Both scientific research and personal experiences are proving, without a doubt, that there is a connection between what we eat and how we think and act – hence the saying “you are what you eat”. This happy-food-to-happy-mood relationship is bridged by “happy” neurotransmitters in our bodies. Just think of “happy” neurotransmitters as the money-orders from your out of town parents that are speedily delivered on highway by FedEx to you. Receiving the money-orders solves your credit card overdue and that makes you really happy! Put it in the context of biology, neurotransmitters are messengers that relay sensations and actions along…

Kahnawake is a Mohawk community of 7000 people, located 12 miles north of Montreal, Quebec, on the bank of the St. Lawrence River. Originally settled in 1680, the community traditionally relied on fishing and hunting for food, as well as gathering corn, beans and squash from the area. However, despite the healthy meat and vegetable based diet of the past, today over 800 people (12%), between the age of 45 & 64, live with diabetes (1). Sixty percent of these people are living with major complications, such as blindness and kidney failure; 48% have heart disease as a result of…

Dr. McCondo: “So, how are you feeling today? You told the nurse you were feeling a little sick?” Mr. Heart: “Not well, and I think I might be coming down with something serious…” Dr. McCondo: “Alright, let’s take a look.” Mr. Heart: “Okay…hey do you think it’s going to be something serious? Do you think it might be because of the new neighbourhood I moved into? Ever since my buddies Turk and Burke helped me move in I started feeling a little weird. I mean, it was nice to relocate to a new place and all because my old one….well…

This morning, the front page of the national newspaper reads “BC put on alert for huge quake.” Yet again. So do I hop on a plane to Calgary or continue obliviously sipping my coffee? The reality of an eventual massive earthquake on the British Columbian coast is a given. As my mom, discontent with raging snowstorms and -30oC temperatures, declares, “there are consequences to living in paradise.” Earth-shattering consequences. But do we understand the nature and the true extent of these consequences? To understand why Vancouver is at such a high risk for earthquakes relative to Calgary or Toronto, one…

Academia -Industry relationship The Academia-industry collaborations involve transforming an intelligent laboratory research into an industrial application of that knowledge, to provide goods and services for the society. The Bayh-Dole Act, enacted in 1980, details the rules and regulations for collaborations between private industry and research institutions, such as universities and since then, financial relationships between them have grown. In biomedical research, these relationships often pair academic research expertise and facilities with industry resources for technology transfer in order to bring innovations from the laboratory bench to hospital bed. These collaborations benefit society by leading to the development of new medical…

The potential use of genetic engineering, the alteration of the genetic material (i.e. DNA) in living organisms, for therapeutic purposes, or “gene therapy”, holds the promise of curing many diseases. The potential use of gene therapy as a preventative treatment for genetic diseases, however, has been controversial, primarily because such preventative measures may involve manipulating the embryo. The beginning of life is an event so universally cherished that any interventions made in this somewhat ambiguous period that marks the beginning of existence, even to prevent disease, is simply too sacrilegious to consider. Yet, at the rate that science is progressing,…

Traditionally, physics has been a male-dominated occupation. However, throughout history there have been exceptional women who have risen above society’s restrictions and contributed greatly to the advancement of physics. Women have played an important role in the creation, advancement and application of medical physics. As a frontier science, medical physics is less likely to be bound by society’s norms and less subject to the inherent glass ceiling limiting female participation. Women such as Marie Curie, Harriet Brooks, and Rosalind Franklin helped break through that ceiling, and their contributions are worth observing. In the early 1900’s, medical physics was a young…

Genus Papillomaviridae Species Human Papillomavirus Spurting viruses from your crotch I’ll start by saying warts irk me out. Perhaps not as much as jellyfish, but they’re up there. It really sucked researching and looking up pictures for this topic; I hope you all appreciate it. In fact, appreciate it even more that I didn’t include any pictures of any warts in this article. Nevertheless, science is not about personal preference or being irked out; it’s about the truth, even if it makes you mildly nauseated. You must accept it warts and all, one might say. Not me though, I would…

In today’s experiment, we are going to isolate chemical A, purify chemical B, quantify chemical C, and characterize chemical D. Then we will somehow combine A, B, C, and D in a Dr. Frankensteinesque attempt to synthesize chemical E. Chemicals A, B, C, and D are probably interchangeable, and there is no particular sequence in which the reactions need to take place. No lab manuals, and no rules. Experiment ad lib! We should expect a small explosion which will consist of a bang, a crack, and a flash of light. Scary, perhaps, but it is not at all dangerous…. Or…