Tag Archives: University of Sherbrooke

Overall winner of the 2024 global Dance Your PhD: Kangaroo Time (Club Edit)

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I can’t resist the dance. First, the submission for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Dance Your Ph.D. competition on Youtube and then, the video,

Science and Artistic Rationale:

In our 2024 AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science]/Science Magazine Dance Your Ph.D. Contest submission, we explore kangaroo behavior through dance and promote diversity. The performance, titled “Kangaroo Time”, is based on my [Weliton Menário Costa] Ph.D. field research at Wilsons Promontory National Park, Australia, conducted at the Australian National University in collaboration with the University of Sherbrooke, Canada. My thesis, “Personality, Social Environment, and Maternal-Level Effects: Insights from a Wild Kangaroo Population”, is accessible here: https://openresearch-repository.anu.e…. I am honored to have worked under the expert supervision of Prof Loeske Kruuk and Prof Marco Festa-Bianchet. We delve into animal personality, defined as consistent behavior that distinguishes individuals, and social plasticity, the extent to which behavior changes in response to the social environment. We explain how both personality traits and social environment influence kangaroo behavior, including responses to stimuli like a remote-controlled car, and we demonstrate the role of personality on social dynamics. The diversity of the dancers, ranging from classical to urban styles, reflects the variations in kangaroo personality, e.g. bolder to shier. These dancers, unchoreographed, improvise their movements, responding to cues and interacting with each other. The dance thus serves as a visual narrative, capturing how kangaroos react based not only on their instincts but also on their social context. This approach demonstrates that kangaroo decisions are a complex interplay of intrinsic tendencies (personality) and social awareness leading to adjustment (plasticity). I hope this performance makes the scientific concepts both accessible and engaging for the audience. I completed my Ph.D. at the Australian National University, Canberra, in 2021, and worked as a Research Officer. Now, I’m pursuing music, having released my debut EP “Yours Academically, Dr. WELI” and the single “Kangaroo Time (Club Edit),” featured in the video. This project represents a fusion of my scientific work and my foray into performance and creative arts, combining animal behavior with artistic expression.

A February 26, 2024 Australian National University (ANU) press release on EurekAlert provides more detail about the researcher and about his work with kangaroos, Note: Links have been removed,

Dr Weliton Menário Costa, a PhD graduate from The Australian National University (ANU), has been announced the overall winner of the 2024 global Dance Your PhD contest after wowing judges with his wickedly creative and quirky dance submission, ‘Kangaroo Time (Club Edit)’.

One of the world’s leading researchers in kangaroo behaviour, he is the first person from ANU to win the Dance Your PhD competition, and just the fourth person from an Australian institution to do so since its inception in 2008. Better known as ‘WELI’, the singer-songwriter, creator and biologist weaves together a funky beat, original songwriting, drag queens and Brazilian funk dancers to create something that’s both entertaining and educational; the final product is something that looks like it’s been plucked straight out of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

WELI stars in and directs the music video, which draws on his Brazilian roots to illustrate the distinct and varying personality traits of kangaroos using the powerful mediums of song and dance. The original and club mixes have been played more than 7,000 times on Spotify, and the song has already featured in clubs, festivals, dance classes and radio stations.

“Winning this contest is the equivalent of winning Eurovision for me. I think it not only shows the incredible might of the research conducted here in Australia, but also how creative we are as a nation. Even us scientists!” he said.

Reflecting on the success of ‘Kangaroo Time’ and the global mark it’s made on the scientific community and further afield, WELI notes that at the core of his video is a message of inclusivity and diversity – something he hopes will be one of the main takeaways that viewers hold onto.

“As a queer immigrant from a linguistically diverse developing country, I understand the challenges of feeling disconnected in certain environments,” he said.

“One of the main messages I wanted to convey through this piece of work is that differences lead to diversity, and this is evident throughout the entire video. It’s evident with the different dancers that herald from various cultures and backgrounds.

“I think it’s extremely important that we celebrate diversity and creating a video explaining kangaroo personality was an excellent medium for me to do this.”

In 2017, WELI relocated from his home country of Brazil to Canberra to undertake a PhD in animal behaviour at the ANU Research School of Biology, which he finished in 2021.

Armed with a remote-controlled car, the ANU graduate spent more than three years studying the spectrum of behavioural differences of a group of more than 300 wild eastern grey kangaroos in Victoria.

“We found that kangaroos like to socialise in groups but prefer smaller social circles. Like humans, kangaroo personalities manifest early in life. Mothers and their offspring have similar personalities, and so do siblings,” he said.

“Kangaroos are very socially aware and will adjust their behaviour based off cues from other roos.

“The diversity of the dancers, from classical ballet to twerking, and the urban street dancers to the Brazilian dancing styles, reflect the variations in kangaroo personality across the full spectrum, from bolder types to shier roos.”

On the surface, ‘Kangaroo Time’ is an effective display of science communication that expertly utilises the creative arts medium. It’s engaging, quirky and niche. But WELI admits the decision to incorporate the words kangaroo time into the video’s title acts as a double entendre of sorts.

“The use of kangaroo time is not just to explain my research studying kangaroo personality – it’s also about my time living and studying in Australia as a whole,” he said.

“It’s been a time of exploration for me, a time where I’ve been able to reconnect with and grow my passion for music, dance and the creative arts.

“Working on this project was the spark I needed to encourage me to take that next step with my music. It’s made me realise I want to focus on my music for the next little while and put my scientific career on the backburner.

“Speaking of which, I’m about to release a new EP called ‘Yours Academically, Dr WELI’!”

WELI will continue working at ANU as a Visiting Fellow until early 2025.

The Dance Your PhD contest challenges researchers from across the globe to explain their PhD in a simple, effective and engaging way – bridging the gap between the scientific community and the general public.

There’s more about WELI in George Booth’s February 27, 2024 article (‘It’s like winning Eurovision’: an ANU graduate’s journey from kangaroo whisperer to global dance sensation) for ANU Reporter.

It was nice to stumble across a ‘Dance your PhD contest’ story. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen often. I have two previous postings (from 2011and 2018) about the contest. Strangely, both are Canadian-centric,

Enjoy!

Fireflies and their jagged scales lead to brighter LEDs (light emitting diodes)

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According to the Jan. 8, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily, scientists have used an observation about fireflies to make brighter LEDs (light emitting diodes),

The nighttime twinkling of fireflies has inspired scientists to modify a light-emitting diode (LED) so it is more than one and a half times as efficient as the original.

Researchers from Belgium, France, and Canada studied the internal structure of firefly lanterns, the organs on the bioluminescent insects’ abdomens that flash to attract mates. The scientists identified an unexpected pattern of jagged scales that enhanced the lanterns’ glow, and applied that knowledge to LED design to create an LED overlayer that mimicked the natural structure. The overlayer, which increased LED light extraction by up to 55 percent, could be easily tailored to existing diode designs to help humans light up the night while using less energy.

The Optical Society of America’s Jan. 8, 2013 news release, which originated the news item, describes how the scientists came to make their observations,

“The most important aspect of this work is that it shows how much we can learn by carefully observing nature,” says Annick Bay, a Ph.D. student at the University of Namur in Belgium who studies natural photonic structures, including beetle scales and butterfly wings.  When her advisor, Jean Pol Vigneron, visited Central America to conduct field work on the Panamanian tortoise beetle (Charidotella egregia), he also noticed clouds of twinkling fireflies and brought some specimens back to the lab to examine in more detail.

Fireflies create light through a chemical reaction that takes place in specialized cells called photocytes. The light is emitted through a part of the insect’s exoskeleton called the cuticle.  Light travels through the cuticle more slowly than it travels through air, and the mismatch means a proportion of the light is reflected back into the lantern, dimming the glow. The unique surface geometry of some fireflies’ cuticles, however, can help minimize internal reflections, meaning more light escapes to reach the eyes of potential firefly suitors.

In Optics Express papers, Bay, Vigneron, and colleagues first describe the intricate structures they saw when they examined firefly lanterns and then present how the same features could enhance LED design. Using scanning electron microscopes, the researchers identified structures such as nanoscale ribs and larger, misfit scales, on the fireflies’ cuticles. When the researchers used computer simulations to model how the structures affected light transmission they found that the sharp edges of the jagged, misfit scales let out the most light. The finding was confirmed experimentally when the researchers observed the edges glowing the brightest when the cuticle was illuminated from below.

“We refer to the edge structures as having a factory roof shape,” says Bay.  “The tips of the scales protrude and have a tilted slope, like a factory roof.” The protrusions repeat approximately every 10 micrometers, with a height of approximately 3 micrometers. “In the beginning we thought smaller nanoscale structures would be most important, but surprisingly in the end we found the structure that was the most effective in improving light extraction was this big-scale structure,” says Bay.

Here’s how the scientists applied their observations to LEDs (from the news release),

Human-made light-emitting devices like LEDs face the same internal reflection problems as fireflies’ lanterns and Bay and her colleagues thought a factory roof-shaped coating could make LEDs brighter. In the second Optics Express paper published today, which is included in the Energy Express  section of the journal, the researchers describe the method they used to create a jagged overlayer on top of a standard gallium nitride LED. Nicolas André, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, deposited a layer of light-sensitive material on top of the LEDs and then exposed sections with a laser to create the triangular factory-roof profile. Since the LEDs were made from a material that slowed light even more than the fireflies’ cuticle, the scientists adjusted the dimensions of the protrusions to a height and width of 5 micrometers to maximize the light extraction.

“What’s nice about our technique is that it’s an easy process and we don’t have to create new LEDs,” says Bay.  “With a few more steps we can coat and laser pattern an existing LED.”

Other research groups have studied the photonic structures in firefly lanterns as well, and have even mimicked some of the structures to enhance light extraction in LEDs, but their work focused on nanoscale features. The Belgium-led team is the first to identify micrometer-scale photonic features, which are larger than the wavelength of visible light, but which surprisingly improved light extraction better than the smaller nanoscale features. The factory roof coating that the researchers tested increased light extraction by more than 50 percent, a significantly higher percentage than other biomimicry approaches have achieved to date. The researchers speculate that, with achievable modifications to current manufacturing techniques, it should be possible to apply these novel design enhancements to current LED production within the next few years.

For those who care to investigate further,

Both articles (HTML version) are open access; PDF versions were not checked.

Could science funding in the European Union have an impact on Canadian nanotechnology?

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Unexpectedly they’re upping the research budget in the European Union. According to the item online at  BBC News,

The EU has announced 6.4bn euros (£5.4bn) of funding for scientific research and innovation next year – a 12% increase on this year’s allocation.

The programme is aimed at creating more than 165,000 jobs and developing “a more competitive and greener Europe”, the European Commission says.

The focus is on tackling climate change, energy projects, food security, health and Europe’s ageing population.

Grants will be awarded to about 16,000 research bodies and businesses.

“Research and innovation are the only smart and lasting route out of crisis and towards sustainable and socially equitable growth,” said the EU Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn.

“There is no other way of creating good and well-paid jobs that will withstand the pressures of globalisation.”

EU-funded research currently accounts for about 5% of the total public funding for research in the EU, she said.

The investment includes more than 600m euros for health research, about 206m euros of which will go into clinical trials for new drugs.

Nanotechnologies will get 270m euros, while about 600m euros is earmarked for advanced computer technologies. [emphasis mine]

Another 400m euros is to be spent on computer applications that address the challenges of building a low-carbon economy and managing ageing populations.

I was inclined to view it as a piece of delightful news without really analyzing it, then David Bruggeman (Pasco Phronesis) made a salient comment,

I suspect that the European spending will be insufficient even if individual nations hold the line on their own science funding. Because even those nations are looking at significant cuts to their universities, which affect both the training of the next generation of researchers and a certain amount of research. At best the funding boosts and cuts will be a wash, but the future doesn’t look like the best. What might happen is a greater shift in attention to European Union level research compared to country level research.

David also provides a brief description of the  ‘framework programme’ that the European Union uses to fund science research so that readers (such as me) have a better understanding of the bigger picture. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, do check out his posting.

David’s commentary was particularly timely as, this morning, I came across an article about the French government funding nanotechnology research in Canada (Sherbrooke, Québec to be precise). Since the article is in French, I’m going to be relying on my translation skills (Note: I will reproduce at least some of the French, so do let me know if you spot any errors.)

There is an abbreviated version of the article (Nanotechnologies: un petit bout de France à L’UdeS) by Jonathan Custeau for the Sherbrooke Tribune here (fyi, somebody sent me a copy of the full article).

The University of Sherbrooke’s current nanotechnology laboratory (Laboratoire international associé en nanotechnologies et nanosystèmes [LIA-LN2]) is about to receiving funding to the tune of ! million Euros over three years from France’s CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) putting  it in a category occupied by only eight other labs in the world.

I gather the lab’s current LIA-LN2 status is a consequence of previous French funding since the university’s vice-president of research describes the current bonanza as ‘jumping to a new level’, i.e. jumping to Unité mixte international (UMI) status,

“Nous étions tellement en avance que nous sautons à un autre niveau”, fait valoir Jacques Beauvais, vice-recteur à la recherche de l’Université de Sherbrooke.

L’autre niveau, c’est l’Unité mixte internationale, un laboratoire financé par le Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS français. Il n’en existe que huit à travers le monde.

“Une UMI coûte très cher, parce que c’est un vrai laboratoire, avec des chercheurs financés par le CNRS, des fonds de recherches français et européens. C’est comme s’il y avait un bout de France sur le campus de l’Université de Sherbrooke”, fait valoir Vincent Aimez, codirecteur du LIA-LN2.

The nanotechnology researchers at the University of Sherbrooke (L’UdeS) have been liaising and collaborating with researchers in Varennes, Lyon, and Grenoble, France for over two years,  so this new funding is an acknowledgment of the quality of their work.

Bravo—the award is all the more extraordinary given the concerns about science and university funding in Europe.

January 2012 is the launch date for the University of Sherbrooke’s UMI which will have a focus on bringing at least some of the academic research to the market. Miniaturized integrated circuit boards are mentioned specifically and my translation skills failed a bit here,

Les applications des recherches pourraient notamment permettre de relever le défi de la miniaturisation des puces électroniques [integrated circuit boards?]. “Nous cherchons à faire des puces avec plus de fonctions, mais qui consomment moins d’énergie, pour qu’elles restent efficaces pendant un mois par exemple. Nous voulons aussi développer des biocapteurs [?] pour des contrôles environnementaux [?] ou des analyses médicales [medical diagnostics?]”, précise Abdelkader Souifi, également codirecteur du LIA-LN2.

I found the comments regarding products quite interesting in light of the Québec government’s recent moves to improve innovation in that province as per the article (June 30, 2010) by Peter Hadekel in the Montréal Gazette. (Idle thought: This casts a new light on the recent Domtar-FPInnovations collaboration on nanocrystalline cellulose (my July 16, 2010 posting).