that translates these signals into motor output. This includes controlling a computer cursor, steering a wheelchair, or driving a robotic arm. A closed control loop is typically established by providing the subject with visual feedback of the prosthetic device. BMIs have tremendous potential to greatly improve the quality of life of millions of people suffering from spinal cord injury, stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and other severely disabling conditions.6

I think this piece written by Jose M. Carmena and José del R. Millán and reviewed by Bhargavi, 13 years old, is a good beginner’s piece for any adults who might be interested, as well as,, the journal’s target audience. This illustration the scientists have provided is very helpful to anyone who, for whatever reason, isn’t that knowledgeable about this area of research,

Figure 1 - Your brain in action: the different components of a BMI include the recording system, the decoding algorithm, device to be controlled, and the feedback delivered to the user (modified from Heliot and Carmena, 2010).

Figure 1 – Your brain in action:
the different components of a BMI include the recording system, the decoding algorithm, device to be controlled, and the feedback delivered to the user (modified from Heliot and Carmena, 2010).

As for getting information about basic details, here’s some of what I unearthed. The parent organization, ‘Frontiers in’ is based in Switzerland and describes itself this way on its About page,

Frontiers is a community-oriented open-access academic publisher and research network.

Our grand vision is to build an Open Science platform that empowers researchers in their daily work and where everybody has equal opportunity to seek, share and generate knowledge.

Frontiers is at the forefront of building the ultimate Open Science platform. We are driving innovations and new technologies around peer-review, article and author impact metrics, social networking for researchers, and a whole ecosystem of open science tools. We are the first – and only – platform that combines open-access publishing with research networking, with the goal to increase the reach of publications and ultimately the impact of articles and their authors.

Frontiers was launched as a grassroots initiative in 2007 by scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, out of the collective desire to improve the publishing options and provide better tools and services to researchers in the Internet age. Since then, Frontiers has become the fastest-growing open-access scholarly publisher, with a rapidly growing number of community-driven journals, more than 25,000 of high-impact researchers across a wide range of academic fields serving on the editorial boards and more than 4 million monthly page views.

As of a Feb. 27, 2013 news release, Frontiers has partnered with the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), Note: Links have been removed,

Emerging publisher Frontiers is joining Nature Publishing Group (NPG) in a strategic alliance to advance the global open science movement.

NPG, publisher of Nature, today announces a majority investment in the Swiss-based open access (OA) publisher Frontiers.

NPG and Frontiers will work together to empower researchers to change the way science is communicated, through open access publication and open science tools. Frontiers, led by CEO and neuroscientist Kamila Markram, will continue to operate with its own platform, brands, and policies.

Founded by scientists from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2007, Frontiers is one of the fastest growing open access publishers, more than doubling articles published year on year. Frontiers now has a portfolio of open access journals in 14 fields of science and medicine, and published over 5,000 OA articles in 2012.

Working with NPG, the journal series “Frontiers in” will significantly expand in 2013-2014. Currently, sixty-three journals published by NPG offer open access options or are open access and NPG published over 2000 open access articles in 2012. Bilateral links between nature.com and frontiersin.org will ensure that open access papers are visible on both sites.

Frontiers and NPG will also be working together on innovations in open science tools, networking, and publication processes.

Frontiers is based at EPFL in Switzerland, and works out of Innovation Square, a technology park supporting science start-ups, and hosting R&D divisions of large companies such as Logitech & Nestlé.

As for this new venture, Frontiers for Young Minds, this appears to have been launched on Nov. 11, 2013. At least, that’s what I understand from this notice on Frontier’s Facebook page (Note: Links have been removed,

Frontiers
November 11 [2013?]
Great news for kids, parents, teachers and neuroscientists! We have just launched the first Frontiers for Young Minds!

Frontiers in #Neuroscience for Young Minds is an #openaccess scientific journal that involves young people in the review of articles.

This has the double benefit of bringing kids into the world of science and offering scientists a platform for reaching out to the broadest of all audiences.

Frontiers for Young Minds is science edited for kids, by kids. Learn more and spread the word! http://bit.ly/1dijipy #sfn13

I am glad to see this effort and I wish all the parties involved the best of luck.

The 2013 US government shutdown and its eventual impact on Canadian science and elewhere

While there’s a growing list of commentaries and editorials, notably, the Oct. 1, 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) news release, about the impact that the 2013 US government shutdown is having on US Science, I haven’t yet come across anything specific about the potential impact on science in Canada (and elsewhere). From the AAAS news release (Note: A link has been removed),,

“If the Government shutdown continues for a week or more, it is going to make the United States less desirable as an international research collaborator,” said Joanne Carney, director of the AAAS Office of Government Relations. [emphasis mine] “When funding is no longer reliable, many of our research partners may be unable to continue collaborating with us. That could eventually have longer-term impacts on American innovation and competitiveness.”

Furloughs will impact the vast majority of staff at the National Science Foundation (NSF), for example, except for those directly responsible for the protection of life and property, which likely would include support for the agency’s Antarctic research facilities and personnel. “NSF will be sending notices to research grant awardees, informing them that payments won’t be made during the disruption, although research that doesn’t require federal employee intervention may proceed,” said Matthew Hourihan, director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program.

Within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 40,512 employees, or 52 percent of all staff are expected to be furloughed. At the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in particular, the furloughs will send 73 percent of employees home. Remaining NIH employees will continue to provide both in-patient and out-patient care, but the NIH Clinical Center will not be able to accept new patients.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition, and cosmetics activities,” according to an agency statement. “The FDA will also have to cease safety activities such as routine establishment inspections, some compliance and enforcement activities, monitoring of imports, notification programs, and the majority of the laboratory research necessary to inform public health decision-making.”

Most of the 13,814 employees of the U.S. Department of Energy will be furloughed, leaving only a few hundred staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration. “Literally a handful of regular DOE staff would remain on the job within the Office of Science and programs for efficiency, renewables, nuclear power, and fossil energy, including ARPA-E, but as contractor entities the labs will be shielded for a time,” Hourihan said. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy is responsible for identifying “out-of-the-box” energy solutions not supported by industry research.

NASA’s shutdown contingency plan ensures support for the International Space Station and its astronauts as well as other satellite missions now underway. No new contracts or grants will be issued by NASA, however, and most pre-launch development work will end.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) offers a listing which breaks down the percentages of staff being furloughed in an Oct. 1, 2013 news item. Here are the numbers for some of the departments and agencies which are considered part of the US science establishment:

  • Department of Defense 50% on furlough
  • Department of Energy 69% on furlough
  • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 93% on furlough
  • Department of Health and Human Services 52% on furlough
  • Department of the Interior 81% on furlough
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 97% on furlough
  • National Science Foundation 99% on furlough
  • The Smithsonian 83% on furlough

Neither the list on the CBC website nor the AAAS news release offers furlough numbers, if any, for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Given the importance of collaboration on the Canadian science scene this shutdown doesn’t bode well. I don’t have numbers but I’m assuming that the US is Canada’s largest single country source for collaborative research. On a related note,, I had someone tell me (at the 2012 Canadian Science Policy Conference) that the US National Institutes of Health fund a significant portion of the medical and health research performed in Canada. (If someone knows the numbers, please add a comment or contact me at nano@frogheart.ca).

Closer to my home, I wonder how *MDA (headquartered in Richmond, BC, Canada; *I mentioned the company and its space robotics programme in a May 1, 2013 posting concerning the than new Canadian $5 bill) which has US Department of Defense contracts and NASA contracts is going to fare? As well, Nigel Lockyer, the executive director for TRIUMF, Canada’s particle and nuclear physics laboratory, who announced his Fall 2013 departure for the US Fermi Lab (my June 21, 2013 posting) is walking into a rather thorny situation.

On a personal note, I received a travel stipend last year (to present at the Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies 2012 conference) from US National Science Foundation (NSF) funds disbursed by the University of California at Santa Barbara. Something tells me the NSF may not be offering that type of funding for a long time to come.

Canadians talk a lot about ‘punching above our weight’ with regard to our research but that ability has been aided immeasurably by US funding and collaboration. We ride, to some extent, on our neighbour’s coattails. (I am aware that simultaneously while ‘punching above our weight’ we have also complained our international standing in science research is deteriorating,, which makes for a lively, if at times confusing discourse.)

Canada will not be the only country to experience an impact from the shutdown as the US science community has enthusiastically embraced the notion of international collaboration.

As this shutdown continues another financial deadline will be reached on Oct. 17, 2013 when Treasury Secretary, Jacob Lew, ceases to have money in the US Treasury to pay bills unless Congress passes a motion to raise the limit on government borrowing (CBC, via *Associated Press, Oct. 2, 2013 news item).

One final thought, I can’t help but wonder what impact this financial instability will have on US scientists and their desire to pursue their research interests. It is possible the US will lose some of its best and its brightest, not necessarily the established researchers but those who have yet to fully establish their careers.

* Links to MDA website, mention and link to May 1, 2013 added and ‘Association’ changed to ‘Associated’ on Oct. 3, 2013.

First Canadian student team (Surrey’s Princess Margaret Secondary) wins NASA’s global space competition

Third time lucky for Sumit (Bhupinder) Rathore, a third-year Simon Fraser University computer-engineering student,  and Joe Sihota, physics teacher, who both coached a team of students from Princess Margaret Secondary school on to a win at the annual International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC) at NASA’s (US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.  From the Aug. 19, 2013 Simon Fraser University news release,

Grumbo Aerospace, the winning team of the annual International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC) at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, is the first such team to include Canadian high school students. [emphases mine]

Thanks to the tutelage of Rathore and physics teacher Joe Sihota, 10 Princess Margaret Secondary School students in Surrey became the first Canadian semi-finalists to make it to the competition’s invitation-only final.

ISSDC organizers, who are allied with NASA, the Boeing Company and the aerospace industry, invited student teams from 20 schools worldwide to the final.

Finalists, who had submitted winning semi-final designs for a space colony, then formed four new teams that were given company names. The companies competed for the final prize — a trophy, gold medals and a coveted list of résumé references consisting of NASA astronauts and aerospace engineers.

The competition is organized so that teams of high school students apply and if the team is successful and win a berth to NASA, it is, once arrived in Texas, broken apart and new teams formed for the final competition. Here’s a better explanation from my July 3, 2013 posting where the team was raising $10,000 for airfares and accommodation,

The competition invites high school students who are mentored by teachers (and in this case, Rathore, a student) to design a space colony for 10,000-plus people according to set specifications.

Student teams submit 40-page, on-line entries, which are assessed by aerospace industry engineers and managers allied with the contest’s sponsors, including NASA and the Boeing Company.

ISSDC organizers select eight teams as finalists that compete in a live competition to design another colony at the NASA centre. Four more teams, deemed to have submitted stellar first-round entries, are also invited to witness the final competition.

The competing teams are broken up to create new teams comprised of students from different countries, who are coached by a mentor attached to one of the original teams.

The new teams engage in 43 hours of non-stop research to design their final space colonial submissions, which are assessed by ISSDC organizers and NASA astronauts and space engineers.

The Internet is out of bounds as a source of information for the final teams. They must rely on their mentors, NASA’s library and a panel of astronauts and aerospace engineers as resources to design and present their colonies.

The winning team takes home an Oscar-type trophy embedded with a genuine meteorite and an impressive list of NASA astronauts and aerospace engineers as résumé references.

This is the third time that Rathore and Sihota have coached a team of students to the semi-finals and it is the first time Princess Margaret students have won the top prize. More from the news release,

As members of the Grumbo Aerospace company/team, the Surrey students won the approval of the nine aerospace engineers and retired astronauts judging the four final teams’ designs for a 10,000-plus, person-settlement on Earth’s moon.

Rathore, along with Jack Bacon, a pioneering space-technology engineer dubbed the next Carl Sagan, helped coach Grumbo Aerospace to its final victory. Previously recognized by NASA as a gifted teacher, Rathore credits competition seasoning, time management and his personal passion for lunar life with transforming his Surrey protégés into third-time-lucky victors.

“This year I was fortunate enough to have some of the old members returning from my last year’s team,” notes Rathore. “They were very familiar with the stress and unexpected challenges of the final. They were more mentally prepared for the time management required to make on-the-fly creative decisions about the final settlement’s design.

“’The location of the final settlement design on the Earth’s moon worked in our favour. As a huge fan of the moon, I was familiar with most of its settlement design-challenges. I supplied our team with a lot of research to help design requested commercial and industrial ventures, such as a manufacturing base and a tourism centre.”

In citing Grumbo Aerospace as the winning team, the judges praised its attention to detail and creativity in including elements such as hiking and wedding opportunities and self-repairing exterior structures.

The team’s manufacturing base produced computer components, orbital-computing installations, spacesuits and spaceship modules. It included a processing unit to convert lunar raw ore into finished products for use in space-based construction.

The team’s tourism base featured a hotel with earthly and lunar views, special vehicles for tourism travel to all the Apollo landing sites, a spacesuit for tourists and many tourism-oriented lunar-based activities.

Congratulations!

Lomiko Metals, batteries, graphite/graphene, and a strategic alliance with the Research Foundation of Stony Brook University and Graphene Laboratories, Inc.

Lomiko Metals, a Vancouver-based (Canada)  company, has been mentioned here with respect to a property in Québec (Quatre Milles) containing graphite flakes in an April 17, 2013 posting, which also mentioned the company’s strategic alliance with Graphene Laboratories Inc.

Building on that previous announcement Lomiko Metals has announced a new member to the strategic alliance in a May 30, 2013 news item on Azonano,

LOMIKO METALS INC. (the “Company”) announces that the Research Foundation of Stony Brook University (RF), Graphene Laboratories, Inc. (Graphene Labs) and Lomiko Metals, Inc. have agreed to investigate novel, energy-focused applications for graphene.

“This new agreement with Stony Brook University’s researchers means Lomiko is participating in the development of the technology graphene makes possible,” commented Paul Gill, CEO of Lomiko. “Using graphene to achieve very high energy densities in super capacitors and batteries is a transfomative technology. Strategically, Lomiko needs to be participating in this vital research to achieve the goal of creating a vertically integrated graphite and graphene business.”

The May 29, 2013 Lomiko Metals news release, which originated the news item, has more details,

Under its Strategic Alliance Agreement with Lomiko, Graphene Labs — a leading graphene manufacturer — will process graphite samples from Lomiko’s Quatre Milles property into graphene. The Research Foundation, through Stony Brook University’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center (AERTC) and the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (Sensor CAT), will then examine the most efficient methods of using this graphene for energy storage applications. There is no certainty the roposed [sic]  operaton [sic] will be economically viable.

For all parties involved, the goal of this collaboration is to map commercially viable routes for the fabrication of graphene-based energy storage devices. By participating in these projects, the partners will address the cost of graphene production, as well as how best to integrate the material into commercial energy storage devices.

As I find the various business/academic partnerships interesting, I’m including the About section of the news release,

About Graphene Laboratories Inc.

Graphene Laboratories, Inc. primary focus is to apply fundamental science and technology to bring functional advanced materials and devices to market.
Graphene Laboratories Inc. operates the Graphene Supermarket® (www.graphene-supermarket.com), and is a leading supplier of advanced 2D materials to customers around the globe. In addition to the retail offering of advanced 2D materials, it offers analytical services, prototype development and consulting.

Located in Calverton NY, Graphene Labs benefits from the unique high tech community on Long Island. Efforts by Graphene Laboratories are supported by Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook Business Incubator, and the Clean Energy Business Incubator Program (CEBIP), hosted by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

For more information on Graphene Laboratories, Inc, visit www.graphenelabs.com or contact them at (516)-382-8649 or via email at info@graphenelabs.com

About AERTC

Located in the Research and Development Park on the campus of Stony Brook University, the Advanced Energy Incubator is space that is home to companies within the Advanced Energy Center. The Advanced Energy Center (www.aertc.org) is a true partnership of academic institutions, research institutions, energy providers and companies. Its mission is innovative energy research, education and technology deployment with a focus on efficiency, conservation,renewable energy and nanotechnology applications for new and novel sources of energy.

About Sensor CAT

The New York State Center for Advanced Technology at Stony Brook University provides intellectual, logistical, and material resources for the development of new product technologies – by facilitating R&D partnerships between New York companies with an in-state footprint and university researchers. The important outcomes are new jobs, new patents, training of students in company product matters, and improved competitiveness for New York State businesses.

About Lomiko Metals Inc.

Lomiko Metals Inc. is a Canadian based exploration-stage company. Its mineral properties include the Quatre Milles Graphite Property and the Vines Lake property which both have had recent major discoveries. On October 22 and November, 13 2012, Lomiko Metals Inc. announced 11 drill holes had intercepted high grade graphite at the 3,780 Ha Quatre Milles Property. On March 15, 2013 Lomiko reported 75.3% of graphite tested was >200 mesh and classified as graphite flake with 38.36% in the >80 mesh, large flake category. 85.3% of test results higher than the 94% carbon purity considered high carbon content, with the median test result being 98.35%.

The highlight of Lomiko’s testing was nine (9) sieve samples which captured flakes of varying sizes which tested 100.00% carbon. Both fine and flake material may be amenable to graphene conversion by Lomiko Metals Inc. partner Graphene Laboratories.

The project is located 175 km north of the Port of Montreal and 26 km from a major highway on a well-maintained gravel road.

For more information on Lomiko Metals Inc., review the website at www.lomiko.com or contact A. Paul Gill at 604-729-5312 or email: info@lomiko.com

On Behalf of the Board

“A. Paul Gill” Chief Executive Officer

We seek safe harbor. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

I couldn’t resist that last bit either. As I understand it, this means ‘caveat emptor’ or buyer beware. In short do your research.