It’s strange how imagination often becomes reality. In the 13th century, Leonardo da Vinci designed machines that were extremely similar to modern day machine guns, submersibles and helicopters. Jules Verne’s sci-fi novels, written in the 19th century, such as Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and From the Earth to the Moon all had elements in them which were deemed quite marvelous, if not impossible, at the time when they were written. Fast-forward two centuries, and we find ourselves with the technology that allows us to travel around the world in much less than…

Introduction It doesn’t take a scientist to tell you that Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has a drug problem. Junkies can be seen shooting up in alleys, high on street corners, and selling dope to fellow junkies. In addition the obvious threat of death by drug overdose, drug users face issues of HIV and Hepatitis virus infection along with bacterial infection. These problems were addressed by the opening of Insite—North America’s first supervised safe injection site. Based on a model of harm reduction implemented successfully in several European nations, Insite provides a safe and clean environment for intravenous drug users to inject…

Here we go again. In order to finish my term paper on time, I must pull an “all-nighter”. It is a tactic I employ increasingly often despite knowing the consequences: I will be a zombie the next day, with my eyes drooping and my head embarrassingly bobbing as I ride the bus or ‘attend’ Powerpoint presentations. The complaint of “not enough hours in the day” is heard from many people, not only last-minute students such as myself [1,2]. This frustration begs the question, what is the evolutionary reason I need to sleep for 8 of the 24 hours in a…

In 1905 Albert Einstein published a landmark paper concerning the properties of space and time. The theory that he introduced, the so-called theory of special relativity, forced a complete reformulation of our conceptions of these two fundamental structures. To get a sense of the far-reaching consequences of this theory it is instructive to look at an example. Imagine driving in a car at 100km/h alongside another car (say a Porsche) that is also driving at 100km/h (the velocities of each car of course being in reference to the road). If you looked out the window at the Porsche then it…

The environmentalism movement is currently experiencing an injection of perhaps well-needed popularity. Celebrities who own multiple homes that could each comfortably house the inhabitants of small villages, and who regularly circumnavigate the globe in private jets that have a maximum capacity of seven, routinely remind us to do such environmentally responsible things as turn the lights off when leaving a room lest we become wasteful. Manufacturers of products ranging from toilet cleaners to sport utility vehicles advertise their wares as being earth- friendly by arbitrarily adding prefixes like “eco”, “bio”, or “green” to product names in hopes of capitalizing on…

The Case of the Poor Student: Sick after Exams It’s happened to all of us. Tom was staying up late for the last two weeks cramming for his barrage of final exams, and finally his last exam was over. After one more late night—this time partying—he woke up with that all-too-familiar soreness in his throat, along with that annoying stuffy nose. “Great,” he thought. “I’m sick in time just for Christmas shopping. Must be that pesky cold bug going around again.” What is Psychoneuroimmunology? Just how exactly stress affects our immune system has long been debated, but the field of…

The country around was beset by a frightful monster, the Sphinx, a creature shaped like a winged lion, but with the breast and face of a woman. She lay in wait for the wayfarers along the roads to the city and whomever she seized she put a riddle to, telling him if he could answer it, she would let him go. No one could, and the horrible creature devoured man after man until the city was in a state of siege. — Edith Hamilton, from her book Mythology – – – This “frightful monster” appeared in the famous Greek tale…