Tag Archives: Manitoba

Want to help Arctic science and look at polar bears from the comfort of home?

Two polar bears scored according to the Polar Bear Score Card Standard Fatness Index. The bear on the left is categorized as thin, a score of 2/5, while the bear on the right is considered very fat, 5/5. (Photo: Doug Clark, USask

A March 1, 2021 news item on phys.org announced a call for volunteers from University of Saskatchewan (USask) polar bear researcher Doug Clark (the response was tremendous),

University of Saskatchewan (USask) researcher Doug Clark is launching a first-of-its-kind research project that will engage citizen volunteers to help advance knowledge about polar bear behavior by analyzing a decade’s worth of images captured by trail cameras at Wapusk National Park in northern Manitoba.

“This is a totally different way to do polar bear research,” said Clark, an associate professor at USask’s School of Environment and Sustainability. “It’s non-invasive, it involves the public for the first time, and it’s being done in a way that can carry on through the pandemic without endangering anyone in northern communities.”

A February 26, 2021 University of Saskatchewan news release by Sarath Peiris, which originated the news item, described the project

Clark is collaborating with Oxford University penguinologist Tom Hart on the project, which will be run on Zooniverse—a “people-powered” online platform that has more than two million volunteers worldwide who assist researchers in almost every discipline to sort and organize data.

Hart has been using Zooniverse to help with his Antarctic Penguin Watch and Seabird Watch projects. He’s helping Clark and his students to set up the polar bear project by aggregating and uploading data, and will work with Clark on the analysis. (The platform gets institutional support from Oxford University and the Adler Planetarium, and receives grants from a variety of sources.)

“This allows people, who might otherwise just passively consume images on TV and social media, to participate in polar bear research and understand how these bears are interacting with people and other wildlife in what we know is a rapidly changing environment,” said Clark.

The volunteers are supplied with a field guide and asked to count the number of bears in photos, their gender, cubs, body condition and other factors, choosing from provided options. Beta testing with more than 60 volunteers showed the process works well. The photos will be uploaded in tranches over the coming months, allowing volunteers to work through one batch before moving on to the next.

“Volunteers can help us process data in ways that are incredibly labour-intensive, which otherwise would take us and our students years to do. Frankly, Zooniverse produces more robust data and more robust analyses than if we were tiredly flipping through photos on our own.”

The project … launched Feb. 27 [2021\, on International Polar Bear Day.

The research project began in 2011 when Clark was asked by Parks Canada to find out if the field camps it established in Wapusk attracted or repelled polar bears—a question that still hasn’t been conclusively answered.

Other questions his team is trying to answer are:

  • What are the drivers of polar bear visits to human infrastructure/activity? (i.e. is it environmental, is it a result of a lack of sea ice/nutritional stress, or is it a response to human activity?)
  • Are there changes over time in where/when polar bears, and all the other Arctic and boreal species seen in the photos, are observed?

Researchers have installed five non-invasive trail cameras at each of three field camp sites, and eight more at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre that operate year round, and have captured more than 600 discrete polar bear observations over 10 years, along with images of other species such as wolf, caribou, grizzly bears, moose, Arctic and red foxes, and even occasional wolverines.

The four sites are along the Hudson Bay coast and are separated by almost 200 kilometres, across the ecological boundary between boreal forest and tundra providing invaluable data on multiple species in a changing environment.

Ryan Brook, an associate professor in USask’s College of Agriculture and Bioresources, is taking advantage of the lucky “by-catch” of Clark’s project—the images of caribou and wolves—to conduct research on these species, especially caribou populations, at a time of Arctic warming and changing weather patterns.

Here’s more about the project from The Arctic Bears Project on Zooniverse,

Work with us to understand how polar, grizzly, and black bears behave in a changing environment

About The Arctic Bears Project

We’re learning how polar, grizzly, and black bears behave in the changing Arctic environment, with special attention to how they interact with people. The images you’ll see come from remote cameras set up on the fences of field camps in Wapusk National Park, on the west coast of Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada. Wapusk means “white bear” in the Cree language, and the park was established in 1996. At the time the park was established the area was well-known for its importance as polar bear denning habitat, and local people knew black bears lived in the forests there, but the appearance of grizzly bears in the late 1990s was a surprise. Read more about our research findings here.

When we say “we”, that includes a whole lot of people who all contribute to making this project happen: and not just the researchers! Wapusk National Park’s staff in Churchill, Manitoba, got the ball rolling in 2010 and since then community members in Churchill and elsewhere have helped us shape this project. Their enthusiasm for non-invasive wildlife research tools, and for the unexpected things we see on the cameras, motivates our team. In the early days of this work we were just excited that our cameras survived over the winter, but pretty soon we were realizing just how many photos we were collecting. This is where you come in: Zooniverse volunteers. Your help processing a decade’s worth of pictures from a changing sub-Arctic landscape is a critical task, and we’re so grateful to have your assistance with this research. These photos are downloaded once a year from most cameras, and the days when we finally see those images are special treats that every one of our team enjoys. We hope you experience the same feeling.

As of Wednesday, March 3, 2021, The Arctic Bears Project is now out of data but hopefully there will be more in the future. In the meantime, you can check out the Zooniverse for other projects.

WHALE of a concert on the edge of Hudson Bay (northern Canada) and sounds of icebergs from Oregon State University

Both charming and confusing (to me), the WHALE project features two artists (or is it musicians?) singing to and with beluga whales using a homemade underwater sound system while they all float on or in Hudson Bay. There’s a July 10, 2013 news item about the project on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) news website,

What began as an interest in aquatic culture for Laura Magnusson and Kaoru Ryan Klatt has turned into a multi-year experimental project that brings art to the marine mammals.

Since 2011, Magnusson and Klatt have been taking a boat onto the Churchill River, which flows into Hudson Bay, with a home-made underwater sound system.

….

Last week, the pair began a 75-day expedition that involves travelling aboard a special “sculptural sea vessel” to “build a sustained but non-invasive presence to foster bonds between humans and whales,” according to the project’s website.

Ten other musicians and interdisciplinary artists are joining Klatt and Magnusson to perform new works they’ve created specifically for the whales.

The latest expedition will be the focus of Becoming Beluga, a feature film that Klatt is directing.

Magnusson and Klatt are also testing a high-tech “bionic whale suit” that would enable the wearer to swim and communicate like a beluga whale.

Klatt has produced a number of WHALE videos including this one (Note: This not a slick production nor were any of the others I viewed on YouTube),

In addition to not being slick, there’s a quirky quality to this project video that I find charming and interesting.

My curiosity aroused, I also visited Magnusson’s and Klatt’s WHALE website and found this project description,

WHALE is an interdisciplinary art group comprised of Winnipeg-based artists Kaoru Ryan Klatt and Laura Magnusson. Their vision is to expand art and culture beyond human boundaries to non-human beings. Since 2011, they have been traveling to the northern edge of Manitoba, Canada to forge connections with thousands of beluga whales. From a canoe on the Churchill River, they have collaborated with these whales through sound, movement, and performative action. Now, aboard the SSV Cetus – a specially crafted sculptural sea vessel – they will embark on a 75-day art expedition throughout the Churchill River estuary, working to build a sustained but non-invasive presence to foster bonds between humans and whales. This undertaking – Becoming Beluga – is the culmination of a three-year integrated arts project with the belugas of this region, taking place between July 2 and September 14, 2013.

While the word ‘artist’ suggests visual arts rather than musical arts what I find a little more confounding is that this is not being described an art/science or art/technology project as these artists are clearly developing technology with their underwater sound system, sculptural sea vessel, and bionic whale suit. In any event, I wish them good luck with WHALE and their Becoming Beluga film.

In a somewhat related matter and for those interested in soundscapes and the ocean (in Antarctica), there is some research from Oregon State University which claims that melting icebergs make a huge din. From a July 11, 2013 news item on phys.org,

There is growing concern about how much noise humans generate in marine environments through shipping, oil exploration and other developments, but a new study has found that naturally occurring phenomena could potentially affect some ocean dwellers.

Nowhere is this concern greater than in the polar regions, where the effects of global warming often first manifest themselves. The breakup of ice sheets and the calving and grounding of icebergs can create enormous sound energy, scientists say. Now a new study has found that the mere drifting of an iceberg from near Antarctica to warmer ocean waters produces startling levels of noise.

The Oregon State University July 10, 2013 news release, which originated the news item, provides more detail (Note: A link has been removed),

A team led by Oregon State University (OSU) researchers used an array of hydrophones to track the sound produced by an iceberg through its life cycle, from its origin in the Weddell Sea to its eventual demise in the open ocean. The goal of the project was to measure baseline levels of this kind of naturally occurring sound in the ocean, so it can be compared to anthropogenic noises.

“During one hour-long period, we documented that the sound energy released by the iceberg disintegrating was equivalent to the sound that would be created by a few hundred supertankers over the same period,” said Robert Dziak, a marine geologist at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore., and lead author on the study. [emphasis mine]

“This wasn’t from the iceberg scraping the bottom,” he added. “It was from its rapid disintegration as the berg melted and broke apart. We call the sounds ‘icequakes’ because the process and ensuing sounds are much like those produced by earthquakes.”

I encourage anyone who’s interested to read the entire news release (apparently the researchers were getting images of their iceberg from the International Space Station) and/or the team’s published research paper,

Robert P. Dziak, Matthew J. Fowler, Haruyoshi Matsumoto, DelWayne R. Bohnenstiehl, Minkyu Park, Kyle Warren, and Won Sang Lee. 2013. Life and death sounds of Iceberg A53a. Oceanography 26(2), http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2013.20.

Premiere of Urbee documentary in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada) on Aug. 28, 2012 at 7:15 pm (CDT)

The big news is that a documentary about the Urbee car (which took filmmaker, Doug Howe, 2.5 years to make)  is being premiered tonight in Winnipeg.

I featured the Urbee in a couple of Sept. 28, 2011 postings titled, Manitoba’s Urbee, which described it and mentioned a 3-D printing process used for the car panels, and *an Interview with the Urbee car’s Jim Kor where  I asked if nanotechnology enabled some of the refinements such as the 3-D printing process (it did), and more.

Sadly, I’m not getting to Winnipeg tonight but if you can, here’s more information about the premiere,

The public premiere of the URBEE DOCUMENTARY.  This is the story of the building of the urban vehicle of the future.  URBEE is the world’s greenest passenger car.  And it’s being built right here in Winnipeg!

WHEN is this happening?

Tuesday August 28th doors open at 6:00 PM [rush seating]

6:30 Music by Bucky Driedger/Matt Schellenberg of the Liptonians

7:15 URBEE the documentary premiere

WHERE is it?

The Park Theatre 698 Osborne Street

HOW did they do it?

URBEE is designed and constructed by an elite group of Winnipeg engineers, industrial designers and environmental enthusiasts led by Jim Kor

WHY do we need URBEE?

It’s estimated there are 1 billion cars currently on the road across our planet. By 2050 there will be 2.5 billion.  The rampant consumption of fossil fuels by these automobiles is an unsustainable drain on the world’s energy.  And the resultant dumping of carbon into the atmosphere comes at a grave cost to the environment.  Built right here in Manitoba, URBEE is the prototype for a 21st century approach to automotive design that redefines energy efficiency and minimizes impact on the environment.

Here’s an image of the Urbee on the road at Bird’s Hill Park near Winnipeg,

 

And here’s another angle on the Urbee,

You can see why the car has attracted so much interest here and internationally. Here’s news about the Urbee now that it’s back from Europe (from the Jan. 2012 WOW backgrounder document),

Urbee has just returned from Europe, and is now safely back in our shop on Erin Street. Work continues on the car. This winter [it’s not clear if they mean 2012 or 2013] we plan to drive Urbee during one of our worst Winnipeg snow storms, to demonstrate that Urbee can also be a great winter car!

Congratulations to the filmmaker, Doug Howe, and Jim Kors. I look forward to hearing more about the Urbee (or URBEE).

There will be a DVD of the documentary available soon. If you contact them via jkor@urbee.net, you will be placed on a waiting list.

* ‘and’ changed to ‘an’ Nov. 7, 2013

GRAND offers $7500 for innovative media

The Canadian government funds a set of initiatives known collectively as the Network Centres of Excellence (NCE). GRAND (Graphics, Animation, and New Media), is located in Vancouver, BC. Here’s how the agency describes itself (from the About GRAND webpage),

GRAND is a research network and commercialization engine whose goal is to address complex issues in digital media and transform multidisciplinary research into user-centred solutions. GRAND will explore the use and application of digital media in a variety of settings including entertainment, healthcare, education, environmental sustainability, and public policy.

GRAND is a federally-funded Network of Centres of Excellence supporting 34 research projects divided into 5 cross-pollinating themes involving researchers at 25 universities across Canada with more than 60 industry, government, and nonprofit partners.

Aug. 19, 2011 there was an announcement that GRAND was getting a funding boost for commercialization projects (from the Aug. 19, 2011 news release),

The Canadian government, through Western Economic Diversification (WD), announced a funding commitment to boost GRAND’s research commercialization initiatives. The two-year agreement will support technology transfer, start-up creation, prototype development and networking events.  WD’s $399,000 will be matched by GRAND and industry for a total investment of $649,000 for the digital media economies of BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The program expects to develop nine technology prototypes, conduct 40 technology demonstrations and bring nine technologies to market.

Coincidentally or not, Mark Salopek, GRAND’s Manager of Technology Transfer and Commercialization, made this announcement via a Nov. 18, 2011 article by Dan Verhaeghe on Techvibes,

Grand is offering $7500 to any company that is willing to employ one of the program’s PH.D student researchers to build the frameworks of innovation towards a goal that will help Canada continue to become a world leader in the digital media industry in any of the latter sectors mentioned.

Verhaeghe’s article mentions computing, simulation, 3D, and gaming technology sectors in addition to the graphics, animation, and new media technology sectors mentioned in GRAND’s own profile.

If you are interested in getting more details, contact Mark Salopek by e-mail here. Certainly, I have a few questions, how long would you have to employ someone? Are the funds for a salary? How much work do you have to do to get this money (anyone who’s ever filled out a government grant application will tell you that it is an arduous process)? Is there some sort of reporting process for outcomes and how much work is involved with writing that up? Is there a pool of PhD students to choose from or do you go out and find one yourself? Is there a deadline? Why isn’t there any information about this grant on the GRAND website?

Interview with the Urbee car’s Jim Kor

In an earlier posting today, (Manitoba’s Urbee) about the Urbee, I promised an interview with Jim Kor, project leader and lead designer. Befoe getting to the interview, here’s a little biographical information from the Urbee website’s Team page,

Jim Kor is a professional engineer (mechanical) with over 35 years of experience in designing automotive, bus, rail, agricultural, and heavy mobile equipment as well as civil structures and product for the aerospace and medical industries. He is the senior designer and project leader for the Urbee project. Jim is the owner of Kor Product Design, a 30 year old international consulting firm.

Congratulations on your achievement, i.e., getting your first prototype completed. Could you describe the 3D printing process in simple terms? (e.g. do you lay down layers of atoms? particles? bits of polymer?; what does a 3D printer look like compared to the printers most of us are accustomed to?; etc.)

The 3-D printing process is an additive process, where a ‘3-D printer’ precisely places a material (such as plastic), thin strands or particles at a time, layer by layer, with each layer bonding to the next, all under computer control, until a rigid part emerges. These 3-D printers look like large metal boxes, and can be the size of bar-fridges (desktop models) or walk-in freezers (floor-mounted models). The input to the machine is strands of material (wound in loops, like wire), and the output is finished parts.

Has this 3D printing process been enabled by nanotechnology?

Yes, I believe so. The head, where the material emerges hot and bonds to the lower layer, is where all the action takes place, and most of the technology is focussed.

Is every single element (tires, windows, seats, panels, etcl) of this car produced by 3D printing?

On our first prototype Urbee, just the body panels are 3-D printed. All the windows were also 3-D printed, but these 3-D printed parts were used as patterns for making the plastic and glass windows within Urbee.

How long does it take to print a piece?
The larger pieces currently can take a long time, or at least they did on our first prototype. But, we are learning, and this machine time will come down, especially with further progress regarding the printing of larger panels.

I gather you’re raising funds for your 2nd prototype. Is that one going to be identical to the first or are you refining the design and how?

The second prototype will greatly benefit from the first prototype (the first time we have seen all major components working within the car). We plan on refining and expanding our use of 3-D printing, taking it into the interior and parts of the chassis.
How close is your product to being commercialized and what would it take to get it commercialized?

We are at first prototype stage. Most optimistic production date would be 2014. It will take continued Research & Development by our Team to get us there.

Could you tell me a little bit about how this project came to be located in Manitoba?

The originators of the project, and most of the Urbee Team lives and works (as designers and engineers) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Have you gotten provincial and federal support for this project? And, if any, what kind? Have you also gotten support from venture capitalists, banks, etc.?

We have gratefully received financial assistance, but the project remains largely self-funded. Without financial assistance (especially donations), and without the expertise and in-kind support of our sponsors (as listed on our website), the project could not have advanced to the point it has. We continue to receive fantastic support from some of the best people, within some of the best companies and organizations in the world. Hats off to them for making this project what it is today.

On a completely different note, Urbee sounds like Herbie, the name of a Volkswagen beetle featured in a number of Disney movies. Was this intentional?

No, it was not intentional. URBEE stands for URBan Electric with Ethanol as back-up. It is a project name that has stuck, is rather unique (easy to do google searches), and which I personally have grown to like. I don’t mind being associated with the original VW Beetle, one of the best-selling cars in the world, … ever, …. (over 24 million units sold worldwide, I believe).

Why did you choose that particular colour for your prototype?

The Industrial Designers within the Team chose the colour. They are extremely talented (the best in the world, in my opinion). They have designed the body to not only look aesthetically pleasing and ‘correct’, but have achieved a Coefficient of Drag (Cd) of 0.15, … extremely low for a practical car. Some would say impossibly low, but two independent computer aerodynamic simulations have verified this number, so we are satisfied that we are there. It is what makes us claim that ‘One day all cars will look like this’, because this body shape honours the physics of the problem (a car body moving at the bottom of an ocean of air).

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Yes. Thanks to all those that have helped advance this groundbreaking and important project. Thanks for your interest in this project, that is helping propel it forward. And keep your eye on our website (www.urbee.net), to see where we’re going next.

Thank you and I wish you and your team the best of luck, Jim Kor.

Here’s one more look at the Urbee,

Urbee rear side at TEDxWinnipeg Sept. 15,2011

ETA Sept. 28,2011 11:50 am PST: I’ve corrected a few grammatical and spelling errors of my own. I am including two videos featuring the Urbee. The first is promotional video produced by the Urbee team,

This second video is a clip from a television programme interview of Jim Kor and Jeff Hanson discussing the 3D printing process and the Urbee,

Manitoba’s Urbee

Manitoba's Urbee and its engineering team at TEDxWinnipeg Sept. 15, 2011 event

There’s a brand new car (prototype) in town. It was unveiled at TEDx Winnipeg on Sept. 15, 2011 by Manitoba-based company. From the Urbee website,

Urbee is a two-passenger hybrid car designed to be incredibly fuel efficient, easy to repair, safe to drive, and inexpensive to own.

Shortly after the TED presentation, the Urbee was featured in a Sept. 20, 2011 article by Ariel Schwartz for Fast Company and in a Sept. 21, 2011 news item for BBC News. From the Schwartz article,

Last year, Stratasys and Kor Ecologic teamed up to develop the first 3-D printed car–a vehicle that has its entire body 3-D printed layer by layer until a finished product emerges. The Urbee was just a partially completed prototype when we first wrote about it last year. …

 

The [finished] prototype, unveiled a few days ago at the TEDx Winnipeg event, is a two-passenger, single-cylinder, eight-horsepower vehicle. That means it has significantly less power than today’s vehicles, which usually have at least 68 horsepower. But those missing horses don’t matter: the Urbee requires just an eighth of the energy of conventional cars. The electric-ethanol hybrid is also designed to get up to 200 mpg on the highway and 100 mpg in city conditions–and it lasts up to 30 years.

There are more details about the printing process and its contribution to the car’s ‘greeness’ in the BBC article,

The use of “additive manufacturing”, where layers of material are built up, or “printed” to form a solid objects, contributed to the car’s green credentials, according to project leader Jim Kor.

“One only puts material where one needs it,” explained Mr Kor, who unveiled his vehicle at the TEDxWinnipeg conference.

“It is an additive process, building the part essentially one ‘molecule’ of material at a time, ultimately with no waste.

“This process can do many materials, and our goal would be to use fully-recycled materials.”

Currently it is only the Urbee’s body panels that are printed – by Minneapolis-based Stratasys. However, Mr Kor said he hoped that other parts would be produced this way in future.

Jim Kor, project leader and lead designer, very kindly answered some questions for an interview about the Urbee, which I will be posting later today.

Nanotechnology efforts in Manitoba

I’m glad to be pointing to some nanotechnology work in Manitoba. The University of Manitoba’s Dept. of Chemistry is working on ways to fabricate liquid crystal (LC) nanocomposites. From the Jan. 25, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

Market leaders in temperature controlled microscopy, Linkam Scientific Instruments, have been chosen by the Chemistry Department of the University of Manitoba to characterize liquid crystal composites conjunction with SAXS.

The research goal of Associate Professor Torsten Hegmann’s group in Manitoba is the fabrication of liquid crystal (LC) nanocomposites using functionalized metal or semiconductor nanoparticles as dopants in thermotropic amphiphilic and non-amphiphilic nematic, smectic and other types of liquid crystals. Of particular interest is the design of LC nanocomposite materials, chiral and non-chiral, that will respond to external stimuli such as temperature and applied electric fields. LCs are extremely useful in a variety of applications (e.g., flat panel displays, light shutters, spatial light modulators and others), because external perturbations via applied electric fields as well as modified surfaces (e.g. alignment layers) can cause significant changes in the macroscopic properties.

Australian government makes an unexpected nano announcement; San Diego, the Olympics of Science, and the AAAS; Manitoba high school student discusses copyright

Late last week I wrote about a new report, Nanotechnology in Australia: Trends, Applications and Collaborative Opportunities, that was supposed to be launched today. The news article which originated the story was by Cheryl Jones of The Australian, who noted,

THE number of Australian companies in a nanotechnology market likely to be worth trillions of dollars within a decade has plummeted, according to an Australian Academy of Science report.

Federal government reports previously put at about 80 the number of companies engaged in the technology underlying a burgeoning global market.

But now there are only 55 to 60, say nanotechnology experts cited in the academy report, to be released next week.

Little work has moved from the benchtop to the market, the report says, and one obstacle to commercialisation is “often dysfunctional” university intellectual property services.

I checked and this item from the Government of Australia was announced instead (from the Azo Materials site),

The Rudd Government is introducing a comprehensive national framework to guide the safe development of new technologies such as nanotechnology and biotechnology as part of a $38.2 million National Enabling Technologies Strategy released today.

“Technologies like nanotechnology and biotechnology have enormous potential, but we can only realise that potential with the community’s support,” said Innovation Minister, Senator Kim Carr.

“Health, safety and environmental protection are paramount for the Government. This strategy is about ensuring we meet the highest standards while at the same time maximising opportunities to develop these cutting-edge technologies.

I’m not sure what happened to the report but this announcement was a bit of a surprise. Given the material cited in Jones’ story, I would have expected the government to pull back rather than invest more heavily. It seems the government has recognized the barriers noted in the report (which has yet to be released or even seen by anyone other than Cheryl Jones [see my posting here] ETA: my apologies to Ms. Jones, I did find the report days later here at a location I failed to check, for penance I will leave my original wrong-headed and now embarrassing comment) and decided to address the issues head on.

Meanwhile, the ‘Olympics of Science’ is finishing today in San Diego (Feb. 18-22, 2010), the 176th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). From the AAAS site,

The 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting is coming to San Diego for the first time, bringing cutting-edge research and a host of free events for the public in its role as the United States’ largest general scientific conference.

Described in The Times Higher Education Supplement as “the Olympics of science conferences,” the Annual Meeting has long been known as the premier multidisciplinary science gathering in the United States. This year, it will continue its evolution to a prime international affair: When the 176th meeting of the society convenes from 18-22 February, scientists, journalists, and educators from more than 50 nations will be there.

Under the banner “Bridging Science and Society,” top researchers will discuss their findings in the context of global challenges in the environment, economy, health, and education. Attendees can explore research in the neurosciences, energy, astrobiology, public health, and environmental change, and learn how these advances directly affect courtroom trials, care for the elderly, sustainable cities, border security, and other public concerns.

As part of an unprecedented effort to share the excitement of scientific discovery with the public, AAAS’s Family Science Days and other free events offer a chance at hands-on learning for students of all ages.

I mention it not just because I’m currently experiencing Vancouver’s Winter Olympics but because, in 2012, the AAAS  will be hosting its annual meeting in Vancouver.  To get a better idea of what this means, I’ve excerpted parts of a story by Maggie Koerth-Baker on Boing, Boing about attending some of the presentations at the AAAS 2010 San Diego Meeting. First an excerpt from a nanotechnology presentation,

[David] Cahill [University of Illinois] is part of a team working to improve thermal insulation with nanotechnology. His goal: Create some kind of new material that will disrupt the transfer of heat energy between two objects. Getting it right would have big implications. For instance, we could drastically improve our ability to capture the waste heat from electrical generation and put it to use in other ways.One possible solution is silicon nanowires. These structures are normally baby-butt smooth, but as you make their surfaces more and more rough, the nanowires conduct less and less thermal energy. Right now, it’s not exactly clear why that trick works. But understanding it could put Cahill’s team on the right path.

He’s not the only one taking energy technology nano. Another researcher on the same panel, Yi Cui, Ph.D., of Stanford, is applying nanostructures to energy storage, in hopes of developing smaller batteries that can hold more power.

In fact, according to Cui, nanotech is absolutely essential to any future progress with batteries. Storage capacity for size has plateaued, he explained. To go further, we have to start making electrodes out of completely different—and probably completely new—materials.

Note: I’ve mentioned Cui and his work at Stanford University here. More from Koerth-Baker, this time it’s from a science history presentation on measurements and averages,

Before that [1761], obviously, scientists still made mistakes. Multiple measurements or experiments still yielded varying results. But they dealt with the variation in a very different way—they picked the answer they thought represented their best work.

To modern ears, that sounds like cheating—”You just randomly decided on the number you liked best? That’s science?” But, at the time, it was perfectly logical. Historically, scientists viewed themselves as craftsmen,[Jeff]  Buchwald said. If you were building a piece of fine furniture, you wouldn’t make a bunch and pick the average to display. You’d choose the finished version that was the best, and best displayed your woodworking skill.

Intriguing, eh? If you want to find out who introduced the concept of averaging scientific measurements and why he was too embarrassed to publish this in his first research, do read Koerth-Baker’s piece.

For my last bit, I’m back on the copyright trail and thanks to Techdirt for alerting me to this essay on file-sharing and morality written by a grade 12 student at Balmoral Hall School (all girls) in Winnipeg,Manitoba. Kamal Dhillon won the 2010 Glassen Ethics competition,

This year’s essay topic was: “Is it OK to download music, movies and games without paying?” There were about 80 entries from high schools in Winnipeg and across the province. The contest, held annually since 2007, is jointly sponsored by The Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics and The Department of Philosophy at the University of Manitoba. The winner receives $1,000. The Winnipeg Free Press publishes the winning essay.

From the Winnipeg Free Press (Feb.13, 2010 edition), an excerpt from Dhillon’s essay,

MILLIONS of people, mostly but not all young, engage in file sharing.

The multinational corporations who make and sell the material are not happy with this development. Their profits are threatened and they, in turn, are threatening to sue, for huge amounts of money, individuals who engage in file sharing.

I support the act of file sharing and argue that the free sharing of these forms of intellectual property would likely produce, overall, more good than harm for society.

It’s a thoughtful piece and well worth reading.

Nanotechnology in Manitoba; petition for a National Day for Canadian Research; Word on the Street Festival

I wasn’t expecting to find that researchers in Manitoba were working with researchers from Johns Hopkins University, two biopharmaceutical companies, Dartmouth College, and researchers from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to study sugar-coated nanoparticles. In fact since I don’t cover nanomedicine very often, I almost missed the item which is about how these particles might be used in cancer therapy .

From the news item on Science Daily,

In cooperation with colleagues at The Johns Hopkins University, Dartmouth College, the University of Manitoba and two biopharmaceutical companies, the NIST team has demonstrated that the particles—essentially sugar-coated bits of iron oxide, about 100 nanometers wide—are potent cancer killers because they interact with one another in ways that smaller nanoparticles do not. The interactions, thought by many bioengineers to be undesirable, actually help the larger particles heat up better when subjected to an alternating magnetic field. Because this heat destroys cancer cells, the team’s findings may help engineers design better particles and treatment methods.

Sometimes it seems to me that there is a drive to work with smaller and smaller bits of matter so this realization that the larger particle could be prove to be more effective is interesting and mildly amusing to me since I get caught up in this ‘drive to smaller and smaller’.

I recently received notice of a petition for a National Day for Canadian Research being organized by graduate students (presumably across the country).  From the notice,

Myself and others are trying to establish a National Day for Canadian Research to help support and recognize the achievements of researchers in Canada. This is a non-partisan and cost-free approach that the government should have no difficulty accepting.

For this to occur, it must be enacted by Parliament and we must petition them formally. In this effort, we have set up a website where hard copies of a petition (in either French or English) can be downloaded and signed (www.canadianresearchday.ca). In addition, an online petition can also be found at http://www.petitiononline.com/NCRD/petition.html or through the link found at www.canadianresearchday.ca. The CSBMCB has also posted our links on their advocacy website.

Signing the online petition is good but if the effort is to be successful, hard copy petitions must be signed and sent. If you want to read the full notice, you can go here to the Don’t leave Canada behind forum.

The Vancouver (Canada) edition of the Word on the Street Festival is this Sunday, Sept.27, 2009. It goes from 11 am to 5 pm and is being held in the blocks surrounding the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library (at 350 West Georgia St.). There are maps on their website as well as other information. They do advise using public transit since they do close  a few blocks to car traffic for the festival.