Special Features /research/taxonomy/term/208/all en Alanis Obomsawin offers message of optimism at Beatty Lecture /research/article/special-features/alanis-obomsawin-offers-message-optimism-beatty-lecture <p>On October 16, 2023, Alanis Obomsawin delivered the 69th annual Beatty Lecture at Pollack Hall on 平特五不中鈥檚 downtown campus. As the room fell dark her soft voice recalled her childhood, leaving everyone in the audience to paint in their own mind a picture of her early life. She recounted how she spent part of her childhood in Odanak, an Abenaki reserve near Sorel-Tracy, Quebec. 鈥淥danak was very different then, there was no electricity or running water,鈥 she reflected.</p> Wed, 08 Nov 2023 16:25:51 +0000 Charlotte Bawol 2248 at /research Future Ready: Is This Spinal Tap? /research/article/future-ready-spinal-tap <p>Have you ever wondered what the future really looks like? Or wondered what it would be like to be able to touch it? Faculty of Engineering Professor <a href="/mecheng/people/staff/mark-driscoll">Mark Driscoll</a> does so on a regular basis. In fact, there is a machine in his lab in the Macdonald Engineering building that lets you do just that.</p> Thu, 22 Dec 2022 00:03:07 +0000 Junji Nishihata 727 at /research Future Ready: The Authentic Educator /research/article/future-ready-authentic-educator <p>In the summer of 2012, in Queens, New York, a 12-year-old boy dove for a basketball at school and cut his arm. He awoke the next morning with a high fever, vomiting, mottled skin and low blood pressure. His pediatrician diagnosed him with stomach flu and sent the boy to hospital to get re-hydrated. The emergency room doctors gave him fluids, ran blood tests and sent him home with instructions to take Tylenol.</p> Wed, 21 Dec 2022 23:43:53 +0000 Mark Witten 721 at /research Future Ready: The Translation Trailblazer /research/article/future-ready-translation-trailblazer <p>As a boy in Jaffa, Israel, Nahum Sonenberg walked regularly with his father to the Old Protestant cemetery on a hill overlooking the harbour. His father showed him the gravestone of Thomas Hodgkin, the British pathologist who first described Hodgkin鈥檚 lymphoma in the 1800s. Sonenberg recalls them standing on the hilltop, looking over the Mediterranean: 鈥淚 asked my father, what鈥檚 beyond the water? 鈥楾hat鈥檚 America,鈥 he said, 鈥榳here everything is possible.鈥 I was only four and thought I should go there one day.鈥</p> Wed, 21 Dec 2022 22:39:05 +0000 Mark Witten 717 at /research Future Ready: "That which we have always known to be true" /research/article/that-which-we-have-always-known-be-true <p>F<em>uture Ready聽is a long-read research series published by Research and Innovation. In this article,聽W谩hiakatste Diome-Deer, co-author of The Globe and Mail鈥檚 bi-weekly Indigenous Leaders column, reports on 平特五不中鈥檚 first Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ): Traditional Knowledge in the Contemporary World Virtual Roundtable, and examines more broadly 平特五不中's efforts at Reconciliation and Indigenous education. Portrait of 平特五不中 researcher Marianne Stenbaek by internationally renowned Inuit artist, Jonasie Faber.</em></p> Wed, 04 Jan 2023 23:15:33 +0000 W谩hiakatste Diome-Deer 770 at /research Made in Quebec: The Sky is the Limit for Nanocrystals /research/article/made-quebec-sky-limit-nanocrystals <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 like a Saturn V rocket, except it鈥檚 upside down.鈥 Howard Fields is excited, and with good reason: things at <a href="http://anomera.ca">Anomera </a>are poised to takeoff, and in a big way.</p> <p>Anomera, for the uninitiated, is a small company based in Montreal with locations in Mississauga, Ontario and T茅miscaming, Quebec. Anomera specializes in nanoparticles, specifically, carboxylated nanocrystalline cellulose, or CNCs for short. And while the company may be small, and the particles they sell much, much smaller, they are on the verge of big things. Very big things.</p> Wed, 04 Jan 2023 23:01:18 +0000 Junji Nishihata 769 at /research Made in Quebec: Moneyball in Montreal /research/article/made-quebec-moneyball-montreal <p>In 1999, at the tender age of 18, Craig Buntin boarded an airplane in Kelowna, BC. His destination: Montreal. His purpose: to find the necessary coaching that would help him reach his dream of going to the Olympic games as a figure skater. He had a one-way ticket, and enough savings to keep him going for a couple of months. If it didn鈥檛 pan out, he would be hitching a ride home.</p> Wed, 04 Jan 2023 22:43:07 +0000 Junji Nishihata 765 at /research Future Ready: A Giant on a Nano Scale /research/article/future-ready-giant-nano-scale <p>Marta Cerruti talks glowingly of the colourized photos her students recently made. Most researchers would reserve what鈥檚 under their microscope for purely scientific inquiry. But while the Associate Professor of Materials Engineering works on ways to grow bones and reduce mineral build-up in arteries, she likes to also look at what鈥檚 going on aesthetically. A water colour painter, she recently encouraged her students to make colloidal dispersions, cells and extracellular matrix grown on scaffolds into pieces to admire. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e really, really pretty structures.鈥</p> Thu, 22 Dec 2022 23:01:24 +0000 Philip Fine 750 at /research Future Ready: The Advocate for a Better Anthropocene /research/article/future-ready-advocate-better-anthropocene <p>When you think of the Earth 50 years from now, what do you see? Do you imagine desolate cities, scorched forests, dead oceans, lost biodiversity? Elena Bennett wants you to know the future doesn鈥檛 have to be bleak.</p> <p>鈥淲e can achieve a good Anthropocene 鈥 a future that is more just, prosperous, and sustainable than our current world,鈥 says Bennett, an ecosystem ecologist jointly appointed to the 平特五不中 School of Environment and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences in 平特五不中鈥檚 Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.</p> Thu, 22 Dec 2022 22:16:27 +0000 Allyson Rowley 737 at /research Future Ready: The Pathfinder /research/futurereadylaporte <p>Drug discovery is a high-stakes business. The cost of developing a new prescription medicine that gains marketing approval from regulators is about $3.5 billion 鈥 and 7 out of 8 new drug candidates in clinical development fail, according to a <i>Journal of Health Economics </i>study.</p> Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:57:33 +0000 Mark Witten 711 at /research Future Ready: The Graphene Innovators /research/article/future-ready-graphene-innovators <p>What is a million times thinner than a human hair, yet 200 times stronger than steel? What is lighter than paper, yet stretches up to 20% of its length?</p> Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:40:03 +0000 Mark Witten 707 at /research Future-Ready: 平特五不中's Sabrina Leslie /research/articles/future-ready-professor-sabrina-leslie <p>In a cavernous space in Professor Sabrina Leslie鈥檚 lab, recent PhD graduate Dr. Daniel Berard is analyzing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3U1BTFxuBU&feature=youtu.be">live videos of fluctuating single oligonucleotides</a>鈥攕hort molecules of DNA鈥攁s they are trapped in three-micron-wide "wells鈥. To the untrained eye, the images he is inspecting on the computer screen look much like static on antiquated television sets, yet he perceives the entire trajectory of the molecules as they search for and bind to a target.</p> Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:10:12 +0000 Meaghan Thurston 706 at /research