Jun
15
June Café Scientifique with John Walker
Posted by: susanvickers | June 15, 2014 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday June 24th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be John Walker, Rover Development Lead of the Hakuto Google Lunar X-Prize Team. The title of his talk is:
Lunar Spelunking
Lava tubes, or caves likely exist on the surface of the moon. Based on recent images and laser distance measurements from the surface of the moon, scientists have selected candidates for further study.
Governmental space agencies and private institutions now have plans to visit these potential caves and investigate them as potential lunar habitat sites, as early as 2015.
I will present some of these candidates and my PhD research, which is supporting a Google Lunar X-Prize team’s attempt to survey one of these caves using robots.
May
12
May Café Scientifique with Nicholas White
Posted by: susanvickers | May 12, 2014 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday May 27th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Nicholas White. The title of his talk is:
The world’s smallest machines
In the last 50 years, chemists have developed the ability to produce increasingly intricate and complex molecules. One example of this is the synthesis of “interlocked molecules”: two or more separate molecules that are mechanically threaded through one another (like links of a chain). These interlocked molecules offer potential use for a range of different applications. In particular they have been developed for use as molecular machines: devices that are only a few nanometers in size, but can perform physical work in response to a stimulus (e.g. light, heat). This talk will describe the development of interlocked molecules, and explore their potential applications as nano-devices.
Apr
14
April Café Scientifique with Chris Waltham
Posted by: jdewitt | April 14, 2014 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday April 29th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Chris Waltham. The title of his talk is:
Musical Acoustics: What do soundboxes do and how do they work?
Nearly all string instruments have soundboxes to radiate the vibrational energy of the strings. These wooden boxes tend to be objects of beauty and of iconic shapes (think of a violin or guitar), but seldom is any thought given to how they work. A large part of the field of musical acoustics is the analysis of sound boxes, and although the question of “quality” remains elusive, much progress has been made. For example, pretty much every feature of a violin’s morphology can be understood in terms of vibroacoustics and ergonomics, rather than visual aesthetics (with the possible exception of the scroll, of course). Although Andrea Amati would not have used the language and methods of mechanical engineering, the form he perfected most definitely follows its function.
I like to talk about acoustics and violins. Also harps, guitars, guqins and guzhengs.
Mar
13
March Café Scientifique with Elizabeth Simpson
Posted by: jdewitt | March 13, 2014 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday March 25th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Elizabeth Simpson. The title of her talk is:
“Fierce Mice” and “Good Viruses” are Impacting Brain Disorders
Mental illness accounts for over 15 percent of the burden of disease in the developed world, which is higher than all cancers combined. Nevertheless, from a research perspective, these “brain and behaviour” disorders are relatively underserved. Combinations of both genetic and environmental factors cause brain and behaviour disorders, and the Simpson laboratory is focused on exploring the genetic cause.
Dr. Simpson’s group was the first to find that the human gene (NR2E1) can correct violent behaviour in the fierce mouse; a model of pathological aggression. NR2E1 is involved in controlling stem cell proliferation in the brain, and the Simpson group has found an association between this gene and bipolar disorder (manic-depressive psychosis), a brain illness that is usually diagnosed in late teens to early twenties, but likely initiates in childhood.
Working to open a new therapeutic door for mental illness and other brain disorders, Dr. Simpson is leading a large genomics project to build MiniPromoters; tools designed to deliver therapeutic genes to defined regions of the brain. This technology will enable virus-based-gene therapies for many different brain disorders regardless of the underlying cause. Thus, the Simpson laboratory is bringing new technologies to childhood and adult brain and behaviour disorders, all of which are underserved by traditional therapeutic approaches.
Jan
8
January Café Scientifique with Eric Taylor
Posted by: jdewitt | January 8, 2014 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday January 28th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Eric Taylor, a zoology professor at UBC and director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. The title of his talk is:
Fluviatili Pisces Diversi (The Diversity of Freshwater Fishes): Underappreciated and Under Threat
The term fish biodiversity immediately conjures up images of strikingly-coloured fishes on a coral reef, but over 40% of the more than 33,000 fish species occur in fresh water which comprises only 0.8% of the Earth’s surface area. Freshwater fishes are, therefore, the most diverse group of vertebrates per unit area on Earth. Furthermore, recent research suggests that the rate of the origin of new biodiversity is greater in fresh water than in the marine realm. Within this context, my presentation will discuss general patterns of biodiversity in British Columbia freshwater fishes, its nature and origins, and explore a few examples of evolutionary marvels of our native freshwater fishes. Finally, I will outline some of the key threats to our freshwater fish bioheritage.
Jan
6
CIHR IWIS Café Sci Event – Jan 16
Posted by: jdewitt | January 6, 2014 | Leave a Comment
Posted on behalf of CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) IWIS (Immigrant Women in Science)
UNDERSTANDING THE NUTS AND BONES OF OSTEOPOROSIS
Thursday, Jan 16, 2014; 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Wicklow Pub, 610 Stamps Landing, Vancouver, BC
RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/ksgmhb2
Nov
16
November Café Scientifique with Andrea Damascelli
Posted by: jdewitt | November 16, 2013 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday November 26th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Prof. Andrea Damascelli. The title of his talk is:
From Light Quanta to Quantum Materials
The photoelectric effect – the ejection of electrons from a solid consequent to the absorption of light – was discovered by Hertz in 1887 and explained by Einstein in 1905 on the basis of the revolutionary hypothesis of Light Quanta, or photons. This intuition, which gave Einstein the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, marked the beginning of quantum physics and also of photoelectric spectroscopy, one of the most active fields in modern science and technology. Owing to recent technical progress and in particular to the development of third generation synchrotron sources – particle accelerators in which electrons traveling at nearly the speed of light generate the most brilliant light available to scientists – the last decade witnessed a renaissance in this technique and its applications. These have now become the primary tools in the study of emerging Quantum Materials, systems which manifest a wide range of astonishing electronic and magnetic phenomena and with the potential to revolutionize consumer electronics, telecommunications, next-generation computing, alternative energy, and medicine.
Sep
28
October Café Scientifique with Bud Homsy
Posted by: jdewitt | September 28, 2013 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday October 29th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Prof. Bud Homsy. The title of his talk is:
Fluid mechanics – What do the Red Spot of Jupiter and the flagellar motion of e.coli have in common?
Fluid mechanics – the study of the motion of fluids when acted upon by forces – is capable of describing fluid flows on a very wide range of length and time scales, including the Red Spot (roughly three Earth diameters in size), the Earth’s weather system, locomotion of trains, planes and automobiles, and swimming of fish, sperm, and microorganisms on the smallest scale. It is safe to say that almost every aspect of human existence depends on fluids and their flow properties. This talk will illustrate all the flows listed above (and more!) with movies and discussion of the mathematics and physics behind their description and understanding.
Sep
9
September Café Scientifique with Ian Cromwell
Posted by: jdewitt | September 9, 2013 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday September 24th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Ian Cromwell, a health economics researcher at the BC Cancer Agency. The title of his talk is:
The HPV Vaccine and You: What You Need to Know to Make an Informed Choice
With British Columbia recently approving the HPV vaccine in young women across the province, members of the public have been engaged in a conversation about the value and safety of the vaccine. Ian Cromwell will discuss the vaccine and introduce the available evidence supporting the policy. He will also address some of the specific concerns people in British Columbia have about the vaccine, with a grounding in the scientific literature.
Jul
25
July Café Scientifique with Robin Coope
Posted by: jdewitt | July 25, 2013 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday July 30th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Robin Coope. The title of his talk is:
Explain what it is you do again? Engineering in the life sciences
After studiously avoiding biology from high school on, Robin Coope wound up doing a PhD in Physics which involved understanding some exotic failure modes in capillary DNA sequencing. This led to a job at the BC Cancer Agency’s Genome Sciences Centre where he is now the Instrumentation Group Leader. This mostly involves managing the Centre’s liquid handling robots but with various funding sources, projects have involved novel automation platforms for DNA sample prep, as well as several medical devices for cancer treatment and even orthopaedics.
It turns out that practicing engineering while embedded in a clinical research lab with ready access to physicians and life scientists presents a fantastic opportunity to pursue the fundamental objective of engineering: to identify challenges and develop tools to solve them. The clinic is full of problems and unmet needs but the success of a solution often hinges on subtle issues, so it can take many prototypes and much discussion to get something that works. Working in this science-based industry also elucidates a clear distinction between engineering and science where success in the latter should be measured by publishing important ideas, whereas success in the former is really in making solutions available to a broad audience, which ultimately means commercialization. After seven years of in this field its also clear that the most interesting part of the work is the people and the challenges of communicating with specialists in widely divergent fields.
In this talk, Robin will present some recent projects and reflect on key lessons in what has thus far been a remarkably exciting adventure.
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