The controversy behind the new FDA-approved drug for Alzheimer’s disease

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Rana Semaan, Science in Society editor On June 7, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug Aduhelm™ (aducanumab-avwa) for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease under its accelerated approval pathway. I felt overjoyed and excited reading this news. I’d seen the disease up close and lost my grandmother to Alzheimer’s. I immediately […]

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The history of science: The story of humanity’s pursuit of knowledge

University of Toronto laboratory where insulin was discovered. Photo from University of Toronto Archives. Public domain.

Mary Anne Schoenhardt, Science & Society editor The summer of 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin, which is credited to the two Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and Charles Best. Insulin has saved the lives of millions of people who have diabetes. This discovery won the Noble Prize in Physiology and Medicine […]

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Lidar and archeology: Modern technology for a historical purpose

Image by Jesse Varner, Zion National Park DEM, United States National Park Service, CC BY 2.0.

Mary Anne Schoenhardt, Science in Society editor You may know that the iPhone 12 Pro contains a lidar (light detection and ranging) sensor. A remote sensing technique originally developed for space exploration and military defence, lidar is more than just a fancy gadget for your new phone. One of the lesser-known uses of lidar is […]

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A new threat to honey bees comes to Canada’s west coast

Photo by Alex Bartok, CC BY-SA-NC

Emily Olson, Communications, Education & Outreach editor Our story begins one late summer morning in 2019, in an apiary in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Along the avenue of trees sits a group of honey bee hives – white boxes stacked one upon another and filled with honey, pollen, and European honey bees. As the sun warms […]

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