Science in Society

History of Science, Science in Society, Science Art & Illustration, Science in Fiction, Science Issues & Philosophy, Skepticism, Science Book & Film Reviews, Pseudoscience Criticism, “Myth Busting,” Humour Science Careers, Career Development, Journalism, Academia, Publishing, Ethics, Funding, Archeology, Social Anthropology

Canada’s Science Rendezvous on May 7, 2022 and Science Odyssey from May 7 – 22, 2022

Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering
Science Rendezvous is a one day festival of science held in various venues across Canada, here’s more from their About page, …Science Rendezvous began as a joint program between the University of Toronto, Ryerson University [name changed to Toronto Metropolitan University as of April 26, 2022; read why in the Toronto Metropolitan University Wikipedia entry],...

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Welcome Mitacs Globalink Summer 2022 Interns

Dan Gillis Communication, Education and Outreach, Science in Society, Technology and Engineering
I’m pleased to welcome three students to the School of Computer Science this summer. Jay Patel, Vrushabh Bhagwatkar, and Ekjot Kaur will be joining our lab as Mitacs Globalink interns. During their internships, they will spend their time working with other undergraduate and graduate researchers on a variety of projects. Jay will be joining usContinue...

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Ph.D. Seminar – Ali Al Hadwer

Dan Gillis Communication, Education and Outreach, Science in Society, Technology and Engineering
Join us on Tuesday, April 19 at 9 am (via Zoom) for a seminar by Ph.D. candidate (Computational Sciences), Ali Al Hadwer. While Cloud-based Big Data Analytics (CBDA) have been successfully used by business and the health industries, Ali has focused his research energy investigating and modelling factors that influence the adoption of CBDA withinContinue...

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Ph.D. Defence – Jarrett Phillips

Dan Gillis Communication, Education and Outreach, Science in Society, Technology and Engineering
Join us on May 5, 2022, at 9:00 am for the defence of Ph.D. candidate, Jarrett Phillips. Jarrett will present a novel algorithm called HACSim that is used to estimate the sample size necessary for capturing haplotype variation. This work provides researchers with a new tool to better understand variation within species – with applicationsContinue...

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The Importance Of Safety

Dan Gillis Communication, Education and Outreach, Science in Society, Technology and Engineering
I recently made the decision to resign from the University of Guelph Senate. It is not, at least for me at this time, a safe space. I realized this over the course of the last semester when each scheduled senate or senate subcommittee meeting since September brought with it an incredibly overwhelming sense of anxietyContinue reading "The Importance Of Safety"

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You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone!

Staffan Lindgren Biology and Life Sciences, Environmental and Earth Sciences, Science in Society
A blog about senses. Doesn’t that look good? It was a meal I ordered in Port Hardy a few years ago. It looked good, and it tasted good. To determine that, you would use four of your five senses. We mostly take our senses for granted as we grow up. Once in a while I have given some thought in passing about how much more difficult life would be if I lost my sight or…

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How to go about mining in Nova Scotia?

Elisabeth Kosters Environmental and Earth Sciences, Science in Society
In my previous blog post, I criticized the Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS) for displaying a lack of environmental, social and cultural awareness. I received many positive reactions, but not from MANS of course. Its executive director Sean Kirby responded with an all too familiar sounding broken-record statement. That weak response, displaying a lack of deeper insight, is exactly why I have a problem with MANS. But of course I shouldn’t expect anything else…

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Ai-Da (robot artist) writes and performs poem honouring Dante’s 700th anniversary

Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering
Remarkable, eh? *ETA December 17, 2021 0910: I’m sorry about the big blank space and can’t figure out how to fix it.* Who is Ai-Da? Thank you to the contributor(s) of the Ai-Da (robot) Wikipedia entry (Note: Links have been removed), …Ai-Da was invented by gallerist Aidan Meller,[3] in collaboration with Engineered Arts, a Cornish robotics company.[4] Her drawing intelligence was developed by computer AI researchers at the University of Oxford,[5] and her drawing arm…

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Harvesting a ‘healthy’ electric current production inside the human body

Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering
“I Sing the Body Electric,” or so wrote Walt Whitman in a poem, which was added to the 1867 edition of his “Leaves of Grass” collection. I wonder if he ever managed that scientists would one day attempt to harvest human bioenergy for generating bioelectricity that could charge medical implants. In some of the latest developments, researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU; Israel) have announced a new material which they hope will render batteries unnecessary…

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