Planting the seed for the future of vaccine development

By Amanda Scanga, guest contributor One consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is the accelerated development of new vaccines. Researchers quickly created, tested, manufactured and administered new vaccines, most of them based on messenger RNA (mRNA). mRNA is a knowledge base that has been in development for decades. Many people remain hesitant to get vaccinated for […]

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Microfibre mitigation: Keeping clothing fibres out of the environment

by Esme Symons, Technology & Engineering editor Washing can be hard on clothes. It removes dirt but can also remove tiny strands of clothing. These microfibres then go down the drain and into the environment. As the “micro” prefix suggests, each fibre is at most 5 mm long. Together, the impact of these fibres is […]

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Multidisciplinary collaboration yields a promising new biopsy tool for diagnosing interstitial lung disease

Kody Beler, new science communicator About 98 out of 100,000 human patients every year suffer from interstitial lung disease, a broad collection of several lung diseases that manifest as inflammation and scarring of lung tissue and a loss of lung function. Because of the invasiveness of the necessary lung biopsy, however, the diseases are often […]

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No pain, more gain: A new way to monitor glucose

Zahra Nasser and Nada Salem, Chemistry editors People with diabetes have measured their blood sugar the same way since the 1970s – a painful daily prick of the finger. While most have no choice but to get used to this, it shouldn’t have to be that way. Monitoring technology has come a long way over […]

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Plastic recycling in Canada

Images by Daylen, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0 and Regan Walsh, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA modified

Esme Symons and Sri Ray-Chauduri, Technology & Engineering editors Plastic items, including single-use plastics, are ubiquitous throughout Canada. When we’re done with a disposable water bottle, many of us will spot a recycling symbol and throw it in a recycling bin, believing we’ve given the material a new lease on life. However, with Canada recycling […]

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