Canada’s next tourism campaign: “Maple syrup sampling. ‘Nuff said.” Oh, it’s real and it’s here in Montreal. Young, bearded men in buttoned-down plaid shirts deal tastes of our iconic tree’s gifts. One scoop I experienced had a smooth smokiness mixed in: like the reason you eat bacon with pancakes. “We boiled it over an open fire,” I was…
Exercise or die
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. – Joseph Campbell Exercise as a key to good health isn’t exactly news — but the idea that low intensity workouts won’t cut it is. Researchers in New Zealand studied 50+ year old women and found…
We’re all pretty big fans
We willingly enter fictional worlds where we cheer our heroes and cry for friends we never had. -Marco Tempest Ah, the World Cup. The suspense of a free kick. A player takes a fall worthy of any middle school drama class. Puppies run onto the field. OK, it wasn’t at the Cup but that needs…
So, I’m dating a cyborg
When man wanted to make a machine that would walk he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg. – Guillaume Apollinaire He rarely breaks down. I think the last time I remember was in high school. The company was amazing and overnighted a replacement part, so luckily he didn’t have any downtime. When…
What is memory?
One must always maintain one’s connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. – Gaston Bachelard Thinking about memory is meta, but what is memory on a strictly physical level? How exactly does Pharrell’s “Happy” get trapped in our minds? Like something out of Men in Black, researchers used flashes of light…
Smith Rocks: a volcanic epicentre for climbers
As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world. – Boris Pasternak It’s 7:00a.m. after a 10 hour road trip into the desert that involved braving a flash snowstorm without tire chains. The iridescent orange of the Morning Glory wall makes it take longer to…
Are there aliens out there?
Life has evolved to thrive in environments that are extreme only by our limited human standards: in the boiling battery acid of Yellowstone hot springs, in the cracks of permanent ice sheets, in the cooling waters of nuclear reactors, miles beneath the Earth’s crust, in pure salt crystals, and inside the rocks of the dry…
Ride the waves, back to the Big Bang
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. -Douglas Adams The Big Bang was kind of…
Your voice tells elephants if you’re a danger
There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice. -Benjamin Disraeli Elephants may be better at understanding people than we are. Elephants have long been known to have incredible intelligence, and their own language (they even have their own word for “human”). Now, researchers from the University of Sussex have just discovered that to…
Can brain scans reveal your bday?
A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves. -Marcel Proust The weather can impact your mood today, but it has also left a visible mark on your mind. Columbia University Medical Centre neurologist Spiro Pantazatos has made connections between people’s season of birth (which he subtly calls “SOB”) and structures in their brains…
A sunrise for fusion energy
All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come. – Victor Hugo Dr. Hurricane fired 192 lasers that ignited a tiny sun and, in his words, “A lot of people are jazzed” about it. Just outside of cloudy San Fransisco, researchers have created what could be deemed…
Pulling a rabbit out of a blood cell
When we are no longer able to change a situation — we are challenged to change ourselves. -Viktor E. Frankl The dream of using STEM cells to regrow organs and advance human health had one major challenge — creating them was slow, costly, and ineffective. A new method dubbed “STEM cell ceviche” offers a fast, cheap way…
Immortality & the mind
Can the mind live without the body? Most people would say “yes,” but why? Scientists have narrowed in on the answer, and it has nothing to do with fear of death, or religion. The need to know: Researchers had tried to study the psychological roots of the concept of an immortal self (soul, ghosts, etc)…
How to Kill Cancer
“Curing cancer” can seem more likely to be in a beauty pageant speech than a newspaper headline. Metastasis (spreading of cancer cells) accounts for 90% of cancer deaths and has been the biggest barrier to finding a cure. A tumour can be treated with surgery and radiation, but if its sneaky cells escape into the…
DNA Doesn’t Forget
Does even the word “spider” make you twitch? Your parents may be to blame. New research shows that some traumatic experience may be passed from parent to child — genetically. The need to know: Mice were taught to fear the pleasant scent of cherry blossoms, and likely some scientists’ deodorant. Researchers repeatedly introduced the smell and…
Bring Back the T-Rex
Can we finally create a real life Jurassic Park? Not just yet, but researchers have discovered enough genetic information in a T-Rex bone to confirm the link between dinos and modern chickens. The 2005 claim that a T-Rex leg bone contained soft tissues raised eyebrows but was met with disbelief. Most soft tissue breaks down…
Fire and Ice: Hidden Antarctic Volcano
An active volcano has made itself known in a most unexpected place – under the ice sheet covering Antarctica. The result of another happy science accident, the volcano was discovered while seismologists were monitoring earthquakes in Western Antarctica when they picked up some good vibrations. As in an explosion, I would erupt with all…
Light Speed Internet
Think downloading at 1Gbps is amazing? Using beams of light in place of WIFIs radio waves, “LiFi” internet can hit speeds of up to 10 Gbps – and it’s here. Soon after scientists in Germany achieved 3Gbps using LiFi, the UK based Ultra Parallel Visible Light Communications project (I feel like there was potential for a…
Sleep: A Brain Roomba
Now when you’re begging for those extra five minutes in bed, you have a great excuse: Your brain is removing the very toxins that can lead to Alzheimer’s. Neuroscientists discovered a new pathway throughout the brain that acts like a washing machine on rinse: Moving cleansing cerebro-spinal (brain/spine) fluid throughout, collecting waste, and bringing it…
Light Sabers
Sci-fi has a knack for finding edgy concepts in science, which makes it even better when some are validated later on. Physicists have managed to make light form molecules, a concept popularized in dramatic “light saber” battles. Researchers discovered this new state of light while trying to find a solution for quantum computing – making…
Wonder Therapy: Cure the Ordinary 