Tag Archives: India

Remove 80 percent of dye pollutants from wastewater with wood nanocrystals

They’re usually known as cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) but the term wood nanocrystals works too. From a March 23, 2023 news item on Nanowerk,

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new method that can easily purify contaminated water using a cellulose-based material. This discovery could have implications for countries with poor water treatment technologies and combat the widespread problem of toxic dye discharge from the textile industry.

Clean water is a prerequisite for our health and living environment, but far from a given for everyone. According to the World Health Organization, WHO, there are currently over two billion people living with limited or no access to clean water.

This global challenge is at the centre of a research group at Chalmers University of Technology, which has developed a method to easily remove pollutants from water. The group, led by Gunnar Westman, Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry focuses on new uses for cellulose and wood-based products and is part of the Wallenberg Wood Science Center.

The researchers have built up solid knowledge about cellulose nanocrystals* – and this is where the key to water purification lies. These tiny nanoparticles have an outstanding adsorption capacity, which the researchers have now found a way to utilise.

“We have taken a unique holistic approach to these cellulose nanocrystals, examining their properties and potential applications. We have now created a biobased material, a form of cellulose powder with excellent purification properties that we can adapt and modify depending on the types of pollutants to be removed,” says Gunnar Westman.

Caption: Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new biobased material, a form of powder based on cellulose nanocrystals to purify water from pollutants, including textile dyes. When the polluted water passes through the filter with cellulose powder, the pollutants are absorbed, and the sunlight entering the treatment system causes them to break down quickly and efficiently. Laboratory tests have shown that at least 80 percent of the dye pollutants are removed with the new method and material, and the researchers see good opportunities to further increase the degree of purification. Credit: Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden | David Ljungberg

A March 23, 2023 Chalmers University of Technology press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the water treatment in more detail including how it will be tested in field conditions,

Absorbs and breaks down toxins
In a study recently published in the scientific journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the researchers show how toxic dyes can be filtered out of wastewater using the method and material developed by the group. The research was conducted in collaboration with the Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur in India, where dye pollutants in textile industry wastewater are a widespread problem.

The treatment requires neither pressure nor heat and uses sunlight to catalyse the process. Gunnar Westman likens the method to pouring raspberry juice into a glass with grains of rice, which soak up the juice to make the water transparent again. 

“Imagine a simple purification system, like a portable box connected to the sewage pipe. As the contaminated water passes through the cellulose powder filter, the pollutants are absorbed and the sunlight entering the treatment system causes them to break down quickly and efficiently. It is a cost-effective and simple system to set up and use, and we see that it could be of great benefit in countries that currently have poor or non-existent water treatment,” he says. 

The method will be tested in India
India is one of the developing countries in Asia with extensive textile production, where large amounts of dyes are released into lakes, rivers and streams every year. The consequences for humans and the environment are serious. Water contaminant contains dyes and heavy metals and can cause skin damage with direct contact and increase the risk of cancer and organ damage when they enter into the food chain. Additionally, nature is affected in several ways, including the impairment of photosynthesis and plant growth.

Conducting field studies in India is an important next step, and the Chalmers researchers are now supporting their Indian colleagues in their efforts to get some of the country’s small-scale industries to test the method in reality. So far, laboratory tests with industrial water have shown that more than 80 percent of the dye pollutants are removed with the new method, and Gunnar Westman sees good opportunities to further increase the degree of purification.

“Going from discharging completely untreated water to removing 80 percent of the pollutants is a huge improvement, and means significantly less destruction of nature and harm to humans. In addition, by optimising the pH and treatment time, we see an opportunity to further improve the process so that we can produce both irrigation and drinking water. It would be fantastic if we can help these industries to get a water treatment system that works, so that people in the surrounding area can use the water without risking their health,” he says.

Can be used against other types of pollutants
Gunnar Westman also sees great opportunities to use cellulose nanocrystals for the treatment of other water pollutants than dyes. In a previous study, the research group has shown that pollutants of toxic hexavalent chromium, which is common in wastewater from mining, leather and metal industries, could be successfully removed with a similar type of cellulose-based material. The group is also exploring how the research area can contribute to the purification of antibiotic residues.

“There is great potential to find good water purification opportunities with this material, and in addition to the basic knowledge we have built up at Chalmers, an important key to success is the collective expertise available at the Wallenberg Wood Science Center,” he says.

More about the scientific article
Read the full article in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research: Cellulose nanocrystals derived from microcrystalline cellulose for selective removal of Janus Green Azo Dye. The authors of the article are Gunnar Westman and Amit Kumar Sonker of Chalmers University of Technology, and Ruchi Aggarwal, Anjali Kumari Garg, Deepika Saini, and Sumit Kumar Sonkar of Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur in India. The research is funded by the Wallenberg Wood Science Center, WWSC and the Indian group research is funded by Science and Engineering Research Board under Department of Science and Technology (DST-SERB) Government of India. 

*Nanocrystals 
Nanocrystals are nanoparticles in crystal form that are extremely small: a nanoparticle is between 1 and 100 nanometres in at least one dimension, i.e. along one axis. (one nanometre = one billionth of a metre).

Wallenberg Wood Science Center
•    The Wallenberg Wood Science Center, WWSC, is a research centre that aims to develop new sustainable biobased materials using raw materials from the forest. The WWSC is a multidisciplinary collaboration between Chalmers University of Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Linköping University, and is based on a donation from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
•    The centre involves about 95 researchers and faculty members and 50 doctoral students. Eight research groups from Chalmers are part of the centre.

About dye pollutants and access to clean water
•    Over two billion people in the world live with limited or no access to clean water. It is estimated that over 3.5 million people die each year from lack of access to clean water and proper sanitation.
•    The global textile industry, which is concentrated in Asia, contributes to widespread water pollution. Production often takes place in low-wage countries, where much of the technology is antiquated and environmental legislation and oversight may be lacking.
•    Emissions contribute to eutrophication and toxic effects in water and soil. There are examples in China and India where groundwater has been contaminated by dye and processing chemicals.
•    Producing one kilogram of new textiles requires between 7,000 and 29,000 litres of water, and between 1.5 and 6.9 kg of chemicals.
•    In 2021, around 327 thousand tonnes of dyes and pigments were produced in India. A large proportion of the country’s dye pollutants is discharged untreated.

Sources 

Swedish Environmental Protection Agency: https://www.naturvardsverket.se/amnesomraden/textil/dagens-textila-floden-ar-en-global-miljoutmaning/ 

WHO: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water

A critical review on the treatment of dye-containing wastewater: Ecotoxicological and health concerns of textile dyes and possible remediation approaches for environmental safety. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, February 2022

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147651321012720

Effects of textile dyes on health and the environment and bioremediation potential of living organisms. Biotechnology Research and Innovation, July–December 2019

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452072119300413

Swedish Chemicals Agency: https://www.kemi.se/kemiska-amnen-och-material/nanomaterial

Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/726947/india-dyes-and-pigments-production-volume/#:~:text=In%20fiscal%20year%202021%2C%20the,around%20327%20thousand%20metric%20tons

Even though there’s a link to the research in the press release, here’s my link to and citation for the paper, which specifies a particular dye suggesting this is not a universal treatment,

Cellulose Nanocrystals Derived from Microcrystalline Cellulose for Selective Removal of Janus Green Azo Dye by Ruchi Aggarwal, Anjali Kumari Garg, Deepika Saini, Sumit Kumar Sonkar, Amit Kumar Sonker, and Gunnar Westman. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2023, 62, 1, 649–659 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.2c03365 Publication Date: December 26, 2022 Copyright © 2022 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

More communication of India’s scientific research?

Did you know that “India is the third largest producer of research output in the world?” That’s according to a new ‘white paper’ produced by Cactus Communications’ Impact Science division.

Here’s more from a May 18, 2022 Cactus Communications press release (also on EurekAlert) about their latest report,

Research communication attracts funders, increases opportunities formulti-institutional collaborations and multi-continent projects, and enhances scientific reputation. India lags behind other nations in actively promoting science. These are the findings of a white paper titled ‘Enriching the Indian Scientific Landscape with Research Communication’ by Impact Science, a Cactus Communications brand that specializes in science communication strategy and tactics. The comprehensive report emphasizes the importance of research communication and high-profile work in terms of publications and patents which allow the scientific community to reach out to a worldwide audience and raise awareness about Indian research. To continue this endeavor, the white paper highlights the need for sustained and increased funding from both private and public sectors.

Research has great potential in enhancing national pride, improving problem-solving capabilities, training the younger generation of scientists, and occasional commercialization. Abhishek Goel, CEO & Co-founder, CACTUS said, “Apart from the fact that it is a public good and that it is needed to inspire the next generation of scientists, the main reason for communicating science and scientific research is to obtain more funding for research. The west has been quite good at attracting philanthropic funding, whereas this remains extremely limited in India. In the west, entire departments or laboratories are funded by endowments and philanthropic money for a long time and we recommend the same for India, especially in the new age of private universities. Such funding would help attract the best of domestic and global minds, working to solve India’s and the world’s problems, from India.”

The white paper addresses the major gap between content portrayal for the academics, scientific communities, and non-scientific audience. It is crucial as limited people have the flair for understanding the language and technicalities of a research paper. Efforts should be invested in opening channels to use the science background and merge it with writing and communication skills that can be understood by the larger audience. Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, Former Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, said, “One point which everyone agrees is that there is no point in doing science unless and until it is written up and communicated to your peers. Communication is at the heart of all our science.”

Over the years, academic institutions, governments, researchers, and those funding research projects have been concerned about the struggles faced by scientists and researchers’ way of engagement with the larger non-scientific audience. Conveying their research to this set of non-scientific audience needs to be simplified and requires an adequate skillset due to the complexity of the subject matter.

Adding to the perspective, Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Former Director, IIT Delhi said, “Being able to communicate your research to a wider audience is essential. There are times wherein researchers hesitate to explain their work due to technical constraints on the receiving end. Internationally, researchers have showcased perfect combinations of being excellent writers, authors, and effective communicators. The same needs to be inculcated in India. Institutes now have to identify and motivate good communicators among all their researchers and scientists. I believe merely publishing papers will not create an impact in the long run until we generate the knowledge and use that knowledge to create wealth later.”

The white paper further talks about how gradually the government and other research institutes are working toward propagating research and popularising the work through newspaper articles or even blogs and social media posts. Researchers prefer Twitter and LinkedIn over other social media platforms. Engagement on these platforms has led to successful collaborations, increased funding, and award nomination possibilities. Leading institutes and scientists are attempting to reach out to a larger audience by preparing videos on popular and current topics such as vaccines, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. They are creating material in regional languages and uploading them on the Internet which is helping them reach out to a much larger audience than before.

You can download the complete report here: https://www.impact.science/whitepaper/india-third-largest-producer-of-research-output-in-the-world.html

About Cactus Communications

Founded in 2002, Cactus Communications (cactusglobal.com) is a technology company accelerating scientific advancement. CACTUS solves problems for researchers, universities, publishers, academic societies, and life science organisations through innovative products and services developed under the brands Editage, Cactus Life Sciences, Researcher.Life, Impact Science, UNSILO, Paperpal and Cactus Labs. CACTUS has offices in Princeton, London, Aarhus, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo, and Mumbai; a global workforce of over 3,000 experts; and customers from over 190 countries. CACTUS is considered a pioneer in its workplace best practices and has been consistently ranked a great place to work over the last several years. To find out more, visit www.cactusglobal.com

About Impact Science

Founded in 2019, Impact Science (impact.science) offers solutions for science dissemination and engagement with peers, public, and policymakers for wider research outreach. Impact Science is a brand of Cactus Communications (cactusglobal.com), a technology company accelerating scientific advancement. Few [sic] key clienteles [sic] Impact Science engages with are Kings College London, Willey, Emerald publishing, Abbott, ASCO, Royal Society of Chemistry, etc.

Before you download the white paper, you will need to give them your name, your institution, your email, etc.

Transformational machine learning (TML)

It seems machine learning is getting a tune-up. A November 29, 2021 news item on ScienceDaily describes research into improving machine learning from an international team of researchers,

Researchers have developed a new approach to machine learning that ‘learns how to learn’ and out-performs current machine learning methods for drug design, which in turn could accelerate the search for new disease treatments.

The method, called transformational machine learning (TML), was developed by a team from the UK, Sweden, India and Netherlands. It learns from multiple problems and improves performance while it learns.

A November 29, 2021 University of Cambridge press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the potential this new technique may have on drug discovery and more,

TML could accelerate the identification and production of new drugs by improving the machine learning systems which are used to identify them. The results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Most types of machine learning (ML) use labelled examples, and these examples are almost always represented in the computer using intrinsic features, such as the colour or shape of an object. The computer then forms general rules that relate the features to the labels.

“It’s sort of like teaching a child to identify different animals: this is a rabbit, this is a donkey and so on,” said Professor Ross King from Cambridge’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, who led the research. “If you teach a machine learning algorithm what a rabbit looks like, it will be able to tell whether an animal is or isn’t a rabbit. This is the way that most machine learning works – it deals with problems one at a time.”

However, this is not the way that human learning works: instead of dealing with a single issue at a time, we get better at learning because we have learned things in the past.

“To develop TML, we applied this approach to machine learning, and developed a system that learns information from previous problems it has encountered in order to better learn new problems,” said King, who is also a Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. “Where a typical ML system has to start from scratch when learning to identify a new type of animal – say a kitten – TML can use the similarity to existing animals: kittens are cute like rabbits, but don’t have long ears like rabbits and donkeys. This makes TML a much more powerful approach to machine learning.”

The researchers demonstrated the effectiveness of their idea on thousands of problems from across science and engineering. They say it shows particular promise in the area of drug discovery, where this approach speeds up the process by checking what other ML models say about a particular molecule. A typical ML approach will search for drug molecules of a particular shape, for example. TML instead uses the connection of the drugs to other drug discovery problems.

“I was surprised how well it works – better than anything else we know for drug design,” said King. “It’s better at choosing drugs than humans are – and without the best science, we won’t get the best results.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Transformational machine learning: Learning how to learn from many related scientific problems by Ivan Olier, Oghenejokpeme I. Orhobor, Tirtharaj Dash, Andy M. Davis, Larisa N. Soldatova, Joaquin Vanschoren, and Ross D. King. PNAS December 7, 2021 118 (49) e2108013118; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2108013118

This paper appears to be open access.

Tamarind shells turned into carbon nanosheets for supercapacitors

Fro anyone who needs a shot of happiness, this is a very happy scientist,

Caption: Assistant Professor (Steve) Cuong Dang, from NTU’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, who led the study, displaying pieces of tamarind shell, which were integral to the study. Credit to NTU Singapore

A July 14, 2021 news item on ScienceDaily describes the source of assistant professor (Steve) Cuong Dang’s happiness,

Shells of tamarind, a tropical fruit consumed worldwide, are discarded during food production. As they are bulky, tamarind shells take up a considerable amount of space in landfills where they are disposed as agricultural waste.

However, a team of international scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has found a way to deal with the problem. By processing the tamarind shells which are rich in carbon, the scientists converted the waste material into carbon nanosheets, which are a key component of supercapacitors – energy storage devices that are used in automobiles, buses, electric vehicles, trains, and elevators.

The study reflects NTU’s commitment to address humanity’s grand challenges on sustainability as part of its 2025 strategic plan, which seeks to accelerate the translation of research discoveries into innovations that mitigate our impact on the environment.

A July 14, 2021 NTU press release (also here [scroll down to click on the link to the full press release] and on EurekAlert but published July 13, 2021), which originated the news item, delves further into the topic,

he team, made up of researchers from NTU Singapore, the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in Norway, and Alagappa University in India, believes that these nanosheets, when scaled up, could be an eco-friendly alternative to their industrially produced counterparts, and cut down on waste at the same time.

Assistant Professor (Steve) Cuong Dang, from NTU’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, who led the study, said: “Through a series of analysis, we found that the performance of our tamarind shell-derived nanosheets was comparable to their industrially made counterparts in terms of porous structure and electrochemical properties. The process to make the nanosheets is also the standard method to produce active carbon nanosheets.”

Professor G. Ravi, Head, Department of Physics, who co-authored the study with Asst Prof Dr R. Yuvakkumar, who are both from Alagappa University, said: “The use of tamarind shells may reduce the amount of space required for landfills, especially in regions in Asia such as India, one of the world’s largest producers of tamarind, which is also grappling with waste disposal issues.”

The study was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Chemosphere in June [2021].

The step-by-step recipe for carbon nanosheets

To manufacture the carbon nanosheets, the researchers first washed tamarind fruit shells and dried them at 100°C for around six hours, before grinding them into powder.

The scientists then baked the powder in a furnace for 150 minutes at 700-900 degrees Celsius in the absence of oxygen to convert them into ultrathin sheets of carbon known as nanosheets.

Tamarind shells are rich in carbon and porous in nature, making them an ideal material from which to manufacture carbon nanosheets.

A common material used to produce carbon nanosheets are industrial hemp fibres. However, they require to be heated at over 180°C for 24 hours – four times longer than that of tamarind shells, and at a higher temperature. This is before the hemp is further subjected to intense heat to convert them into carbon nanosheets.

Professor Dhayalan Velauthapillai, Head of the research group for Advanced Nanomaterials for Clean Energy and Health Applications at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, who participated in the study, said: “Carbon nanosheets comprise of layers of carbon atoms arranged in interconnecting hexagons, like a honeycomb. The secret behind their energy storing capabilities lies in their porous structure leading to large surface area which help the material to store large amounts of electric charges.”

The tamarind shell-derived nanosheets also showed good thermal stability and electric conductivity, making them promising options for energy storage.

The researchers hope to explore larger scale production of the carbon nanosheets with agricultural partners. They are also working on reducing the energy needed for the production process, making it more environmentally friendly, and are seeking to improve the electrochemical properties of the nanosheets.

The team also hopes to explore the possibility of using different types of fruit skins or shells to produce carbon nanosheets.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Cleaner production of tamarind fruit shell into bio-mass derived porous 3D-activated carbon nanosheets by CVD technique for supercapacitor applications by V. Thirumal, K. Dhamodharan, R. Yuvakkumar, G. Ravi, B. Saravanakumar, M. Thambidurai, Cuong Dang, Dhayalan Velauthapillai. Chemosphere Volume 282, November 2021, 131033 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.131033 Available online 2 June 2021.

This paper is behind a paywall.

Because we could all do with a little more happiness these days,

Caption: (L-R) Senior Research Fellow Dr Thambidurai Mariyappan, also from NTU’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, who was part of the study, and Asst Prof Dang, holding up tamarind pods. Credit to NTU Singapore

Director of nanotechnology centre removed after alleged casteist comments

I am covering this because the study of science does not insulate anyone from issues of discrimination. In fact, there is a long standing use of science to defend discrimination and, in some cases, the elimination of some groups perceived as substandard. Eugenics and race science come to mind.

For any Canadians who may still feel a little smug, it might be useful to note that the highly revered Tommy Douglas (1904 -1986), the father of universal health care in Canada, had an interest in eugenics and wrote a master’s thesis proposing its use. From his Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,

Douglas graduated from Brandon College in 1930, and completed his Master of Arts degree in sociology at McMaster University in 1933. His thesis, entitled The Problems of the Subnormal Family, endorsed eugenics.[15] The thesis proposed a system that would have required couples seeking to marry to be certified as mentally and morally fit. Those deemed to be “subnormal”, because of low intelligence, moral laxity, or venereal disease would be sent to state farms or camps; while those judged to be mentally defective or incurably diseased would be sterilized.[16]

Douglas rarely mentioned his thesis later in his life, and his government never enacted eugenics policies, even though two official reviews of Saskatchewan’s mental health system recommended such a program when he became Premier and Minister of Health. As Premier, Douglas opposed the adoption of eugenics laws.[16] By the time Douglas took office in 1944, many people questioned eugenics due to Nazi Germany’s embrace of it in its effort to create a “master race”.[17] Instead, Douglas implemented vocational training for the mentally handicapped and therapy for those suffering from mental disorders.[18][a]

Douglas seems to have quietly abandoned eugenics as a solution to social problems at some point after 1933.

Before moving onto the alleged casteist comments, a little bit about the caste system.

Caste and science

Here’s what I found about the caste system and race science in the Caste system in India Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,

Castes are rigid social groups characterized by hereditary transmission of life style, occupation and social status. The caste system in India has its origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially the Mughal Empire and the British Raj.[1][2][3][4] The caste system consists of two different concepts, varna and jati, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis.

The term caste is not originally an Indian word, though it is now widely used, both in English and in Indian languages. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is derived from the Portuguese casta, meaning “race, lineage, breed” and, originally, “‘pure or unmixed (stock or breed)”.[30] There is no exact translation in Indian languages, but varna and jati are the two most approximate terms.[31]

Race science

Colonial administrator Herbert Hope Risley, an exponent of race science, used the ratio of the width of a nose to its height to divide Indians into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.[164]

Highly charged

A November 7, 2021news item in The Times of India breaks the story, Note: Links have been removed,

Mahatma Gandhi University on Saturday [November 6, 2021] removed Dr Nandakumar Kalarikkal from the post of the director of the International and Inter University Centre for Nano Science and Nano technology (IIUCNN) for alleged caste discrimination against a research scholar.

The vice-chancellor of the university Sabu Thomas has taken charge as the director of the centre.

The university is learned to have made the decision based on a directive from the state government. Deepa P Mohanan, a research scholar, who has been on an indefinite hunger strike in the varsity, had demanded Kalarikkal’s removal from the department alleging that she faced discrimination based on caste from him and that he prevented her from doing her research.

The action against the faculty member has been taken even as the hunger strike by the student entered the ninth day on Saturday [November 6, 2021].

Thomas said that Kalarikkal has stepped down and that the decision was made after holding talks with Kalarikkal based on a directive from the government.

“Kalarikkal is a brilliant faculty member. He was willing to step down,” the vice chancellor said. He also said that nobody can remove Kalarikkal as a faculty member, adding that he will be [sic] continue to serve in the centre as well as in the Physics department.

Earlier in the day, minister for higher education R Bindu had signalled her support to the student.

In a Facebook post the minister said that the government has asked the university what is stopping it from removing the professor and conduct [sic] a probe.

A November 8, 2021 news item on The Quint provides a followup to the story,

Deepa P Mohanan, a Dalit PhD scholar at the Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU) in Kottayam, Kerala, on Monday, 8 November [2021], finally withdrew her hunger strike. …

… Mohanan claims that for the last 10 years, her progress is being scuttled by the director of the institute, Nandakumar Kalarickal, allegedly because she is a Dalit.

Professor Nandakumar who was earlier removed from the director’s post, has now been removed from the university’s nanoscience department.

A few thoughts

Mohanan certainly found a very powerful way to protest; her hunger strike at the Mahatma Gandhi University had to have resonated with officials and bystanders.

For anyone not familiar with Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), he was India’s first prime minister after leading India to freedom from British rule with nonviolent protests (including hunger strikes).

With regard to the allegations, I imagine there will be some further investigation. Should I hear more about the matter, I will update this posting.

In the end, this situation is a reminder that science is not practised by flawless people and can be prey to the same social problems one encounters everywhere.,

Jean-Pierre Luminet awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga prize for Popularizing Science

Before getting to the news about Jean-Pierre Luminet, astrophysicist, poet, sculptor, and more, there’s the prize itself.

Established in 1951, a scant five years after UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) was founded in 1945, the Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science is the organization’s oldest prize. Here’s more from the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science webpage,

The UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science is an international award to reward exceptional contributions made by individuals in communicating science to society and promoting the popularization of science. It is awarded to persons who have had a distinguished career as writer, editor, lecturer, radio, television, or web programme director, or film producer in helping interpret science, research and technology to the public. UNESCO Kalinga Prize winners know the potential power of science, technology, and research in improving public welfare, enriching the cultural heritage of nations and providing solutions to societal problems on the local, regional and global level.

The UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science is UNESCO’s oldest prize, created in 1951 following a donation from Mr Bijoyanand Patnaik, Founder and President of the Kalinga Foundation(link is external) Trust in India. Today, the Prize is funded by the Kalinga Foundation Trust(link is external), the Government of the State of Orissa, India(link is external), and the Government of India (Department of Science and Technology(link is external)).

Jean-Pierre Luminet

From the November 4, 2021 UNESCO press release (also received via email),

French scientist and author Jean-Pierre Luminet will be awarded the 2021 UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science. The prize-giving ceremony will take place online on 5 November as part of the celebration of World Science Day for Peace and Development.

An independent international jury selected Jean-Pierre Luminet recognizing his longstanding commitment to the popularization of science. Mr Luminet is a distinguished astrophysicist and cosmologist who has been promoting the values of scientific research through a wide variety of media: he has created popular science books and novels, beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogues, poetry, audiovisual materials for children and documentaries, notably “Du Big Bang au vivant” with Hubert Reeves. He is also an artist, engraver and sculptor and has collaborated with composers on musicals inspired by the sounds of the Universe.

His publications are model examples for communicating science to the public. Their scientific content is precise, rigorous and always state-of-the-art. He has written seven “scientific novels”, including “Le Secret de Copernic”, published in 2006. His recent book “Le destin de l’univers : trous noirs et énergie sombre”, about black holes and dark energy, was written for the general public and was praised for its outstanding scientific, historical, and literary qualities. Jean-Pierre Luminet’s work has been translated into a many languages including Chinese and Korean.

There is a page for Luminet in both the French language and English language wikipedias. If you have the language skills, you might want to check out the French language essay as I found it to be more stylishly written.

Compare,

De par ses activités de poète, essayiste, romancier et scénariste, dans une œuvre voulant lier science, histoire, musique et art, il est également Officier des Arts et des Lettres.

With,

… Luminet has written fifteen science books,[4] seven historical novels,[4] TV documentaries,[5] and six poetry collections. He is an artist, an engraver, a sculptor, and a musician.

My rough translation of the French,

As a poet, essayaist, novelist, and a screenwriter in a body of work that brings together science, history, music and art, he is truly someone who has enriched the French cultural inheritance (which is what it means to be an Officer of Arts and Letters or Officier des Arts et des Lettres; see English language entry for Ordre des Arts et des Lettres).

In any event, congratulations to M. Luminet.

Plants as a source of usable electricity

A friend sent me a link to this interview with Iftach Yacoby of Tel Aviv University talking about some new research into plants and electricity. From a June 8, 2020 article by Omer Kabir for Calcalist (CTech) on the Algemeiner website,

For years, scientists have been trying to understand the evolutionary capabilities of plants to produce energy and have had only partial success. But a recent Tel Aviv University [TAU] study seems to make the impossible possible, proving that any plant can be transformed into an electrical source, producing a variety of materials that can revolutionize the global economy — from using hydrogen as fuel to clean ammonia to replace the pollutants in the agriculture industry.

“People are unaware that their plant pots have an electric current for everything,” Iftach Yacoby, head of the Laboratory of Renewable Energy Studies at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Life Sciences said in a recent interview with Calcalist.

“Our study opens the door to a new field of agriculture, equivalent to wheat or corn production for food security — generating energy,” he said. However, Yacoby makes it clear that it will take at least a decade before the research findings can be transferred to the commercial level.

At the heart of the research is the understanding that plants have particularly efficient capacities when it comes to electricity generation. “Anything green that is not dollars, but rather leaves, grass, and seaweed for example, contains solar panels that are completely identical to the panels the entire country is now building,” Yacoby explained. “They know how to take in solar radiation and make electrons flow out of it. That’s the essence of photosynthesis. Most people think of oxygen and food production, but the most basic phase of photosynthesis is the same as silicon panels in the Negev and on rooftops — taking in sunlight and generating electric current.”

… “At home, an electric current can be wired to many devices. Just plug the device into a power outlet. But when you want to do it in plants, it’s about the order of nanometers. We have no idea where to plug the plugs. That’s what we did in this study. In plant cells, we found they can be used as a socket for anything, at just a nanometer size. We have an enzyme, which is equivalent to a biological machine that can produce hydrogen. We took this enzyme, put it together so that it sits in the socket in the plant cell, which was previously only hypothetical. When he started to produce hydrogen, we proved that we had a socket for everything, though nanotermically-sized. Now we can take any plant or kelp and engineer it so that their electrical outlet can be used for production purposes,” Yacoby explained.

“If you attach an enzyme that produces hydrogen you get hydrogen, it’s the cleanest fuel that can be,” he said. “There are already electric cars and bicycles with a range of 150 km that travel on hydrogen. There are many types of enzymes in nature that produce valuable substances, such as ammonia needed for the fertilizer industry and today is still produced by a very toxic and harmful method that consumes a lot of energy. We can provide a plant-based alternative for the production of materials that are made in chemical manufacturing facilities. It’s an electric platform inside a living plant cell.”

You might find it helpful to read Kabir’s article in its entirety before moving on to the news release about the work. The work was conducted with researchers from Arizona State University (ASU;US) and a researcher from Yogi Vemana University (India), as well as, Yacoby. There’s a May 7, 2020 ASU news release (also on EurekAlert but published on May 6, 2020) detailing the work,

Hydrogen is an essential commodity with over 60 million tons produced globally every year. However over 95 percent of it is made by steam reformation of fossil fuels, a process that is energy intensive and produces carbon dioxide. If we could replace even a part of that with algal biohydrogen that is made via light and water, it would have a substantial impact.

This is essentially what has just been achieved in the lab of Kevin Redding, professor in the School of Molecular Sciences and director of the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis. Their research, entitled Rewiring photosynthesis: a Photosystem I -hydrogenase chimera that makes hydrogen in vivo was published very recently in the high impact journal Energy and Environmental Science.

“What we have done is to show that it is possible to intercept the high energy electrons from photosynthesis and use them to drive alternate chemistry, in a living cell” explained Redding. “We have used hydrogen production here as an example.”

“Kevin Redding and his group have made a true breakthrough in re-engineering the Photosystem I complex,” explained Ian Gould, interim director of the School of Molecular Sciences, which is part of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “They didn’t just find a way to redirect a complex protein structure that nature designed for one purpose to perform a different, but equally critical process, but they found the best way to do it at the molecular level.”

It is common knowledge that plants and algae, as well as cyanobacteria, use photosynthesis to produce oxygen and “fuels,” the latter being oxidizable substances like carbohydrates and hydrogen. There are two pigment-protein complexes that orchestrate the primary reactions of light in oxygenic photosynthesis: Photosystem I (PSI) and Photosystem II (PSII).

Algae (in this work the single-celled green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, or ‘Chlamy’ for short) possess an enzyme called hydrogenase that uses electrons it gets from the protein ferredoxin, which is normally used to ferry electrons from PSI to various destinations. A problem is that the algal hydrogenase is rapidly and irreversibly inactivated by oxygen that is constantly produced by PSII.

In this study, doctoral student and first author Andrey Kanygin has created a genetic chimera of PSI and the hydrogenase such that they co-assemble and are active in vivo. This new assembly redirects electrons away from carbon dioxide fixation to the production of biohydrogen.

“We thought that some radically different approaches needed to be taken — thus, our crazy idea of hooking up the hydrogenase enzyme directly to Photosystem I in order to divert a large fraction of the electrons from water splitting (by Photosystem II) to make molecular hydrogen,” explained Redding.

Cells expressing the new photosystem (PSI-hydrogenase) make hydrogen at high rates in a light dependent fashion, for several days.

This important result will also be featured in an upcoming article in Chemistry World – a monthly chemistry news magazine published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The magazine addresses current developments in the world of chemistry including research, international business news and government policy as it affects the chemical science community.

The NSF grant funding this research is part of the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF). In this arrangement, a U.S. scientist and Israeli scientist join forces to form a joint project. The U.S. partner submits a grant on the joint project to the NSF, and the Israeli partner submits the same grant to the ISF (Israel Science Foundation). Both agencies must agree to fund the project in order to obtain the BSF funding. Professor Iftach Yacoby of Tel Aviv University, Redding’s partner on the BSF project, is a young scientist who first started at TAU about eight years ago and has focused on different ways to increase algal biohydrogen production.

In summary, re-engineering the fundamental processes of photosynthetic microorganisms offers a cheap and renewable platform for creating bio-factories capable of driving difficult electron reactions, powered only by the sun and using water as the electron source.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Rewiring photosynthesis: a photosystem I-hydrogenase chimera that makes H2in vivo by Andrey Kanygin, Yuval Milrad, Chandrasekhar Thummala, Kiera Reifschneider, Patricia Baker, Pini Marco, Iftach Yacoby and Kevin E. Redding. Energy Environ. Sci., 2020, Advance DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C9EE03859K First published: 17 Apr 2020

In order to gain access to the paper, you must have or sign up for a free account.

This image was used to illustrate the research,

A model of Photosystem 1 core subunits Courtesy: ASU

The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (5 of 5)

At long last, the end is in sight! This last part is mostly a collection of items that don’t fit elsewhere or could have fit elsewhere but that particular part was already overstuffed.

Podcasting science for the people

March 2009 was the birth date for a podcast, then called Skeptically Speaking and now known as Science for the People (Wikipedia entry). Here’s more from the Science for the People About webpage,

Science for the People is a long-format interview podcast that explores the connections between science, popular culture, history, and public policy, to help listeners understand the evidence and arguments behind what’s in the news and on the shelves.

Every week, our hosts sit down with science researchers, writers, authors, journalists, and experts to discuss science from the past, the science that affects our lives today, and how science might change our future.

THE TEAM

Rachelle Saunders: Producer & Host

I love to learn new things, and say the word “fascinating” way too much. I like to talk about intersections and how science and critical thinking intersect with everyday life, politics, history, and culture. By day I’m a web developer, and I definitely listen to way too many podcasts.

….

H/t to GeekWrapped’s 20 Best Science Podcasts.

Science: human contexts and cosmopolitanism

situating science: Science in Human Contexts was a seven-year project ending in 2014 and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Here’s more from their Project Summary webpage,

Created in 2007 with the generous funding of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Strategic Knowledge Cluster grant, Situating Science is a seven-year project promoting communication and collaboration among humanists and social scientists that are engaged in the study of science and technology.

You can find out more about Situating Science’s final days in my August 16, 2013 posting where I included a lot of information about one of their last events titled, “Science and Society 2013 Symposium; Emerging Agendas for Citizens and the Sciences.”

The “think-tank” will dovetail nicely with a special symposium in Ottawa on Science and Society Oct. 21-23. For this symposium, the Cluster is partnering with the Institute for Science, Society and Policy to bring together scholars from various disciplines, public servants and policy workers to discuss key issues at the intersection of science and society. [emphasis mine]  The discussions will be compiled in a document to be shared with stakeholders and the wider public.

The team will continue to seek support and partnerships for projects within the scope of its objectives. Among our top priorities are a partnership to explore sciences, technologies and their publics as well as new partnerships to build upon exchanges between scholars and institutions in India, Singapore and Canada.

The Situating Science folks did attempt to carry on the organization’s work by rebranding the organization to call it the Canadian Consortium for Situating Science and Technology (CCSST). It seems to have been a short-lived volunteer effort.

Meanwhile, the special symposium held in October 2013 appears to have been the springboard for another SSHRC funded multi-year initiative, this time focused on science collaborations between Canada, India, and Singapore, Cosmopolitanism and the Local in Science and Nature from 2014 – 2017. Despite their sunset year having been in 2017, their homepage boasts news about a 2020 Congress and their Twitter feed is still active. Harking back, here’s what the project was designed to do, from the About Us page,

Welcome to our three year project that will establish a research network on “Cosmopolitanism” in science. It closely examines the actual types of negotiations that go into the making of science and its culture within an increasingly globalized landscape. This partnership is both about “cosmopolitanism and the local” and is, at the same time, cosmopolitan and local.

Anyone who reads this blog with any frequency will know that I often comment on the fact that when organizations such as the Council of Canadian Academies bring in experts from other parts of the world, they are almost always from the US or Europe. So, I was delighted to discover the Cosmopolitanism project and featured it in a February 19, 2015 posting.

Here’s more from Cosmopolitanism’s About Us page

Specifically, the project will:

  1. Expose a hitherto largely Eurocentric scholarly community in Canada to widening international perspectives and methods,
  2. Build on past successes at border-crossings and exchanges between the participants,
  3. Facilitate a much needed nation-wide organization and exchange amongst Indian and South East Asian scholars, in concert with their Canadian counterparts, by integrating into an international network,
  4. Open up new perspectives on the genesis and place of globalized science, and thereby
  5. Offer alternative ways to conceptualize and engage globalization itself, and especially the globalization of knowledge and science.
  6. Bring the managerial team together for joint discussion, research exchange, leveraging and planning – all in the aid of laying the grounds of a sustainable partnership

Eco Art (also known as ecological art or environmental art)

I’m of two minds as to whether I should have tried to stuff this into the art/sci subsection in part 2. On balance, I decided that this merited its own section and that part 2 was already overstuffed.

Let’s start in Newfoundland and Labrador with Marlene Creates (pronounced Kreets), here’s more about her from her website’s bio webpage,

Marlene Creates (pronounced “Kreets”) is an environmental artist and poet who works with photography, video, scientific and vernacular knowledge, walking and collaborative site-specific performance in the six-acre patch of boreal forest in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, where she lives.

For almost 40 years her work has been an exploration of the relationship between human experience, memory, language and the land, and the impact they have on each other. …

Currently her work is focused on the six acres of boreal forest where she lives in a ‘relational aesthetic’ to the land. This oeuvre includes Water Flowing to the Sea Captured at the Speed of Light, Blast Hole Pond River, Newfoundland 2002–2003, and several ongoing projects:

Marlene Creates received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for “Lifetime Artistic Achievement” in 2019. …

As mentioned in her bio, Creates has a ‘forest’ project. The Boreal Poetry Garden,
Portugal Cove, Newfoundland 2005– (ongoing)
. If you are interested in exploring it, she has created a virtual walk here. Just click on one of the index items on the right side of the screen to activate a video.

An October 1, 2018 article by Yasmin Nurming-Por for Canadian Art magazine features 10 artists who focus on environmental and/or land art themes,

As part of her 2016 master’s thesis exhibition, Fredericton [New Brunswick] artist Gillian Dykeman presented the video Dispatches from the Feminist Utopian Future within a larger installation that imagined various canonical earthworks from the perspective of the future. It’s a project that addresses the inherent sense of timelessness in these massive interventions on the natural landscape from the perspective of contemporary land politics. … she proposes a kind of interaction with the invasive and often colonial gestures of modernist Land art, one that imagines a different future for these earthworks, where they are treated as alien in a landscape and as beacons from a feminist future.

A video trailer featuring “DISPATCHES FROM THE FEMINIST UTOPIAN FUTURE” (from Dykeman’s website archive page featuring the show,

If you have the time, I recommend reading the article in its entirety.

Oddly, I did not expect Vancouver to have such an active eco arts focus. The City of Vancouver Parks Board maintains an Environmental Art webpage on its site listing a number of current and past projects.

I cannot find the date for when this Parks Board initiative started but I did find a document produced prior to a Spring 2006 Arts & Ecology think tank held in Vancouver under the auspices of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the Vancouver Foundation, and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (London UK).

In all likelihood, Vancouver Park Board’s Environmental Art webpage was produced after 2006.

I imagine the document and the think tank session helped to anchor any then current eco art projects and encouraged more projects.

The document (MAPPING THE TERRAIN OF CONTEMPORARY ECOART PRACTICE AND COLLABORATION) while almost 14 years old offers a fascinating overview of what was happening internationally and in Canada.

While its early days were in 2008, EartHand Gleaners (Vancouver-based) wasn’t formally founded as an arts non-for-profit organization until 2013. You can find out more about them and their projects here.

Eco Art has been around for decades according to the eco art think tank document but it does seemed to have gained momentum here in Canada over the last decade.

Photography and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Exploring the jack pine tight knit family tree. Credit: Dana Harris Brock University (2018)

Pictured are developing phloem, cambial, and xylem cells (blue), and mature xylem cells (red), in the outermost portion of a jack pine tree. This research aims to identify the influences of climate on the cellular development of the species at its northern limit in Yellowknife, NT. The differences in these cell formations is what creates the annual tree ring boundary.

Science Exposed is a photography contest for scientists which has been run since 2016 (assuming the Past Winners archive is a good indicator for the programme’s starting year).

The 2020 competition recently closed but public voting should start soon. It’s nice to see that NSERC is now making efforts to engage members of the general public rather than focusing its efforts solely on children. The UK’s ASPIRES project seems to support the idea that adults need to be more fully engaged with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) efforts as it found that children’s attitudes toward science are strongly influenced by their parents’ and relatives’ attitudes.(See my January 31, 2012 posting.)

Ingenious, the book and Ingenium, the science museums

To celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017, then Governor General David Johnston and Tom Jenkins (Chair of the board for Open Text and former Chair of the federal committee overseeing the ‘Review of Federal Support to R&’D [see my October 21, 2011 posting about the resulting report]) wrote a boo about Canada’s inventors and inventions.

Johnston and Jenkins jaunted around the country launching their book (I have more about their June 1, 2017 Vancouver visit in a May 30, 2017 posting; scroll down about 60% of the way]).

The book’s full title, “Ingenious: How Canadian Innovators Made the World Smarter, Smaller, Kinder, Safer, Healthier, Wealthier and Happier ” outlines their thesis neatly.

Not all that long after the book was launched, there was a name change (thankfully) for the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (CSTMC). It is now known as Ingenium (covered in my August 10, 2017 posting).

The reason that name change was such a relief (for those who don’t know) is that the corporation included three national science museums: Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, and (wait for it) Canada Science and Technology Museum. On the list of confusing names, this ranks very high for me. Again, I give thanks for the change from CSTMC to Ingenium, leaving the name for the museum alone.

2017 was also the year that the newly refurbished Canada Science and Technology Museum was reopened after more than three years (see my June 23, 2017 posting about the November 2017 reopening and my June 12, 2015 posting for more information about the situation that led to the closure).

A Saskatchewan lab, Convergence, Order of Canada, Year of Science, Animated Mathematics, a graphic novel, and new media

Since this section is jampacked, I’m using subheads.

Saskatchewan

Dr. Brian Eames hosts an artist-in-residence, Jean-Sebastien (JS) Gauthier at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine Eames Lab. A February 16, 2018 posting here featured their first collaboration together. It covered evolutionary biology, the synchrotron (Canadian Light Source [CLS]) in Saskatoon, and the ‘ins and outs’ of a collaboration between a scientist an artist. Presumably the art-in-residence position indicates that first collaboration went very well.

In January 2020, Brian kindly gave me an update on their current projects. Jean-Sebastin successfully coded an interactive piece for an exhibit at the 2019 Nuit Blanche Saskatoon event using Connect (Xbox). More recently, he got a VR [virtual reality] helmet for an upcoming project or two.

After much clicking on the Nuit Blanche Saskatoon 2019 interactive map, I found this,

Our Glass is a work of interactive SciArt co-created by artist JS Gauthier and biologist Dr Brian F. Eames. It uses cutting-edge 3D microscopic images produced for artistic purposes at the Canadian Light Source, Canada’s only synchrotron facility. Our Glass engages viewers of all ages to peer within an hourglass showing how embryonic development compares among animals with whom we share a close genetic heritage.

Eames also mentioned they were hoping to hold an international SciArt Symposium at the University of Saskatchewan in 2021.

Convergence

Dr. Cristian Zaelzer-Perez, an instructor at Concordia University (Montreal; read this November 20, 2019 Concordia news release by Kelsey Rolfe for more about his work and awards), in 2016 founded the Convergence Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that encourages interdisciplinary neuroscience and art collaborations.

Cat Lau’s December 23, 2019 posting for the Science Borealis blog provides insight into Zaelzer-Perez’s relationship to science and art,

Cristian: I have had a relationship with art and science ever since I have had memory. As a child, I loved to do classifications, from grouping different flowers to collecting leaves by their shapes. At the same time, I really loved to draw them and for me, both things never looked different; they (art and science) have always worked together.

I started as a graphic designer, but the pursuit to learn about nature was never dead. At some point, I knew I wanted to go back to school to do research, to explore and learn new things. I started studying medical technologies, then molecular biology and then jumped into a PhD. At that point, my life as a graphic designer slipped down, because of the focus you have to give to the discipline. It seemed like every time I tried to dedicate myself to one thing, I would find myself doing the other thing a couple years later.

I came to Montreal to do my post-doc, but I had trouble publishing, which became problematic in getting a career. I was still loving what I was doing, but not seeing a future in that. Once again, art came back into my life and at the same time I saw that science was becoming really hard to understand and scientists were not doing much to bridge the gap.

The Convergence Initiative has an impressive array of programmes. Do check it out.

Order of Canada and ‘The Science Lady’

For a writer of children’s science books, an appointment to the Order of Canada is a singular honour. I cannot recall a children’s science book writer previous to Shar Levine being appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada. Known as ‘The Science Lady‘, Levine was appointed in 2016. Here’s more from her Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,

Shar Levine (born 1953) is an award-winning, best selling Canadian children’s author, and designer.

Shar has written over 70 books and book/kits, primarily on hands-on science for children. For her work in Science literacy and Science promotion, Shar has been appointed to the 2016 Order of Canada. In 2015, she was recognized by the University of Alberta and received their Alumni Honour Award. Levine, and her co-author, Leslie Johnstone, were co-recipients of the Eve Savory Award for Science Communication from the BC Innovation Council (2006) and their book, Backyard Science, was a finalist for the Subaru Award, (hands on activity) from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science Books and Films (2005). The Ultimate Guide to Your Microscope was a finalist-2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books and Films Prize Hands -On Science/Activity Books.

To get a sense of what an appointment to the Order of Canada means, here’s a description from the government of Canada website,

The Order of Canada is how our country honours people who make extraordinary contributions to the nation.

Since its creation in 1967—Canada’s centennial year—more than 7 000 people from all sectors of society have been invested into the Order. The contributions of these trailblazers are varied, yet they have all enriched the lives of others and made a difference to this country. Their grit and passion inspire us, teach us and show us the way forward. They exemplify the Order’s motto: DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM (“They desire a better country”).

Year of Science in British Columbia

In the Fall of 2010, the British Columbia provincial government announced a Year of Science (coinciding with the school year) . Originally, it was supposed to be a provincial government-wide initiative but the idea percolated through any number of processes and emerged as a year dedicated to science education for youth (according to the idea’s originator, Moira Stilwell who was then a Member of the Legislative Assembly [MLA]’ I spoke with her sometime in 2010 or 2011).

As the ‘year’ drew to a close, there was a finale ($1.1M in funding), which was featured here in a July 6, 2011 posting.

The larger portion of the money ($1M) was awarded to Science World while $100,000 ($0.1 M) was given to the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences To my knowledge there have been no followup announcements about how the money was used.

Animation and mathematics

In Toronto, mathematician Dr. Karan Singh enjoyed a flurry of interest due to his association with animator Chris Landreth and their Academy Award (Oscar) Winning 2004 animated film, Ryan. They have continued to work together as members of the Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP) Lab at the University of Toronto. Theirs is not the only Oscar winning work to emerge from one or more of the members of the lab. Jos Stam, DGP graduate and adjunct professor won his third in 2019.

A graphic novel and medical promise

An academic at Simon Fraser University since 2015, Coleman Nye worked with three other women to produce a graphic novel about medical dilemmas in a genre described as’ ethno-fiction’.

Lissa: A Story about Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution (2017) by Sherine Hamdy and Coleman Nye, two anthropologists and Art by Sarula Bao and Caroline Brewer, two artists.

Here’s a description of the book from the University of Toronto Press website,

As young girls in Cairo, Anna and Layla strike up an unlikely friendship that crosses class, cultural, and religious divides. Years later, Anna learns that she may carry the hereditary cancer gene responsible for her mother’s death. Meanwhile, Layla’s family is faced with a difficult decision about kidney transplantation. Their friendship is put to the test when these medical crises reveal stark differences in their perspectives…until revolutionary unrest in Egypt changes their lives forever.

The first book in a new series [ethnoGRAPIC; a series of graphic novels from the University of Toronto Press], Lissa brings anthropological research to life in comic form, combining scholarly insights and accessible, visually-rich storytelling to foster greater understanding of global politics, inequalities, and solidarity.

I hope to write more about this graphic novel in a future posting.

New Media

I don’t know if this could be described as a movement yet but it’s certainly an interesting minor development. Two new media centres have hosted, in the last four years, art/sci projects and/or workshops. It’s unexpected given this definition from the Wikipedia entry for New Media (Note: Links have been removed),

New media are forms of media that are computational and rely on computers for redistribution. Some examples of new media are computer animations, computer games, human-computer interfaces, interactive computer installations, websites, and virtual worlds.[1][2]

In Manitoba, the Video Pool Media Arts Centre hosted a February 2016 workshop Biology as a New Art Medium: Workshop with Marta De Menezes. De Menezes, an artist from Portugal, gave workshops and talks in both Winnipeg (Manitoba) and Toronto (Ontario). Here’s a description for the one in Winnipeg,

This workshop aims to explore the multiple possibilities of artistic approaches that can be developed in relation to Art and Microbiology in a DIY situation. A special emphasis will be placed on the development of collaborative art and microbiology projects where the artist has to learn some biological research skills in order to create the artwork. The course will consist of a series of intense experimental sessions that will give raise to discussions on the artistic, aesthetic and ethical issues raised by the art and the science involved. Handling these materials and organisms will provoke a reflection on the theoretical issues involved and the course will provide background information on the current diversity of artistic discourses centred on biological sciences, as well a forum for debate.

VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver hosted the Invasive Systems in 2019. From the exhibition page,

Picture this – a world where AI invades human creativity, bacteria invade our brains, and invisible technological signals penetrate all natural environments. Where invasive species from plants to humans transform spaces where they don’t belong, technology infiltrates every aspect of our daily lives, and the waste of human inventions ravages our natural environments.

This weekend festival includes an art-science exhibition [emphasis mine], a hands-on workshop (Sat, separate registration required), and guided discussions and tours by the curator (Sat/Sun). It will showcase collaborative works by three artist/scientist pairs, and independent works by six artists. Opening reception will be on Friday, November 8 starting at 7pm; curator’s remarks and performance by Edzi’u at 7:30pm and 9pm. 

New Westminster’s (British Columbia) New Media Gallery recently hosted an exhibition, ‘winds‘ from June 20 – September 29, 2019 that could be described as an art/sci exhibition,

Landscape and weather have long shared an intimate connection with the arts.  Each of the works here is a landscape: captured, interpreted and presented through a range of technologies. The four artists in this exhibition have taken, as their material process, the movement of wind through physical space & time. They explore how our perception and understanding of landscape can be interpreted through technology. 

These works have been created by what might be understood as a sort of scientific method or process that involves collecting data, acute observation, controlled experiments and the incorporation of measurements and technologies that control or collect motion, pressure, sound, pattern and the like. …

Council of Canadian Academies, Publishing, and Open Access

Established in 2005, the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) (Wikipedia entry) is tasked by various departments and agencies to answer their queries about science issues that could affect the populace and/or the government. In 2014, the CCA published a report titled, Science Culture: Where Canada Stands. It was in response to the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (now called Ingenium), Industry Canada, and Natural Resources Canada and their joint request that the CCA conduct an in-depth, independent assessment to investigate the state of Canada’s science culture.

I gave a pretty extensive analysis of the report, which I delivered in four parts: Part 1, Part 2 (a), Part 2 (b), and Part 3. In brief, the term ‘science culture’ seems to be specifically, i.e., it’s not used elsewhere in the world (that we know of), Canadian. We have lots to be proud of. I was a little disappointed by the lack of culture (arts) producers on the expert panel and, as usual, I bemoaned the fact that the international community included as reviewers, members of the panel, and as points for comparison were drawn from the usual suspects (US, UK, or somewhere in northern Europe).

Science publishing in Canada took a bit of a turn in 2010, when the country’s largest science publisher, NRC (National Research Council) Research Publisher was cut loose from the government and spun out into the private, *not-for-profit publisher*, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP). From the CSP Wikipedia entry,

Since 2010, Canadian Science Publishing has acquired five new journals:

Since 2010, Canadian Science Publishing has also launched four new journals

Canadian Science Publishing offers researchers options to make their published papers freely available (open access) in their standard journals and in their open access journal, (from the CSP Wikipedia entry)

Arctic Science aims to provide a collaborative approach to Arctic research for a diverse group of users including government, policy makers, the general public, and researchers across all scientific fields

FACETS is Canada’s first open access multidisciplinary science journal, aiming to advance science by publishing research that the multi-faceted global community of research. FACETS is the official journal of the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Science.

Anthropocene Coasts aims to understand and predict the effects of human activity, including climate change, on coastal regions.

In addition, Canadian Science Publishing strives to make their content accessible through the CSP blog that includes plain language summaries of featured research. The open-access journal FACETS similarly publishes plain language summaries.

*comment removed*

CSP announced (on Twitter) a new annual contest in 2016,

Canadian Science Publishing@cdnsciencepub

New CONTEST! Announcing Visualizing Science! Share your science images & win great prizes! Full details on the blog http://cdnsciencepub.com/blog/2016-csp-image-contest-visualizing-science.aspx1:45 PM · Sep 19, 2016·TweetDeck

The 2016 blog posting is no longer accessible. Oddly for a contest of this type, I can’t find an image archive for previous contests. Regardless, a 2020 competition has been announced for Summer 2020. There are some details on the VISUALIZING SCIENCE 2020 webpage but some are missing, e.g., no opening date, no deadline. They are encouraging you to sign up for notices.

Back to open access, in a January 22, 2016 posting I featured news about Montreal Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute [MNI] in Québec, Canada) and its then new policy giving researchers world wide access to its research and made a pledge that it would not seek patents for its work.

Fish, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Prince Edward Island

AquAdvantage’s genetically modified salmon was approved for consumption in Canada according to my May 20, 2016 posting. The salmon are produced/farmed by a US company (AquaBounty) but the the work of genetically modifying Atlantic salmon with genetic material from the Chinook (a Pacific ocean salmon) was mostly undertaken at Memorial University in Newfoundland & Labrador.

The process by which work done in Newfoundland & Labrador becomes the property of a US company is one that’s well known here in Canada. The preliminary work and technology is developed here and then purchased by a US company, which files patents, markets, and profits from it. Interestingly, the fish farms for the AquAdvantage salmon are mostly (two out of three) located on Prince Edward Island.

Intriguingly, 4.5 tonnes of the modified fish were sold for consumption in Canada without consumers being informed (see my Sept. 13, 2017 posting, scroll down about 45% of the way).

It’s not all sunshine and roses where science culture in Canada is concerned. Incidents where Canadians are not informed let alone consulted about major changes in the food supply and other areas are not unusual. Too many times, scientists, politicians, and government policy experts want to spread news about science without any response from the recipients who are in effect viewed as a ‘tabula rasa’ or a blank page.

Tying it all up

This series has been my best attempt to document in some fashion or another the extraordinary range of science culture in Canada from roughly 2010-19. Thank you! This series represents a huge amount of work and effort to develop science culture in Canada and I am deeply thankful that people give so much to this effort.

I have inevitably missed people and organizations and events. For that I am very sorry. (There is an addendum to the series as it’s been hard to stop but I don’t expect to add anything or anyone more.)

I want to mention but can’t expand upon,the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, which was established in the 2017 federal budget (see a March 31, 2017 posting about the Vector Institute and Canada’s artificial intelligence sector).

Science Borealis, the Canadian science blog aggregator, owes its existence to Canadian Science Publishing for the support (programming and financial) needed to establish itself and, I believe, that support is still ongoing. I think thanks are also due to Jenny Ryan who was working for CSP and championed the initiative. Jenny now works for Canadian Blood Services. Interestingly, that agency added a new programme, a ‘Lay Science Writing Competition’ in 2018. It’s offered n partnership with two other groups, the Centre for Blood Research at the University of British Columbia and Science Borealis

While the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada does not fit into my time frame as it lists as its founding date December 1, 1868 (18 months after confederation), the organization did celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2018.

Vancouver’s Electric Company often produces theatrical experiences that cover science topics such as the one featured in my June 7, 2013 posting, You are very star—an immersive transmedia experience.

Let’s Talk Science (Wikipedia entry) has been heavily involved with offering STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programming both as part of curricular and extra-curricular across Canada since 1993.

This organization predates confederation having been founded in 1849 by Sir Sandford Fleming and Kivas Tully in Toronto. for surveyors, civil engineers, and architects. It is the Royal Canadian Institute of Science (Wikipedia entry)_. With almost no interruption, they have been delivering a regular series of lectures on the University of Toronto campus since 1913.

The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is a more recent beast. In 1999 Mike Lazirides, founder of Research In Motion (now known as Blackberry Limited), acted as both founder and major benefactor for this institute in Waterloo, Ontario. They offer a substantive and imaginative outreach programmes such as Arts and Culture: “Event Horizons is a series of unique and extraordinary events that aim to stimulate and enthral. It is a showcase of innovative work of the highest international standard, an emotional, intellectual, and creative experience. And perhaps most importantly, it is a social space, where ideas collide and curious minds meet.”

While gene-editing hasn’t seemed to be top-of-mind for anyone other than those in the art/sci community that may change. My April 26, 2019 posting focused on what appears to be a campaign to reverse Canada’s criminal ban on human gene-editing of inheritable cells (germline). With less potential for controversy, there is a discussion about somatic gene therapies and engineered cell therapies. A report from the Council of Canadian is due in the Fall of 2020. (The therapies being discussed do not involve germline editing.)

French language science media and podcasting

Agence Science-Presse is unique as it is the only press agency in Canada devoted to science news. Founded in 1978, it has been active in print, radio, television, online blogs, and podcasts (Baladodiffusion). You can find their Twitter feed here.

I recently stumbled across ‘un balados’ (podcast), titled, 20%. Started in January 2019 by the magazine, Québec Science, the podcast is devoted to women in science and technology. 20%, the podcast’s name, is the statistic representing the number of women in those fields. “Dans les domaines de la science et de la technologie, les femmes ne forment que 20% de la main-d’oeuvre.” (from the podcast webpage) The podcast is a co-production between “Québec Science [founded in 1962] et l’Acfas [formerly, l’Association Canadienne-Française pour l’Avancement des Sciences, now, Association francophone pour le savoir], en collaboration avec la Commission canadienne pour l’UNESCO, L’Oréal Canada et la radio Choq.ca.” (also from the podcast webpage)

Does it mean anything?

There have been many developments since I started writing this series in late December 2019. In January 2020, Iran shot down one of its own planes. That error killed some 176 people , many of them (136 Canadians and students) bound for Canada. The number of people who were involved in the sciences, technology, and medicine was striking.

It was a shocking loss and will reverberate for quite some time. There is a memorial posting here (January 13, 2020), which includes links to another memorial posting and an essay.

As I write this we are dealing with a pandemic, COVID-19, which has us all practicing physical and social distancing. Congregations of large numbers are expressly forbidden. All of this is being done in a bid to lessen the passage of the virus, SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19.

In the short term at least, it seems that much of what I’ve described in these five parts (and the addendum) will undergo significant changes or simply fade away.

As for the long term, with this last 10 years having hosted the most lively science culture scene I can ever recall, I’m hopeful that science culture in Canada will do more than survive but thrive.

For anyone who missed them:

Part 1 covers science communication, science media (mainstream and others such as blogging) and arts as exemplified by music and dance: The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (1 of 5).

Part 2 covers art/science (or art/sci or sciart) efforts, science festivals both national and local, international art and technology conferences held in Canada, and various bar/pub/café events: The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (2 of 5).

Part 3 covers comedy, do-it-yourself (DIY) biology, chief science advisor, science policy, mathematicians, and more: The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (3 of 5)

Part 4 covers citizen science, birds, climate change, indigenous knowledge (science), and the IISD Experimental Lakes Area: The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (4 of 5)

*”for-profit publisher, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP)” corrected to “not-for-profit publisher, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP)” and this comment “Not bad for a for-profit business, eh?” removed on April 29, 2020 as per Twitter comments,

Canadian Science Publishing @cdnsciencepub

Hi Maryse, thank you for alerting us to your blog. To clarify, Canadian Science Publishing is a not-for-profit publisher. Thank you as well for sharing our image contest. We’ve updated the contest page to indicate that the contest opens July 2020!

10:01am · 29 Apr 2020 · Twitter Web App

Nano-spray gel to better manage frostbite injuries

While it’s late in the season to be thinking of frostbite in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s always next year. This research from India looks quite promising, assuming you have the gel available when you first get frostbite. From a December 11, 2019 news item on Nanowerk (Note: A link has been removed),

Mountaineers and winter sports enthusiasts know the dangers of frostbite –– the tissue damage that can occur when extremities, such as the nose, ears, fingers and toes, are exposed to very cold temperatures. However, it can be difficult to get treated quickly in remote, snowbound areas.

Now, researchers reporting in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering (“Heparin-Encapsulated Metered-Dose Topical “Nano-Spray Gel” Liposomal Formulation Ensures Rapid On-Site Management of Frostbite Injury by Inflammatory Cytokines Scavenging”) have developed a convenient gel that could be sprayed onto frostbite injuries when they occur, helping wounds heal.

A December 11, 2019 American Chemical Society (ACS) news release, which originated the news item, describes frostbite and the nano-spray gel in more detail,

Frostbite causes fluids in the skin and underlying tissues to freeze and crystallize, resulting in inflammation, decreased blood flow and cell death. Extremities are the most affected areas because they are farther away from the body’s core and already have reduced blood flow. If frostbite is not treated soon after the injury, it could lead to gangrene and amputation of the affected parts. Conventional treatments include immersing the body part in warm water, applying topical antibiotic creams or administering vasodilators and anti-inflammatory drugs, but many of these are unavailable in isolated snowy areas, like mountaintops. Others, such as topical medications, could end up freezing themselves. Rahul Verma and colleagues at the Institute of Nano Science and Technology [India] wanted to develop a cold-stable spray gel that could be administered on-site for the immediate treatment of frostbite injuries.

To develop their spray, the researchers packaged heparin, an anticoagulant that improves blood flow by reducing clotting and aiding in blood vessel repair, into liposomes. These lipid carriers helped deliver heparin deep inside the skin. They embedded the heparin-loaded liposomes in a sprayable hydrogel that also contained ibuprofen (a painkiller and anti-inflammatory drug) and propylene glycol, which helped keep the spray from freezing at very low temperatures. When the researchers tested the spray gel on rats with frostbite, they found that the treatment completely healed the injuries within 14 days, whereas untreated injuries were only about 40% healed, and wounds treated with an antibiotic cream were about 80% healed. The spray reduced levels of inflammatory cytokines at the wound site and in the blood circulation, which likely accelerated healing, the researchers say.

The authors acknowledge funding from the Defence Institute of High Altitude Research [India, Ministry of Defence]

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Heparin-Encapsulated Metered-Dose Topical “Nano-Spray Gel” Liposomal Formulation Ensures Rapid On-Site Management of Frostbite Injury by Inflammatory Cytokines Scavenging by Kalpesh Vaghasiya, Ankur Sharma, Kushal Kumar, Eupa Ray, Suneera Adlakha, Om Prakash Katare, Sunil Kumar Hota, Rahul K. Verma. ACS Biomater. Sci. Eng. 2019, 5, 12, 6617-6631 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsbiomaterials.9b01486 Publication Date: November 6, 2019 Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

presspak at webhosting

Increased food security with hexanal for younger looking, fresher tasting fruits and vegetables

Also known as an anti-aging agent for your fruit and vegetables, hexanal is an environmentally friendly chemical, which is found naturally. Research has led to a synthesized nanotechnology-enabled product now being commercialized. I’ve been following the story off and on since 2012 (see my ‘India, Sri Lanka, and Canada team up for nanotechnology-enabled food packaging‘ posting). I last wrote about the project in a December 29, 2015 posting.

For some reason, hexanal hit the news hard in 2019 having been preceded by some interest in 2018. What follows is an update and a timeline of sorts.

January 2019: More funding

A January 24,2019 essay (also published on the University of Guelph website on January 29, 2019) by Jayasankar Subramanian and Elizabeth Finnis, both are lead researchers on the the project and professors at the University of Guelph (Canada), provides an overview and an update of the hexanal project (Note: Links have been removed) ,

Fruits like mangoes, bananas, papayas and limes are shipped long distances before they get to your table. Many fruits are delicate, and there may be a long period of time that elapses between when the fruit is picked and its arrival in grocery stores and other markets. They’re often picked before they’re truly ripe in order to increase their shelf life.

Even so, globally, up to 40 per cent of all picked fruit can be lost and this represents billions of dollars. But what if we had the technology to delay fruit’s natural degradation process? This is where hexanal can make a difference.

Fruits like mangoes, bananas, papayas and limes are shipped long distances before they get to your table. Many fruits are delicate, and there may be a long period of time that elapses between when the fruit is picked and its arrival in grocery stores and other markets. They’re often picked before they’re truly ripe in order to increase their shelf life.

Even so, globally, up to 40 per cent of all picked fruit can be lost and this represents billions of dollars. But what if we had the technology to delay fruit’s natural degradation process? This is where hexanal can make a difference.

Hexanal is naturally produced by plants to ward off pests; our research at the University of Guelph has found that when it’s applied externally, hexanal can also slow down the aging process.

Like everything else, fruit ages with time. The shrivelling and rot is triggered by the enzyme phospholipase D (PLD), which causes the eventual collapse of the fruit’s membrane. Essentially, fruit membranes are snug, and function like a brick wall of phospholipid bilayers. Phospholipase D breaks the alignment of the bricks, causing the membrane to crumble. Hexanal acts by reducing and slowing the formation of PLD, which in turn slows the collapse of the fruit’s membrane.

In partnership with agricultural and social science researchers in Canada and five other countries, we have tested nine hexanal technologies. These include a spray formulation that gets applied to fruit when they’re still on trees, post-harvest dips, fruit wraps, stickers and sachets embedded with hexanal.

Our findings have implications for consumers, retailers and, more importantly, farmers. For example, when applied as a pre-harvest spray, hexanal can keep fruit on trees longer and keep it fresher after harvest — up to three weeks longer for mangoes.

Hexanal is naturally produced by all plants and is already found as an additive in some food products. Hexanal is also approved by Health Canada as a flavour formula. Our tests of synthesized hexanal sprays, dips and other technologies showed that there were no negative effects on plants, insects or other animals. In addition, hexanal evaporates within 24 hours, which means there’s no residue left on fruit.

Farmers who participated in hexanal testing in Canada and elsewhere were happy with the product both in terms of its effectiveness and bio-safety.

Currently, hexanal for agricultural use is in the two-year regulatory clearance process in Canada and the U.S. Once the process is complete, hexanal formulations are expected to be available for farmer use and can be accessed through companies with a license for production.

Hexanal slows down the ripening and aging process in fresh produce. Author provided

That’s a stunning difference, eh?

Funding

At about the same time as the Conversation essay by Subramanian and Finnis, the University of Guelph published (on the Council of Ontario Universities website) a January 27, 2019 news release announcing new funds for the project,

A University of Guelph research project that has already improved the livelihoods of small-scale Asian farmers will further expand worldwide, thanks to more than $4.2 million in federal support announced Friday afternoon.

The project involves innovative packaging developed in part by Guelph researchers using nanotechnology to improve the shelf life of mangoes, a major fruit crop in much of the world.

Already, the technology has helped to significantly reduce post-harvest losses in Sri Lanka and India. Poor storage meant that farmers routinely lost up to 40 per cent of their crops, worth upwards of $800 million a year. The new technology has also boosted per-acre revenue.

New funding support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada will allow researchers to broaden this successful initiative to Kenya, Tanzania, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Researchers will also look at other fruit — bananas, grapes, papaya, nectarines and berries — and investigate ways to commercialize the technologies.

… it will also be a main pillar of the Guelph-East Africa Initiative, which U of G established to bring together stakeholders to support research and teaching in food, health, water, education, environment and community.

“This confirms our commitment to improve agriculture in East Africa and around the world.” [said John Livernois, interim vice-president {research} ]

The project involves the use of hexanal, a natural plant product that delays fruit ripening and aging. Guelph plant agriculture professor Gopi Paliyath holds an American patent on the discovery of hexanal as a post-harvest agent. It’s also an FDA-approved food additive.

The project also involves Guelph plant agriculture professors Paliyath and Al Sullivan; Loong-tak Lim from Food Science; and Elizabeth Finnis, Sociology and Anthropology. Foreign research partners are based at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India; Industrial Technical Institute, Sri Lanka; University of Nairobi, Kenya; Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania; and the University of [the] West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.

Prior to more funding: a memorandum of understanding

I’m having to guess as the document about the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to commercialize hexanal is not dated but it seems to have been produced in March 2018. (Canada’s International Development Research Centre ([IDRC] has a webpage about the memorandum but no memorandum that I could find.) I stumbled across this account of the event where the MOU was signed,

Ms. Jennifer Daubeny, Consulate General of Canada, delivered the special address narrating the significance of Canadian fundingin developing nanotechnologies to reduce post-harvest losses that enables food security in Asian Countries. Dr. K. Ramasamy, Vice Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University [TNAU], Coimbatore presided over the function and highlighted the role of TNAU in knitting nanotechnology research framework and serving as a torch bearer in the country. He emphasized that the GAC-IDRC Project helped more than 60 students and researchers, developed two technologies, filed patents for two inventions, extensive infrastructure development besides helping more than 12,000 fruit growers in the State of Tamil Nadu. Dr. Jayasankar Subramanian, Professor, University of Guelph, Canada, explained the evolution of the project till reached the stage of technology delivery to benefit farmers. Dr. K.S. Subramanian, NABARD Chair Professor, TNAU, Coimbatore, lead Principal Investigator of the Project for India presented nanotechnologies developed to assist in the entire value chain from the farm to fork. Mr. Arun Nagarajan, President, Tamil Nadu Fruit Growers’ Association, explained that the fruit growers are eager to use the technology to improve their farm income. Mr. Terence Park, Managing Director, Smart Harvest Agri, Canada, [emphasis mine] bestowed interest to take forward the technologies to the farm gate and signed MOU with TNAU for the Commercialization of the Hexanal Formulation. Dr. G.J. Janavi,Professor & Head, Department of Nano Science & Technology, TNAU, Coimbatore welcomed the gathering and Dr. C. Sekar, Dean, Imayam Agricultural College,Turaiyur, and Co-PI of the Project proposed a formal vote of thanks.

The Canadian Consul General Ms. Jennifer Daubeny visited all the exhibits and interacted with students, scholars and researchers besides the NGO partner Myrada. She was very impressed with the technologies developed by TNAU in collaboration with University of Guelph, Canada, and looking forward to support research programs in the near future. More than 200 Scientists and Diplomats from Canada, students, scholars, university officials participated in the event.

Products launch by ITI, Colombo

Two of the project’s technology outputs -hexanal incorporated ITI Bio-wax and the Tree Fresh Formulation spray [emphasis mine] were transferred to Hayleys Agriculture Pvt. Ltd., a reputed Agro Service provider in Sri Lanka. The products were launched on 22ndMarch 2018 at the Taj Samudra Hotel, Colombo. The chief guest at the event was the Hon. Susil Premajayantha, Minister of Science Technology and Research (Min. ST&R). The guest of honour was H.E. David McKinnon, High Commissioner for Canada in Sri Lanka. Others present included the Secretary to the Min. ST&R, The Chairman and Director General, ITI, Mr Rizvi Zaheed, Hayleys Agriculture and his team, the Chairman, National Science Foundation, Sri Lanka, representative of the Chairman Sri Lanka Export Development Board, representatives from the Dialog mobile service provider, the Registrar of Pesticides, representing the Dir. Gen., of Agriculture, President of the Lanka Fruit and Vegetable Producers, Processors and Exporters Association, leading large scale mango, papaya and pineapple growers, several export and fruit processing company representatives, senior officials from the ITI, the multi-disciplinary ITI research team and our partner from CEPA. The press was also well represented and a total of 100 persons were present on this occasion. The Managing Director Hayles, the two PIs’ of the project, the High Commissioner for Canada, The Minister and for ST&R and the Secretary to the Ministry addressed the gathering and the new video clip on the project was viewed. The new products were jointly uncovered for display by the Hon. Minister and H.E., the High Commissioner. Samples of the products were distributed to the President of the Lanka Fruit and Vegetable Producers Processors and Exporters Association and to two leading mango growers. The Project team also took this opportunity to run a presentation on the various stages of the project and related activities, display posters on their research findings and to print and distribute the pamphlets on the same as well as on hexanal, the latter as prepared by our partners from the University of Guelph. The launch ended with a time of fellowship providing a useful opportunity for networking.

A YouTube video about the product launch of hexanal-based Bio-wax and the Tree Fresh Formulation spray (I don’t know if those were the permanent names or if they are specific to Sri Lanka and other countries will adopt other names) helped to establish the date for the MOU. You can find the video here.

Judging from the media stories, the team in India has provided most of the leadership for commercializing hexanal.

Commercialization 2019 and beyond

To sum up, after a memorandum of understanding is signed and some prototype products have been unveiled in India in 2018 then, in early 2019, there’s more funding announced by IDRC to expand the number of countries involved and to continue research into efforts to save other types of produce.

Moving things along is an August 15, 2019 news item on Agropages.com,

Two nano formulations would be commercialized by the Directorate of Agri business development of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) soon.  

Fruity fresh is a liquid nano formulation containing hexanal that keeps fruits and vegetables fresh for more days. The pre-harvest spray of Fruity Fresh extends the shelf life of mango for two weeks on trees and another two weeks under storage conditions by employing post-harvest dip methodology, Dr. A. Lakshmanan, Professor and Head, Department of Nano Science and Technology told a meet on “Linking Nano Stakeholders” held at the University.  

Hexanal has also been successfully encapsulated in polymer matrix either as an electro spun fibre matrix (Nano sticker) or nano-pellets that extends shelf life of fruits by 1-2 weeks during storage and transportation, he said.  

This sticker and pellets technology is highly user friendly and can be placed inside the cartons containing fruits during transport for enhancing the freshness.

According to a November 5, 2019 article by Pearly Neo for foodnavigator-asia.com, there is pricing for four products. Nano Sticker and Nano Pellet each will cost $US 0.028 and the spray, Fruity Fresh, will cost $US 4.23 to $US 5.65 for a one liter bottle diluted in 50 liters of water (for use on approximately five trees) and the Fruity Fresh dipping solution at $US 0.0071per kg.

As far as I’m aware none of these products are available in Canada but there is a website for Smart Harvest Agri, Canada although the name used is a little different. First, there’s the Federal Corporation Information listing for Smart Harvest Agritech Limited. You’ll notice there are two directors,

Amanjit Singh Bains
7685 150B Street
Surrey BC V3S 5P1
Canada

Terence Park
Yongsan CJ Nine Park
Seoul
Korea, Republic of

The company’s Smart Harvest website doesn’t list any products but it does discuss something they call “FRESHXtend technology” for fruits and vegetables.

Final comment

I sometimes hear complaints about government funding and what seems to be a lack of follow through with exciting research work being done in Canada. I hope that in the months to come that this story of an international collaboration, which started with three countries and has now expanded to at least six countries and has led to increased food security with an environmentally friendly material and commercialization of research, gets some attention.

From the few sources I’ve been able to find, it seems India and Sri Lanka are leading the commercialization charge while Canada has contributed to an Asian-led project which has now expanded to include Kenya, Tanzania, and Trinidad and Tobago. Bravo t them all!