A Spectacular Science Internship: Changing Perspective from Telescopic to MicroscopicAt first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much common ground between the study of astrophysics and research into microvasculature. The same thought occurred to Sachi Elkerton, a third year Physics and Astronomy student, when she was interviewed by Dr. Aaron Ward of the London Regional Cancer Centre for her science internship.
Profiles
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Leap into Learning
Consciousness and phantoms: how our brains compensate for an unexpected data gap
In the airport, predictable networks get a passenger’s luggage checked in, get them through security, get them on the plane and coordinate the plane’s takeoff from a clear runway. Similarly, your brain’s networks communicate with each other so that you can simultaneously walk, talk and think about lunch.
But what happens when expected information isn’t there?
The advent of ethical robotics
Aimee van Wynsberghe is helping shape the 'humans behind the robots'.
Alumni in the News
Engagement
Announcements
Western News - Diet discovery shifts thinking on prehistoric bear - Newly discovered information into the inflexible diet of one group of prehistoric bears has scientists rethinking how the creatures lived and what caused the large mammals’ extinction some 25,000 years ago.
Western News - Fulbright award turns up heat on plant study - By the time you read this, Joseph Stinziano will already be in Albuquerque, N.M., honing in on the secrets of boechera depauperata – a heat-tolerant plant that can thrive in temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius. Stinziano, a PhD candidate in Biology, will spend the remainder of the academic year at the University of New Mexico, as one of 15 Canadian Fulbright Students studying south of the border.
Daily Mail - Earth is not as unique as we thought: Materials as old as the solar system have the same chemistry as our planet - It has long been thought that the chemistry of our planet is unique. This was because studies looking into the composition of meteorites, which formed from the same gas and dust Earth was made of, found our planet had more of of a particular isotope than anything else. But a new study has overturned this idea, by looking at different objects in the asteroid belt.
Western Media Release - New discovery shatters previous beliefs about Earth’s origin - A new study led by Western University’s all-star cosmochemist Audrey Bouvier proves that the Earth and other planetary objects formed in the early years of the Solar System share similar chemical origins – a finding at odds with accepted wisdom held by scientists for decades.
National Post - Study finds that massive, prehistoric bears may have gone extinct because they were vegan - For hundreds of thousands of years, relatives of common European brown bears roamed from Northern Spain in the west to Russia’s Ural mountains in the east. The beasts were huge — 1.7 metres tall at the shoulder, and 3.7 metres long — but unlike today’s bears, the Ursus spelaeus, more commonly known as a cave bear, was vegan, and that may be why, 25,000 years ago, it went extinct.
London Free Press - BugsR4Girls goes viral after Ontario girl teased for fascination with bugs - Sophia Spencer loves bugs — any bugs, all bugs. And now, legions of scientists and new fans from around the world are applauding the almost-eight-year-old’s passion after learning on Twitter that her classmates had called her “weird.”
New study shows traffic noise can affect brain and learning ability in birds - An international study led by researchers at Western University’s Advanced Facility for Avian Research (AFAR) has shown that birds living in congested cities are greatly affected by persistent traffic noise and that their brains and learning ability are seriously damaged.
Carolyn Cadogan, a graduate student in Physics, shows that amorphous Al2O3 films have increased brightness over commercially available crystalline Al2O3 at the 8th International Workshop on High-Resolution Depth Profiling (HRDP8) poster session on August 9.
HRDP8 is a truly international event featuring researchers from as far away as Sweden, Brazil, Hungary and others.
Western is hosting the 8th International Workshop on High-Resolution Depth Profiling (HRDP8) Aug. 8-12. Here Dr. Bob Sica, Chair of Western's Physics and Astronomy Department welcomes guests to the conference.
Western Physicist Dr. Lyudmila Goncharova's welcome message officially opened the 8th International Workshop on High-Resolution Depth Profiling (HRDP8). The HRDP8 (Aug. 8-12) looks at the cutting edge methods essential to modern materials characterization, defect engineering and analysis for electronic materials.
Irena Creed greets workshop participants to the Symposium in Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the Great Lakes Basin on April 14. The event was initiated to understand and address the challenges and opportunities facing our agriculture and food systems.
The Symposium's concurrent workshops studied five themes, Rebuilding fooodsheds (food production and distribution), Biodiversity, Converting wastes to resources, Using market based insturments to incentivize sustainable farming practices, and (pictured above) Pests and pathogens. Here, Michael Celetti from OMAFRA discusses the issue of Integrated Pest Management.
The poster session hosted research from the disciplines of science, social science and engineering from Western as well as Nippising University, University of Alberta and more. Here, Katrina Laurent from Western talks about managing environmental risk in the Great Lakes.
Many organizations involved in sustainable agriculture were present at the Symposium's poster session. Melissa Luymes from Farm Food Care Ontario discusses food production and the environment with Chris Hay, a graduate Studnet in Greg Thorn's lab.
Dr. Wayne Roberts delivered the Symposium's keynote address. He shared his stories of the people who inspired his thoughts on strategies dealing with food security, community empowerment, environmental improvement, social equity and job creation.
Space Day 2016 featured keynote speaker Dr. Stefanie Milam of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Centre talking about "Searching for our Molecular Origins in Space through Astrochemistry." See more here.
In addition to the keynote and graduate student research presentations, another highlight of Space day 2016 were the poster prsentations. Here, Zach Morse discusses using immerive technologies, such as the Google Cardboard virtual reality headset, to navigate 3D terrain models. See more here.
Natural Resources Canada Deputy Minister Bob Hamilton presents Canada's Energy Policy and Priorities in a Changing Context to a packed room of students and faculty on March 14.
Natural Resources Canada Director General and Chief Information Officer Pierre Ferland shares career options for science graduates within the federal public service.
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