Microbes could be the solution to our waste plastics problem

By Ishara Yahampath, guest contributor Globally, 400 metric tonnes of plastic are produced annually: 40% is single-use, resulting in significant waste. Every year, 29,000 tonnes of plastic are released into Canada’s environment, causing serious environmental problems—the accumulation of plastic waste in land and water ecosystems, leakage of harmful microbes into the environment, and threats to […]

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Crushing snowbanks could help to preserve permafrost and keep northern communities connected

By Patrick Jardine, new science communicator Northern field work 2:00 p.m. on March 9th, 2021: I was finishing sampling snow density along a mine access roadside in the central Yukon with my co-worker, Jen, when I heard branches breaking deep within the forest beside me. It was a balmy –15 °C out — a significant […]

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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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