Even in winter the Gord Edgar Downie Pier remains a beacon

January 17, 2019 ruby Communication, Education and Outreach, Environmental and Earth Sciences, Policy and Politics

Photo by Shane Schofield Six months after its public opening, the Gord Edgar Downie Pier remains a beacon for swimmable, drinkable, fishable water across the Great Lakes. My recent trip to Kingston with Mark Mattson reminded me of this. This pier helps people reimagine their connection to Lake Ontario and is shaping a new generation of water leaders.While the summertime crowds hibernate, the swimming pier's magic remains. The breeze, the view, the pier’s connection to…

The Other Side

January 16, 2019 Graham Young Biology and Life Sciences, Communication, Education and Outreach, Environmental and Earth Sciences

Saint Andrews, New Brunswick: August, 2018 Basalt and seaweed at Bar Road, Saint Andrews If you travel in the natural world, you have probably noticed places where the bedrock seems to vary drastically and dramatically over a short distance. Perhaps you have seen a place where rocks of different colours are abutted against one another, or where bedrock textures and lineations change. In some cases, this may represent a variation in the deposition of ancient sediments…

Happy… Middle of January

January 16, 2019 L. E. Carmichael Biology and Life Sciences, Communication, Education and Outreach, General Science

2019, huh. So far, gotta say, not lovin’ it. To be fair, it’s been an especially challenging two weeks. We opened the year with a funeral for Tech Support’s mother, a wonderful woman who is already deeply missed. Air travel and stress led to illness, which led to cancelling my first school visits of the year… and also attempting to write while my brain was cocooned in bubble wrap, thanks to manuscript revisions that had…

Who’s at Higher Risk of Rapid Repeat Pregnancies?

January 16, 2019 Research2Reality Communication, Education and Outreach, General Science

Women with intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to have babies in quick succession, which poses risks. But why? Get the full story Who’s at Higher Risk of Rapid Repeat Pregnancies?

It All Makes Sense

January 15, 2019 jeremy Communication, Education and Outreach, Multimedia, Physics and Astronomy

Why do we even say this? Students are learning the material, so they almost certainly don’t understand it. We need to be careful with the implicit standards we set.

What Can Nature Teach Us About Patterns?

January 15, 2019 Research2Reality Communication, Education and Outreach, General Science

Understanding how icicle bumps and sand ripples form is the first step towards the creation of self-assembling technologies. Get the full story What Can Nature Teach Us About Patterns?

CREATORS – Madge Evers

January 14, 2019 artthescience Communication, Education and Outreach

You know what they say: a picture’s worth a billion spores. Massachusetts-based artist Madge Evers works in a surprising medium: mushroom spore prints. Each of her exquisite works starts with a fungal form—either grown in her garden or foraged from the woods and fields that surround her home. Evers gently places her muse upon her canvas, then waits until the specimen starts to release its spores. These tiny objects—about 16 billion of them in a typical field mushroom—float through the…

Escaping the Path

January 13, 2019 jeremy Communication, Education and Outreach, Mathematics and Statistics, Physics and Astronomy

There’s a lovely forest near my house. It’s a wonderful place that looks exceptional in the autumn, where the fallen leaves of the trees cover the path in a flurry of orange, red, and yellow. I love running there because it’s so peaceful. Imagine that I told you I would show you this forest. After hearing me wax poetic about it, you’re excited to see it. We get to the forest, and I show you…

Meetings

January 13, 2019 jeremy Communication, Education and Outreach, Multimedia, Physics and Astronomy

I wonder if we could compress meetings to about half their time without losing significant information?

Jeremy Cote 2019-01-13 15:21:54