“They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive.” Encased in their gargantuan metal tripods, armed with both “Heat-Rays” that instantly incinerate and a mysteriously fatal “Black Smoke” like a vaporized Grim Reaper, H.G.Wells’ chilling Martians in The War of the Worlds were an extra-terrestrial force with which humans could not reckon. Yet it was a seemingly prosaic and evolutionarily ancient terrestrial creature that ultimately struck the final blow to…

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Using air travel, virtually every country in the world is accessible within a few days’ journey. Before the Industrial Revolution, these trips took years to complete. With the remarkable and rapid advancement of transportation and communication technologies, the world has been rapidly globalized ‘into one’. This has allowed a growing number of remote geopolitical regions to become interconnected with the ability to trade and interface. As a result, nations have been becoming increasingly dependent on…

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Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis may not seem like major health issues anymore, but more and more Canadians every year are suffering from these infections. Although reportable STIs besides HIV seemed to be on the decline in the early 1990s, the rates of these STIs are steadily increasing since 1997. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) reports that chlamydia, the most common bacterial STI, has seen a 16.7% increase…

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Cautionary portrayals of COVID-19 in mass media have led to a greater understanding of the dangers of a global pandemic, which has helped to reduce the impact the virus has had on populations around the world. However, this has not stopped inaccurate perceptions of the novel coronavirus from leaking into the public. For example, the current limited knowledge on the origin of SARS-CoV-2 has spawned online conspiracy theories asserting the virus as a possible man-made…

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Chances are, you’ve probably looked into a microscope at least once in your life. Whether it was to look at cells of an onion skin, to visualize colonies of growing bacteria, or to determine the presence of immune cells in 5 micrometre thin sections of human tissue. Today, our ability to visualize the invisible is something we don’t think twice about. As scientists, microscopes are often part of our daily lives. But there was a…

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The 1918 influenza pandemic infected an estimated 500 million people or one third of the global population. This led to at least 50 million deaths, all by a single virus. Although the 1918 pandemic was the most severe outbreak in recent history, the influenza virus has been responsible for additional pandemics since. What made these flu viruses so deadly compared to the seasonal flu that they became pandemics?   According to the World Health Organization (WHO),…

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As graduate students, spending a lot of time in a lab alone isn’t anything new. However，with recent social distancing efforts, spending time alone is no longer voluntary. This forced separation from our normal lives means that in addition to threatening our physical health, the coronavirus pandemic is also putting our mental health at risk. In this article, I will share some of my personal tips that have helped me during this difficult time. Be kind…

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The COVID-19 pandemic was, and continues to be, devastating for many – closing businesses, suffering from mental health issues and even experiencing the death of their loved ones. The time between the first detection of the virus to the declaration of a global pandemic was about 2.5 months. On December 31st, 2019, China reported a cluster of pneumonia cases, and by January 13th, the first international case was reported in Thailand. However, despite China detecting…

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Blood transfusions are important medical procedures whereby a donor’s blood is infused into a recipient intravenously. Transfusions can be lifesaving for recipients experiencing massive blood loss after surgery, injury or other medical conditions. Furthermore, screening of blood composition is extremely vital, as similarity between donor blood and recipient blood must be closely matched to avoid detrimental immune reactions. The key to successful blood transfusion is compatibility. Blood compatibility is based on the eight major blood…

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As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, our current societal dynamics such as the ease of international travel and extensive daily social interaction can enable the rapid spread of infectious diseases (IDs). Artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies are continuously being developed to aid the government and public health officials in controlling the spread of potential ID outbreaks. These recent technical advances have enabled the prediction of ID sources, early detection of outbreaks, innovative contact tracing…

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