Caption: The spotted belly of a Tokay gecko used by UC Berkeley biologists to understand how the animal’s five sticky toes help it climb on many types of surface. Credit: Yi Song Those are fabulous toes. Geckos and the fine hairs on their toes have been of great interest to researchers looking to increase qualities of adhesion for all kinds of purposes including for robots that climb. The latest foray into the research suggests that…

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I successfully submitted an editorial to the Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC). You can find it and a host of others on the CSPC Editorial Series: Response to COVID-19 Pandemic and its Impacts webpage (scroll down under Policy Development) or in the CSPC Featured Editorial Series Volume 1, Issue 2, May 2020 PDF on pp. 31-2. What I’ve posted here is the piece followed by attribution for the artwork used to illustrate my op-ed in…

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Things have changed (but not the event date) since my March 3, 2020 posting about the Sea Shambles event in London’s (UK) Royal Albert Hall. It will now be livestreamed by the Royal Albert Home (series) and The Stay at Home Festival on May 17, 2020. [downloaded from https://cosmicshambles.com/words/news/sea-shambles-at-home-guests] You may recognize Cobie Smulders (fourth from the left) from her stints on television (How I Met Your Mother and Stumptown) and in the movies (the…

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It can’t be any surprise that Canadian Science Policy Conference 2020 (CSPC 2020) is going to be virtual this year. Not unexpectedly, at least one deadline is being extended. Here’s more from the CSPC 2020 Goes Virtual webpage, [Conference theme] New Decade, New Realities: Hindsight, Insight, ForesightNew Deadline for Panel Submission: June 12th, 2020Due to the unprecedented circumstances generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 12thCanadian Science Policy Conference, CSPC 2020, will be held completely online!…

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It’s time I posted news about OCSiAl as it’s been about five years since they were last mentioned here. An April 24, 2020 news item on AzoNano proclaims a new status for the company, As from [sic] April 2020, OCSiAl is able to commercialize up to 100 tonnes annually of its TUBALL single wall carbon nanotubes [single-walled carbon nanotubes or SWCNTs] in Europe thanks to the company’s upgraded dossier under the EU’s [European Union’s] “Registration,…

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Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) Conservation Initiative has a paid internship position for a Videographer and Digital Storyteller. The submission deadline is May 18, 2020. Before getting to the internship, here’s a description of the organization from its Wikipedia entry (Note: Links have been removed), The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative or Y2Y is a joint Canada–United States not-for-profit organization and the only organization dedicated to securing the long-term ecological health of the region from Yellowstone…

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A May 11, 2020 news item on ScienceDaily provides a description of the current ‘memristor scene’ along with an announcement about a piece of recent research, Scientists around the world are intensively working on memristive devices, which are capable in extremely low power operation and behave similarly to neurons in the brain. Researchers from the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) and the German technology group Heraeus have now discovered how to systematically control the functional…

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This study comes from China and it offers an overview of the state-of-the-art of gas nanomedicine and a roadmap for future research. A May 6, 2020 news item on Nanowerk announces the study, Cancer is deadly, but available cancer treatment methods are quite limited. The use of therapeutic gas molecules such as H2 [hydrogen gas], NO [nitrogen oxide], CO [carbon monoxide] and H2S [hydrogn sulfide] for cancer treatment is promising owing to their unique properties…

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This news comes from the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Quantum Technologies according to a May 4, 2020 news item on Nanowerk (Note: A link has been removed), Here’s a new chapter in the story of the miniaturisation of machines: researchers in a laboratory in Singapore have shown that a single atom can function as either an engine or a fridge. Such a device could be engineered into future computers and fuel cells to…

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I have always imagined the love of maple syrup to be a universal love. A friend who moved to Canada from somewhere else in the world disillusioned me on that subject. She claims to be unable to grasp why anyone would love maple syrup. Should you recognize yourself in those words you may not find this post all that interesting. However, maple syrup lovers may find this May 5, 2020 news item on Nanowerk a…

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