Tag Archives: Railway Club

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

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

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

Lunar Spelunking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The world’s smallest machines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Four Vancouver (Canada) science events: Policy Making and Science; Solving a global medical crisis with a particle accelerator; and Marc Garneau asks, Should Canada be in space?; light to quantum materials

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It’s going to be busy in Vancouver (Canada) next week, if you plan your life around the city’s science events.

The first event, “The Art of Policy Making: What’s Science Got to Do With It?” is being held by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Science. It will be held at lunchtime on Tuesday, November 26, 2013 at Simon Fraser University’s Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver.

The Art of Policy Making:

What’s Science Got to Do With It?

Speaker: Andrew Petter, President of Simon Fraser University

Panelists: Adam Walters-Navigate Surgical Company, Vancouver, B.C. and David S. Fushtey, Senior Fellow,, Centre for Corporate Governance and Risk Management, SFU Beedie Faculty of Business, and Fellow, SFU Centre for Dialogue

Moderator: Bill Good, CKNW Radio, Vancouver, B.C.

Co-Chairs: Martin Zuckermann, D.Phil. (Oxon), FRSC, Emeritus Professor of Physics, McGill University

Olga A. Barrat, Ph.D., Research Scientist

Date: November 26, 2013

Location:
Simon Fraser University
Harbour Centre / Segal Centre
515 West Hastings, Vancouver
Registration: 11:30 a.m.
Presentation: 12:10 p.m.
Discussion: 12:50 – 1:45 p.m.

Pre-register via email at: caas@caas-acascience.org
Or by post to CAAS at the address or fax number noted below
Tickets: $35.00 (payable at the door by cash or cheque)
Information: caas@caas-acascience.org

For that price I hope they are including lunch. I did not realize we had a Canadian Association for the Advancement of Science (established in 1999) or that it was located in North Vancouver,

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE
P.O. Box 75513, 3034 Edgemont Blvd., North Vancouver, B.C., Canada V7R 4X1 / Fax: 604-926-5806
www.caas-acascience.org

The next day, you can trot off to: ‘Medicine Accelerated: Canada’s role in the Medical Isotope Revolution’ (part of the Unveiling the Universe Lecture Series) will be held on Wednesday, 27 November 2013 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM (PST) at Vancouver’s Science World., From the Nov. 15, 2013 TRIUMF;Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics news release,

Medicine Accelerated: Canada’s role in the Medical Isotope Revolution

Join Science World and TRIUMF in welcoming Dr. Paul Schaffer for a free public lecture at the TELUS World of Science Wednesday November 27, 2013.  As part of the “Unveiling the Universe” lecture series presented by TRIUMF and Science World, Dr. Schaffer will be speaking about recent advances in radiopharmaceuticals and and their role in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. he also will be highlighting Canada’s leadership role in developing cyclotron particle-accelerator technology to create medical isotopes.  This lecture is offered in cooperation with ARPICO, the Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada. (www.arpico.ca).

Tickets are free but registration is required.

Visit http://medicine-accelerated.eventbrite.ca  to reserve your seat.

Doors open at 6pm with the lecture starting at 7pm.   There will be a Q&A session to follow.

A live webcast of the lecture will be available online (requires Silverlight plugin). Visit registration site for link.

About Paul Schaffer

Paul Schaffer is the Division Head of the Nuclear Medicine program at TRIUMF, Canada’s national lab for particle and nuclear physics in Vancouver, BC. He is responsible for maintaining TRIUMF’s medical isotope and radiotracer production programs in support of neurological and oncological research. He was recently recognized as one of British Columbia’s Top Forty under 40 by Business in Vancouver magazine

About Science World

Science World British Columbia is a not-for-profit organization that engages British Columbians in science and inspires future science and technology leadership throughout our province.

About TRIUMF

TRIUMF is Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. It is owned and operated by a consortium of Canadian universities and is funded by a contribution through the National Research Council of Canada. The Province of British Columbia provides capital funding for the construction of buildings for the TRIUMF Laboratory.

There are some 23 General Admission tickets still available as of November 20, 2013 (9:15 am PST). This talk is likely to touch on TRIUMF’s recently ‘unveiled’ medical cyclotron (from my June 9, 2013 posting),

Today, Sunday, June 9, 2013, TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, and its partners announced that they have devised a technique for producing medical isotopes that is not dependent on materials from nuclear reactors. From the June 9, 2013 TRIUMF news release,

With Canadian-developed tools and technology, a national team led by TRIUMF has reached a crucial milestone at the BC Cancer Agency in developing and deploying alternatives for supplying key medical isotopes. The team used a medical cyclotron that was designed and manufactured by Advanced Cyclotron Systems, Inc. (ACSI) of Richmond, BC, and successfully achieved large-scale production of technetium-99m (Tc-99m), sufficient for a metropolitan area.

The team announced the successful ramp-up of its technology to regularly produce enough of the critical Tc-99m isotope to supply an urban area the size of Vancouver. This achievement eliminates the need for nuclear reactors to produce isotopes, especially those that use weaponsgrade uranium, which has been the traditional approach.

ETA Nov. 25, 2013: There’s a Nov. 22, 2013 news item (Medical isotope supply interrupted across Canada; Delivery of one isotope to hospitals down to less than 50 per cent of normal) on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) News online about the latest shortage of medical isotopes.

The third event is being hosted by Canadian Member of Parliament,(Liberal) Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra) on Friday, November 29, 2013 at Enigma Restaurant on W. 10th Avenue near the University of British Columbia. From the November 15, 2013, invitation,

Please join Member of Parliament Joyce Murray at her Friday November 29th MP Breakfast Connections discussion with guest speaker Marc Garneau, MP: “Does Canada need a Space Program?”

 Be part of the conversation with Canada’s first Astronaut and former President of Canada’s National Space Agency, Marc Garneau.  Canada’s Space Agency began in 1990, with a mission to lead the development and application of space knowledge for the benefit of Canadians and humanity.  Canadians have made significant contributions to space travel with the robotic Canadarm, developed in part here in British Columbia, by MacDonald Dettweiler, and we were all enthralled last year when Canadian Chris Hadfield was commander of the International Space Station and shared his experiences from space.  Is there a future for Canada’s  Space Agency?  Let’s ask Marc!

Details:

Friday, November 29, 2013

7:30 – Registration + Buffet Breakfast

7:50 – 8:45 Speaker + Q and A

Enigma Restaurant – 4397 W. 10th Ave. (Off Trimble) (map)

The cost of the breakfast is $20 / $10 for students.

(Cash only at the door)

Please RSVP to joyce.murray.c1c@parl.gc.ca or by calling 604-664-9220.

Interestingly, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfleld has been in Vancouver giving interviews (Nov. 18, 2013 on The Rush television programme), as he’s been promoting his new book, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. You can find out more about the book at http://chrishadfield.ca/

Btw, I have been to Joyce’s breakfasts before and they serve a good breakfast at Enigma.

*As of Nov. 20, 2013, 2:30 pm PDT: I’m adding one more event: Vancouver’s Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, November 26,  2013 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the talk description (from the Nov. 20,, 2013 announcement,

Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Andrea Damascelli.

From Light Quanta to Quantum Materials

he photoelectric effect – the ejection of electrons from a solid consequent to the absorption of light – was discovered by Hertz in 1887 and explained by Einstein in 1905 on the basis of the revolutionary hypothesis of Light Quanta, or photons. This intuition, which gave Einstein the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, marked the beginning of quantum physics and also of photoelectric spectroscopy, one of the most active fields in modern science and technology. Owing to recent technical progress and in particular to the development of third generation synchrotron sources – particle accelerators in which electrons traveling at nearly the speed of light generate the most brilliant light available to scientists – the last decade witnessed a renaissance in this technique and its applications. These have now become the primary tools in the study of emerging Quantum Materials, systems which manifest a wide range of astonishing electronic and magnetic phenomena and with the potential to revolutionize consumer electronics, telecommunications, next-generation computing, alternative energy, and medicine.

You can find Dr. Damascelli’s profile page here on the University of British Columbia website.

Fluid mechanics and fluid identities at Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique Oct. 29, 2013 meeting

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Vancouver’s Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), on Tuesday, October 29,  2013 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the talk description (from the Oct. 22, 2013 announcement), Café Scientifique,

Our speaker for the evening will be Prof. Bud Homsy. The title of his talk is:

Fluid mechanics – What do the Red Spot of Jupiter and the flagellar motion of e.coli have in common?

Fluid mechanics – the study of the motion of fluids when acted upon by forces – is capable of describing fluid flows on a very wide range of length and time scales, including the Red Spot (roughly three Earth diameters in size), the Earth’s weather system, locomotion of trains, planes and automobiles, and swimming of fish, sperm, and microorganisms on the smallest scale.  It is safe to say that almost every aspect of human existence depends on fluids and their flow properties.  This talk will illustrate all the flows listed above (and more!) with movies and discussion of the mathematics and physics behind their description and understanding.

I found Bud Homsy’s faculty webpage here in the University of British Columbia’s Dept. of Mathematics where he is visiting or perhaps he has a dual appointment. There’s another faculty webpage at the University of California at Santa Barbara where he’s identified as George Homsy, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Enviromental Engineering. I think it’s the same man; he looks the same in both pictures.

Two September 2013 Café Scientifique meetings in metro Vancouver (Canada)

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There’s a Café Scientifique meeting tonight, Sept. 18, 2013  in Surrey, BC (a municipality in metro Vancouver). Here’s more from a Sept. 12, 2013 Simon Fraser University news release,

Café Scientifique – brainpower, bacteria & super seniors

 Simon Fraser University’s popular Café Scientifique series returns to Surrey this fall and the general public is invited to participate and learn more from what the experts have to say about key topics in health.

Three sessions will be held this fall at Surrey’s City Centre Library (main floor) from 7-8:30 p.m. The events are free.

SFU biological sciences professor Gordon Rintoul kicks off the first session on Wednesday, Sept. 18 with a discussion on the changes that occur in healthy brain cells versus those found in people with age-related brain diseases.

Rintoul, a neuroscientist, focuses on mitochondria, microscopic structures within brain cells, which provide energy for cellular process.

“Mitochondria have been called the powerhouses of the cell,” says Rintoul. “Our lab investigates the role of mitochondria in healthy neurons and in disease mechanisms.”

Rintoul will speak about his research and other recent findings linking changes in mitochondria to Parkinson’s disease, stroke and the process of aging.

…

The study involves over 500 “super seniors” between the ages of 85 and 105, who have never been diagnosed with cancer, cardiovascular disease, major pulmonary disease, Alzheimer disease or diabetes. The study looks at genetic features that correlate with long-term good health in these exceptional individuals.

The news release offers a bit more about the Fall 2013 season of Simon Fraser University Café Scientifique meetings,

Sessions to follow include:

Oct. 16: Julian Guttman, an assistant biological sciences professor, will explain how pathogenic bacteria such as E.coli create serious global health concerns, causing disease through their interaction and subsequent control of host cells’ normal cellular functions. Guttman will discuss the conditions that transform bacterial infection into disease.

Nov. 20: Angela Brooks-Wilson, an associate professor of biomedical physiology/kinesiology and a Distinguished Scientist at the BC Cancer Agency, will shares insights from her study on health aging.

These presentations are designed to stimulate conversation (from the news release),

Speakers will discuss their health or popular-science related topics for approximately 20 minutes, followed by a discussion with the audience. Reserve your free seat at: café_scientifique@sfu.ca.

The second Café Scientifique is being held in the back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), and could be a more relaxed affair as it will be accompanied the sounds of slurping beer  on Tuesday, September 24,  2013 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the talk description (from the Sept. 17, 2013 announcement),

 Our next café will happen on Tuesday September 24th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club.  Our speaker for the evening will be Ian Cromwell, MSc. The details of his talk are as follows:
The HPV Vaccine and You: What You Need to Know to Make an Informed Choice
With British Columbia recently approving the HPV vaccine in young women across the province, members of the public have been engaged in a conversation about the value and safety of the vaccine. Ian Cromwell, a health economics researcher at the BC Cancer Agency, will discuss the vaccine and introduce the available evidence supporting the policy. He will also address some of the specific concerns people in British Columbia have about the vaccine, with a grounding in the scientific literature.

Ordinarily the talks at the Railway Club are pretty relaxed but those references to “evidence supporting the policy”, as well as, “a grounding in scientific literature” in the speaker’s description are a little concerning to me given that the “conversation [is] about the value and safety of the vaccine.” I suspect  the only “informed choice” will be yes and any objections will be shot down while reams of scientific literature and evidence are being quoted at whomever has the temerity to question the BC Cancer Agency’s policy.

Catching cancer; story of a medical revolution at Vancouver’s (Canada) June 25, 2013 Café Scientifique

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Here’s the date and time for the next Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) talk, from the group’s  June 18, 2013 announcement,

Our next café will happen on Tuesday June 25th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Claudia Cornwall, a science writer and author of 5 books and over 50 magazine articles. The details of her talk are as follows:Catching Cancer—the story of a medical revolution

We now know that 20% of cancers are caused by infections and many researchers believe that more discoveries are coming. This is a paradigm shift that was over a hundred years in the making. It has profound implications for our ability to prevent malignancies. Claudia Cornwall’s new book, Catching Cancer: the quest for its viral and bacterial cause, is the story of the story of how it happened. Who contributed to the change in thinking? [emphasis mine] How did investigators persuade the medical establishment to adopt their ideas? What personal qualities helped them in their struggle? To answer these questions, the book draws on wide-ranging interviews with Nobel prize winners and other researchers.

This looks like it’s going to be a very interesting (i.e., lively) session as it is a topic freighted with stress, fear, and mythology than cancer. I don’t think I’ve ever met another adult who didn’t have a friend or a family member who had and recovered or died from the disease. I expect this will be a very well attended talk.

For those who don’t know the location,

  The Railway Club is on the 2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. (at Seymour St.), in Vancouver, Canada.

I have long been interested in how ideas become knowledge and had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Rainer Becker about his project (sadly, it was cancelled) on what seems to have bene a topic very similar to Cornwall’s book. From the first part of the Becker interview in my June 1, 2010 posting,

First, some information about the research project and Dr. Becker from the April 22, 2010 news item on Nanowerk,

How do sensational ideas become commonly accepted knowledge? How does a hypothesis turn into certainty? What are the ways and words that bring results of scientific experiments into textbooks and people’s minds, how are they “transferred” into these domains? Science philosopher Dr. Rainer Becker has recently started dealing with such questions. Over the next three years, Becker will accompany the work of Professor Dr. Frank Rösl’s department at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ), which studies cancer-causing viruses. [emphasis mine] He is one of three scientists in an interdisciplinary joint project which is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with a total sum of approximately € 790,000.

Part 2 of the interview is here in my June 2, 2010 posting.

Getting back to the Cornwall’s appearance at the Tuesday, June 25, 2013 Café Scientifique Vancouver event, I imagine she will have her book available for sale there. From Cornwall’s Catching Cancer webpage,

Catching Cancer is published by Rowman and Littlefield.  It is available in bookstores and on in line in Canada, the U.S. and many other countries.

978-1-4422-1520-7 • Hardback
April 2013 • $36.00 • (£22.95)

978-1-4422-1522-1 • eBook
March 2013 • $35.99 • (£22.95)

Pages: 240 Size: 6 x 9

Here’s more about the book, from the Catching Cancer webpage,

Catching Cancer: the quest for its viral and bacterial causes introduces readers to the investigators who created a medical revolution – a new way of looking at cancer and its causes. Featuring interviews with notable scientists such as Harald zur Hausen, Barry Marshall, Robin Warren, and others, the book tells the story of their struggles, their frustrations, and finally the breakthroughs that helped form some of the most profound changes in the way we view cancer. I take readers inside the lab to reveal the long and winding path to discoveries that have changed and continue to alter the course of medical approaches to one of the most confounding diseases mankind has known. I tell the stories of families who have benefited from this new knowledge, of the researchers who made the revolution happen, and the breakthroughs that continue to change our lives.

For years, we’ve thought cancer was the result of lifestyle choices, environmental factors, or genetic mutations. But pioneering scientists have begun to change that picture. We now know that infections cause 20 percent of cancers, including liver, stomach, and cervical cancer, which together kill almost 1.8 million people every year. While the idea that you can catch cancer may sound unsettling, it is actually good news. It means antibiotics and vaccines can be used to combat this most dreaded disease. With this understanding, we have new methods of preventing cancer, and perhaps we may be able to look forward to a day when we will no more fear cancer than we do polio or rubella.

You can find out more Cornwall and her books  on the Claudia Cornwall website.

Ian Bushfield weighs paper with his lasers

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Café Scientifique Vancouver (Canada) will be holding a meeting on the subject of lasers and weighing paper at The Railway Club on the 2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. (at Seymour St.) next Tuesday, from the Mar. 19, 2013 email announcement,

Our next café will happen on Tuesday March 26th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Ian Bushfield.

The title and abstract for his café is:

“Weighing Paper With Lasers”

Until the 1990s, a narrow band of radiation in the far-infrared had remained largely unexplored. Terahertz radiation’s unique interaction with water molecules and weak interaction with most plastic and fabrics make it an ideal probe for a wide range of applications, from security scanners to death rays. One area of interest is in product testing and quality control. In this talk, Ian Bushfield will describe his masters of physics work in developing a technique to use terahertz radiation to obtain the thickness, weight, and water content of paper, for application in paper manufacturing. These non-contact sensors offer industry a way to improve accuracy and production speed by replacing sensors that rely on physical contact with paper reams. This work was supported by the NSERC Industrial Postgraduate Scholarship, SFU, and the Honeywell Vancouver Centre for Excellence.

We hope to see you there!

Ian Bushfield has his own website,

I am the executive director of the British Columbia Humanist Association and a passionate advocate for science outreach and education. I have recently completed an MSc in Physics and have a BSc in Engineering Physics. I have worked as a research assistant and as a science summer camp instructor.

I gather Bushfield will be focusing on the work he did for his master’s thesis (from Bushfield’s résumé page),

Master of Science in Physics, Simon Fraser University 2011

Given the description for his talk, I don’t imagine Bushfield will be discussing his interest in humanism although I’m sure he’ll be open to questions. I’ve found the meetings at the Railway Club to be pleasantly fueled by beer, burgers, and conversation about science and any other topics attendees care to raise. (Bushfield was last mentioned here in my Feb. 8, 2013 posting about Charles Darwin Day and the February 2013 Café Scientifique meeting.)

Inside story on doping; build it and they will collide; and physicist, feminist, and philosopher superstar Evelyn Fox Keller visits

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Here are a few events being held in Vancouver (Canada) over the next weeks and months. This is not an exhaustive list (three events) but it certainly offers a wide range of topics.

Inside story on doping

First, Café Scientifique will be holding a meeting on the subject of doping and athletic pursuits at The Railway Club on the 2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. (at Seymour St.) next Tuesday,

Our next café will happen on Tuesday January 29th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Jim Rupert.[School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia]

The title and abstract for his café is:

The use of genetics in doping and in doping control

Sports performance is an outcome of the complex interactions between an athlete’s genes and the environment(s) in which he or she develops and competes.  As more is learned about the contribution of genetics to athletic ability, concerns have been raised that unscrupulous athletes will attempt manipulate their DNA in an attempt to get an ‘edge‘ over the competition. The World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) has invested research funds to evaluate this possibility and to support studies into methods to detect so-called “gene doping”.  Superimposed on these concerns is the realisation that, in addition to contributing to performance, an athlete’s genes may influence the results of current doping-control tests. Natural genetic variation is an issue that anti-doping authorities must address as more is learned about the interaction between genotype and the responses to prohibited practices. To help differentiate between naturally occurring deviations in blood and urine ‘markers’ and those potentially caused by doping, the ‘biological-passport’ program uses intra-individual variability rather than population values to establish an athlete’s parameters.  The next step in ‘personalised’ doping-control may be the inclusion of genetic data; however, while this may benefit ‘clean’ athletes, it will do so at the expense of risks to privacy.  In my talk, I will describe some examples of the intersection of genetics and doping-control, and discuss how genetic technology might be used to both enhance physical performance as well as to detect athletes attempting to do so.

This is a timely topic  given hugely lauded Lance Armstrong’s recent confession that he was doping when he won his multiple cycling awards. From the Lance Armstrong essay on Wikipedia (Note: Footnotes and links have been removed),

Lance Edward Armstrong (born Lance Edward Gunderson, September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. Armstrong was awarded victory in the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times between 1999 and 2005, but in 2012 he was disqualified from all his results since August 1998 for using and distributing performance-enhancing drugs, and he was banned from professional cycling for life. Armstrong did not appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Armstrong confessed to doping in a television interview in January 2013, two-and-a-half months after the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the sport’s governing body, announced its decision to accept USADA’s findings regarding him, and after he had consistently denied it throughout his career.

Build it and they will collide

Next, both TRIUMF (Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics) and ARPICO (Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada) have sent Jan. 23, 2013 news releases concerning Dr. Lyn Evans and his talk about building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (European Particle Physics Laboratory) which led to the discovery of the Higgs Boson. The talk will be held at 6:30 pm on Feb. 20, 2013 at Telus World of Science, 1455 Quebec Street, Vancouver,

Fundamental Physics Prize winner to deliver public lecture Wed. Feb. 20 at Science World

Back to the Big Bang – From the LHC to the Higgs, and Beyond
Unveiling the Universe Lecture Series
Wednesday, 20 February 2013 at 6:30 PM (PST)
Vancouver, British Columbia

(Vancouver, B.C.)  The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is history’s most powerful atom smasher, capable of recreating the conditions that existed less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. The construction of the LHC was a massive engineering challenge that spanned almost 15 years, yielding the most technologically sophisticated instrument mankind ever has created.

Join Science World and TRIUMF in welcoming Dr. Lyn Evans, project leader for the LHC construction, in his Milner Foundation Special Fundamental Physics Prize lecture. In this free event, Dr Evans will detail some of the design features and technical challenges that make the LHC such an awe-inspiring scientific instrument. He will also discuss recent results from the LHC and touch on what’s next in the world of high-energy physics. The lecture will be followed by an audience question and answer session.

Dr Evans, born in Wales in 1945, has spent his whole career in the field of high energy physics and particle accelerators. In 2012, he was awarded the Special Fundamental Physics Prize for his contribution to the discovery of the Higgs-like boson. See http://www.fundamentalphysicsprize.org

Tickets are free, but registration is required.

See  http://fpplecture.eventbrite.ca

Physicist, feminist, philosopher superstar Evelyn Fox Keller

Here’s the information available from the Situating Science Cluster Winter 2013 newsletter,

The UBC [University of British Columbia] Node and partners are pleased to welcome Dr. Evelyn Fox Keller as Cluster Visiting Scholar Th. April 4th. The Node and partners continue to support the UBC STS [University of British Columbia Science and Technology Studies] colloquium.

There is more information Fox Keller and the first talk she gave to kick off this Canadawide tour in an Oct. 29, 2012 posting. She will be visiting the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary (Alberta) just prior to the April 4, 2013 visit to Vancouver. There are no further details about Fox Keller’s upcoming visit either on the Situating Science website or on the UBC website.