Tag Archives: Café Scientifique Vancouver

The secret life of leaves at Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique on Jan. 27, 2015

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Jan. 27,  2015*. Here’s the meeting description (from the Jan. 19, 2015 announcement),

Happy New Year!  We hope you all had an enjoyable and relaxing holiday season.  We’d like to send out a big thank you for your generosity in our crowdfunding campaign and your help in its promotion.  Your donations and support will help to keep us running for another year and more!

Speaking of which, our next café will happen on Tuesday, January 27th, at 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Chris Muir, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia.  The title of his talk is:

More than salad: the inner lives of leaves

To most of us, leaves are the green things in a salad or the emblem on our flag. To a biologist, leaves are the critical interface between a plant and its environment. I will talk about some of the remarkable ways that leaves adapt plants to their environment. First, I will cover some basic functions that leaves perform for a plant: How do plants eat? How do plants avoid being eaten? What goes on inside a leaf? Next, I will talk about some of the unorthodox ways that leaves help plants make a living: How do plants without roots get water? Why do leaves track the sun? How did the Swiss Cheese Plant get its holes? The close connection between a leaf’s form and its function to the plant attests to the relentless action of natural selection in adapting organisms to their environment.

Muir has an eponymous website where you can find out more about his work and about him.

* Jan. 27, 2014 corrected to Jan. 27, 2015 on Feb. 12, 2015.

Planets beyond the solar system at Vancouver’s (Canada) Nov. 25, 2014* Café Scientifique

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Nov. 25,  2014. Here’s the meeting description (from the Nov. 17, 2014 announcement),

… Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Aaron Boley. The title of his talk is:

More Than Science Fiction: Planets beyond the Solar System

For centuries we have relied on only the Solar System for understanding our origins. To dream of distant worlds was a mixture of reasoning, conjecture, and science fiction. Now, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of the Solar System, and we continue to learn more about the Solar System itself. In this talk, we will explore the wide variety of planetary systems that have so far been observed in the Galaxy. These new worlds, both alien and familiar, challenge our theories, but also give us new information for unlocking planet formation’s secrets.

You can find out more about Dr. Aaron Boley, astrophysicist, on his eponymous website where you’ll also find a link to Simulation movies such as this,

 Uploaded on Oct 27, 2010

The protoplanetary disk around a young, isolated star evolves over 16,000 years. Bright, dense spiral arms of gas and dust gradually develop and then collapse into denser clumps that could form planets. NCSA/NASA/A. Boley (Univ. of Florida)

* The event date in the headline was corrected to read: Nov. 25, 2014.

Life in the frozen lane at Vancouver’s (Canada) Oct. 28, 2014 Café Scientifique

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Oct. 28,  2014. Here’s the meeting description (from the Oct. 21, 2014 announcement),

Our next café will happen on Tuesday, October 28th, at 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Katie Marshall, Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of British Columbia [UBC]. The title of her talk is:

Life in the Frozen Lane

There’s a long list of animals that can survive freezing solid that includes animals as diverse as mussels, woolly caterpillars, frogs, and turtles. How and why do they do it? What can we learn from the animals that do? Surviving freezing is a surprisingly complicated process that involves a wide array of biochemical tricks that we humans are just learning how to mimic. This talk will walk through the basics of how freezing happens, how it can be manipulated, and showcase some of Canada’s best freeze-tolerant animals.

You can find out more about Katie Marshall here on her UBC Department of Zoology webpage.

The chemistry of beer at Vancouver’s (Canada) Sept. 30, 2014 Café Scientifique

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Sept. 30,  2014. Here’s the meeting description (from the Sept. 23, 2014 announcement),

Our next café will happen on Tuesday September 30th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Joel Kelly. The title of his talk and abstract for his talk is:

The Chemistry of Beer

Why does Guinness pair perfectly with a hearty stew? Why are the soft waters of the Czech Republic better for brewing lagers, while the hard waters of Burton, England ideal for brewing India Pale Ales? What do hops and marijuana share in common? The answer to all of these questions is CHEMISTRY! I will present a story in four parts (malt, yeast, hops and water) on the chemistry of beer. We will sample a variety of beers across the spectrum to highlight the wonderful variety of molecules that beer can provide.

Please note: The Railway Club have kindly agreed to have a sampler of 4 4 oz beers available for $7.50 inc. tax which will complement this talk. You are advised to arrive early so you have enough time to get your beer before 7:30 pm.

I was able to find more information about Joel Kelly who until recently was a postdoctoral research in Mark MacLachlan’s laboratory at the University of British Columbia. (MacLachlan was interviewed here prior to his Café Scientifique presentation in a March 25, 2011 posting.)

Currently a chemist at BC Research according to his LinkedIn profile, Kelly gave an interview about beer and his interests for a podcast (approximately 5 mins.) which can be found in this Nov. 7, 2013 posting on the MacLachlan Group blog.

The next megathrust earthquake at Vancouver’s (Canada) August 26, 2014 Café Scientifique

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, August 26,  2014 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the meeting description (from the August 19, 2014 announcement),

Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Carlos Ventura,the Director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility (EERF) at the University of British Columbia.  The title of his talk is:

A Megathrust Earthquake in the West Coast – The clock is ticking

The theme of the talk is about the effects of megathrust earthquakes in the last ten years in the built environment, and the lessons that we have learned from them.  These are helping us understand better what would be the possible effects of the “big one” on the West Coast of BC.  Some of the research that we are doing at UBC to better understand the effects of this type of earthquake will be discussed.

From Dr. Carlos Ventura’s UBC Faculty webpage,

Dr. Carlos Ventura is currently the Director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility (EERF) at UBC and has more than 30 years of experience as a structural engineer.  Dr. Ventura’s areas of research are in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering. He has been conducting research on the dynamic behavior and analysis of structural systems subjected to extreme dynamic loads, including severe ground shaking for more than twenty years. His research work includes experimental studies in the field and in the laboratory of structural systems and components.   Research developments have included development and implementation of performance-based design methods for seismic retrofit of low rise school buildings, novel techniques for regional estimation of damage to structures during earthquakes, detailed studies on nonlinear dynamic analysis of structures and methods to evaluate the dynamic characteristics of large Civil Engineering structures. …

You can find out more about the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility (EERF) here.

Lunar spelunking with robots at Vancouver’s (Canada) June 24, 2014 Café Scientifique

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, June 24,  2014 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the meeting description (from the June 18, 2014 announcement),

Our speaker for the evening will be John Walker, Rover Development Lead of the Hakuto Google Lunar X-Prize Team.  The title and abstract of his talk is:

Lunar Spelunking

Lava tubes, or caves likely exist on the surface of the moon. Based on recent images and laser distance measurements from the surface of the moon, scientists have selected candidates for further study.

Governmental space agencies and private institutions now have plans to visit these potential caves and investigate them as potential lunar habitat sites, as early as 2015.

I will present some of these candidates and my PhD research, which is supporting a Google Lunar X-Prize team’s attempt to survey one of these caves using robots.

I wasn’t able to find much about John Walker bu there is this Facebook entry noting a talk he gave at TEDxBudapest.

As for the Google Lunar XPRIZE, running a Google search yielded this on June 22, 2014 at 0945 hours PDT. It was the top finding on the search page. links to the site were provided below this definition:

The Google Lunar XPRIZE is a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video,…

You can find the Google Lunar XPRIZE website here. The Hakuto team, the only one based in Japan (I believe), has a website here. There is some English language material but the bulk would appear to be Japanese language.

The world’s smallest machines at Vancouver’s (Canada) May 27, 2014 Café Scientifique

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, May 27,  2014 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the meeting description (from the May 21, 2014 announcement),

Our speaker is Dr. Nicholas White from UBC Chemistry. The title and abstract of his talk is:

The world’s smallest machines

In the last 50 years, chemists have developed the ability to produce increasingly intricate and complex molecules. One example of this is the synthesis of “interlocked molecules”: two or more separate molecules that are mechanically threaded through one another (like links of a chain). These interlocked molecules offer potential use for a range of different applications. In particular they have been developed for use as molecular machines: devices that are only a few nanometers in size, but can perform physical work in response to a stimulus (e.g. light, heat). This talk will describe the development of interlocked molecules, and explore their potential applications as nano-devices.

Nicholas (Nick) White is a member of the MacLachlan Group. The group’s leader, Mark MacLachlan was mentioned here in a March 25, 2011 post regarding his Café Scientifique talk on beetles, biomimcry, and nanocrystalline cellulose (aka, cellulose nanocrystals). As well, MacLachlan was mentioned in a May 21, 2014 post about the $!.65M grant he received for his NanoMAT: NSERC CREATE Training Program in Nanomaterials Science & Technology.

As for Nick White, there’s this on the MacLachlan Group homepage, (scroll down about 25% of the way),

Nick completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Otago in his home town of Dunedin, New Zealand (working on transition metal complexes with Prof. Sally Brooker). After a short break working and then travelling, he completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford, working with Prof. Paul Beer making rotaxanes and catenanes for anion recognition applications. He is now a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow in the MacLachlan group working on supramolecular materials based on triptycene and silsesquioxanes (although he has difficulty convincing people he’s old enough to be a post-doc). Outside of chemistry, Nick is a keen rock climber, and is enjoying being close to the world-class rock at Squamish. He also enjoys running, playing guitar, listening to music, and drinking good coffee.

I wonder if a Café Scientifique presentation is going to be considered as partial fulfillment for the professional skills-building requirement of the MacLachlan’s NanoMAT: NSERC CREATE Training Program in Nanomaterials Science & Technology.

Musical Acoustics at Vancouver’s (Canada) April 29, 2014 Café Scientifique

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, April 29,  2014 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the meeting description (from the April 23, 2014 announcement),

Our next café will happen on Tuesday, April 29, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker is Dr. Chris Waltham from UBC Physics and Astronomy. The title and abstract of his talk is:

Musical Acoustics: What do soundboxes do and how do they work? 
 

Nearly all string instruments have soundboxes to radiate the vibrational energy of the strings. These wooden boxes tend to be objects of beauty and of iconic shapes (think of a violin or guitar), but seldom is any thought given to how they work. A large part of the field of musical acoustics is the analysis of sound boxes, and although the question of “quality” remains elusive, much progress has been made. For example, pretty much every feature of a violin’s morphology can be understood in terms of vibroacoustics and ergonomics, rather than visual aesthetics (with the possible exception of the scroll, of course). Although Andrea Amati would not have used the language and methods of mechanical engineering, the form he perfected most definitely follows its function.

I like to talk about acoustics and violins. Also harps, guitars, guqins and guzhengs.

For anyone curious about Andrea Amati, there’s this from his Wikipedia entry (Note: Links have been removed),

Andrea Amati was a luthier, from Cremona, Italy.[1][2] Amati is credited with making the first instruments of the violin family that are in the form we use today.[3] According to the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota:

It was in the workshop of Andrea Amati (ca. 1505-1577) in Cremona, Italy, in the middle of the 16th century that the form of the instruments of the violin family as we know them today first crystallized.

Several of his instruments survive to the present day, and some of them can still be played.[3][4] Many of the surviving instruments were among a consignment of 38 instruments delivered to Charles IX of France in 1564.

As for guqins and guzhengs, they are both Chinese stringed instruments of 7 strings and 18 or more strings, respectively.

Fierce mice and brain disorders topic at at Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique March 2014 get together

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, March 25,  2014 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the meeting description (from the March. 18, 2014 announcement),

Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Elizabeth Simpson.  The title of her talk is:

“Fierce Mice” and “Good Viruses” are Impacting Brain Disorders

Mental illness accounts for over 15 percent of the burden of disease in the developed world, which is higher than all cancers combined. Nevertheless, from a research perspective, these “brain and behaviour” disorders are relatively underserved. Combinations of both genetic and environmental factors cause brain and behaviour disorders, and the Simpson laboratory is focused on exploring the genetic cause.

Dr. Simpson’s group was the first to find that the human gene (NR2E1) can correct violent behaviour in the fierce mouse; a model of pathological aggression. NR2E1 is involved in controlling stem cell proliferation in the brain, and the Simpson group has found an association between this gene and bipolar disorder (manic-depressive psychosis), a brain illness that is usually diagnosed in late teens to early twenties, but likely initiates in childhood.

Working to open a new therapeutic door for mental illness and other brain disorders, Dr. Simpson is leading a large genomics project to build MiniPromoters; tools designed to deliver therapeutic genes to defined regions of the brain. This technology will enable virus-based-gene therapies for many different brain disorders regardless of the underlying cause. Thus, the Simpson laboratory is bringing new technologies to childhood and adult brain and behaviour disorders, all of which are underserved by traditional therapeutic approaches.

You canl see this description of Simpson’s talk is taken from her page on the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics webspace on the University of British Columbia website.

Freshwater fishes topic at Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique January 2014 get together

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Vancouver’s next Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, January 28,  2014 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the meeting description (from the Jan.. 21, 2014 announcement),

… Our speaker for the evening will be Eric Taylor, a zoology professor at UBC [University of British Columbia] and director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.  The title and abstract for his talk is:

Fluviatili Pisces Diversi (The Diversity of Freshwater Fishes): Underappreciated and Under Threat

The term fish biodiversity immediately conjures up images of strikingly-coloured fishes on a coral reef, but over 40% of the more than 33,000 fish species occur in fresh water which comprises only 0.8% of the Earth’s surface area. Freshwater fishes are, therefore, the most diverse group of vertebrates per unit area on Earth. Furthermore, recent research suggests that the rate of the origin of new biodiversity is greater in fresh water than in the marine realm. Within this context, my presentation will discuss general patterns of biodiversity in British Columbia freshwater fishes, its nature and origins, and explore a few examples of evolutionary marvels of our native freshwater fishes. Finally, I will outline some of the key threats to our freshwater fish bioheritage.

You can find out more about the Beaty Biodiversity Museum here. Note: It is located on the University of British Columbia lands and on the university’s website.