Apr 5: Our bodies and brains fight weight loss, and more...
On this week's episode of Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald:
A Canadian team is developing minimally-invasive micro-tools for brain surgery that can be operated by magnetic fields from outside of the skull. The tools, including scalpels and forceps, will enter the cranium through small incisions, and then be controlled by focused and precise magnetic fields. Eric Diller is associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at the University of Toronto and his team's research was published in the journal Science Robotics.
In recent decades scientists have discovered animals from primates to birds and marine mammals can use tools — a capacity once thought to be exclusive to humans. Now scientists have discovered fish using hard surfaces to crack open hard-shelled prey and get at the meaty meal inside. The research, led by Juliette Tariel-Adam from Macquarie University, included recruiting divers and scientists from around the world to report any sightings of tool use, which led to 16 reports across five species of wrasses. The results were published in the journal Coral Reefs.
WATCH: Tool use by a yellowhead wrasse in South Caicos Island:
For a hardy few, soaking in cold water has long been held out as being healthful and invigorating. Well, unfortunately, the latest research suggests that they're right. Volunteers who soaked in cold water for an hour a day for a week showed improvements in autophagy, an important cellular clean-up function that typically declines with age. Kelli King is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ottawa and was co-lead on this study, published in the journal Advanced Biology.
The narwhal is a small whale distinguished by its long spiral horn — an elongated tooth. Researchers have long speculated about what the ostentatious bit of dentition is actually for, but the elusive narwhal has, until now, been hard to study. Now scientists, including Cortney Watt from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, have used drones to learn that the horn is used in several ways: to play, explore and forage. The research was published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
New research is revealing why it's so difficult to keep weight off after you've lost it.
One study in Nature found that genes in the fat cells of people who lost a significant amount of weight through bariatric surgery largely continued to behave as if they were still obese. Ferdinand von Meyenn, from ETH Zurich, said that despite these individuals becoming, in many respects, much more healthy, genes that became active during obesity remained active, and genes that were turned off, remained turned off, predisposing them to regain lost weight. In formerly obese mice, their fat cells remained much better at taking up sugars and fats.
In addition, another study revealed that neurons in a primitive part of the brain hold onto memories of fat and sugar that can drive our cravings, according to a study on mice in Nature Metabolism. Guillaume de Lartigue, from the Monell Chemical Senses Center and the University of Pennsylvania, said specific neural circuits in the brain light up, depending on whether the gut received sugar or fat. Removing these neurons protected the mice from diet-induced weight gain, something de Lartigue is hoping to translate to humans to dial down impulsive eating behaviour.
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National Observer
40 minutes ago
- National Observer
The smoke from Canada's wildfires may be even more toxic than usual
This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration More than 200 wildfires are blazing across central and western Canada, half of which are out of control because they're so hard for crews to access, forcing 27,000 people to evacuate. Even those nowhere near the wildfires are suffering as smoke swirls around Canada and wafts south, creating hazardous air quality all over the midwestern and eastern parts of the United States. The smoke is even reaching Europe. As the climate changes, the far north is drying and warming, which means wildfires are getting bigger and more intense. The area burned in Canada is now the second largest on record for this time of year, trailing behind the brutal wildfire season of 2023. That year, the amount of carbon blazed into the atmosphere was about three times the country's fossil fuel emissions. And the more carbon that's emitted from wildfires — in Canada and elsewhere — the faster the planetary warming, and the worse the fires. 'There's obviously the climate feedback concern,' said Mike Waddington, an environmental scientist at McMaster University in Ontario who studies Canada's forests. 'But increasingly we're also concerned about the smoke.' That's because there's much more to wildfire smoke than charred sticks and leaves, especially where these blazes are burning in Canada. The country's forests have long been mined, operations that loaded soils and waterways with toxic metals like lead and mercury, especially before clean-air standards kicked in 50 years ago. Now everyone downwind of these wildfires may have to contend with that legacy and those pollutants, in addition to all the other nasties inherent in wildfire smoke, which are known to exacerbate respiratory and cardiac problems. 'You have there the burning of these organic soils resulting in a lot of carbon and a lot of particulate matter,' said Waddington. 'Now you have this triple whammy, where you have the metals remobilized in addition to that.' What exactly is lurking in the smoke from Canadian wildfires will require further testing by scientists. But an area of particular concern is around the mining city of Flin Flon, in Manitoba, which is known to have elevated levels of toxic metals in the landscape, said Colin McCarter, an environmental scientist who studies pollutants at Ontario's Nipissing University. Flin Flon's 5,000 residents have been evacuated as a wildfire approaches, though so far no structures have been destroyed. The smoke from Canada's wildfires may be even more toxic than usual. #Wildfires #WildfireSmoke But a fire doesn't need to directly burn mining operations to mobilize toxicants. For example, in Yellowknife, in Canada's Northwest Territories, gold mining operations between 1934 and 2004 spread arsenic as far as 18 miles away, adding to a landscape with an already high concentration of naturally occurring arsenic. In a paper published last year, Waddington and McCarter estimated that between 1972 and 2023, wildfires around Yellowknife fired up to 840,000 pounds of arsenic into the atmosphere. Arsenic is a known carcinogen associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and developmental problems, according to the World Health Organization. (After the 2023 Lahaina fire in Maui, officials reported elevated levels of arsenic, lead, and other toxic substances in ash samples. California officials also found lots of lead in smoke from 2018's Camp Fire.) Within wildfire smoke is also PM 2.5, particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns (a millionth of a meter) that gets deep inside human lungs. This can exacerbate conditions like asthma and raise the risk of cardiac arrest up to 70 percent. One study found that in California alone, PM 2.5 emissions from wildfires caused more than 50,000 premature deaths between 2008 and 2018. Canadian ecosystems known as peatlands are especially good at holding onto toxicants like arsenic. These form in soggy places where wet plant matter resists decay, building up into layers of peat — basically concentrated carbon. Peat can accumulate over millennia, meaning it can also hold onto pollutants deposited there decades ago. 'The peat soils are landscape hot spots for metals,' said McCarter. 'When it's dry and hot — like we've been seeing with the weather over the prairie provinces and central and western Canada — the peatlands can really start to dry out. Then the fire is able to propagate and get hot enough to start releasing some of these metals.' A peat fire behaves much weirder than a traditional forest fire. Instead of just burning horizontally across the landscape, a peat fire smolders down into the ground. This is a slow burn that lasts not just hours or days, but potentially months — releasing toxic metals and particulate matter as smoke all the while. Peat fires are so persistent that they'll sometimes start in the summer, get covered over with snow in the winter, and pop up once again in the spring melt. Scientists call them zombie fires. As Canada's wildfire smoke creeps down into the US, it's also transforming. Chemical reactions between gases and sunlight create ozone, which further exacerbates lung conditions like asthma. 'Once you get six hours to a day or so downwind, the ozone formation inside smoke plumes can start being problematic,' said Rebecca Hornbrook, an atmospheric chemist at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, who studies wildfire smoke. People fleeing Canada's fires have to worry not just about losing their homes, but also losing their health. More than 40 percent of wildfire evacuations happen in communities that are predominantly Indigenous — an irony given that First Nations people know how to reduce the severity of these conflagrations, with traditional burning practices that more gently clear out the dead vegetation that acts as wildfire fuel. That strategy of prescribed burns, though, has only recently been making a comeback in Canada. 'Let's not forget that it's immediately affecting a lot of, in particular, First Nations communities in the northern parts of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan,' said Waddington. This haze is already bad for human health, and now there's the added potential for arsenic and other toxicants in the Canadian landscape to get caught up in wildfire smoke. 'It's a bad-news scenario,' Waddington said. 'It's quite scary.'
Ottawa Citizen
2 hours ago
- Ottawa Citizen
Dunrobin resident finds prior 'misconduct' by engineer on new battery project
An engineer who presented safety data about battery energy storage systems to the city's Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee last week had his registration with a professional body yanked in February after he 'admitted that he demonstrated professional misconduct.' Article content Stephen Ramsay, an engineer with a PhD from Cambridge University, spoke to the committee on June 5. He was one of 60-plus speakers with a five-minute time slot to address a controversial proposal to build a six-hectare battery energy storage system (BESS) facility on Marchurst Road near Dunrobin. Article content Article content Article content Brookfield Renewable Power Inc., through Evolugen, a Canadian company, was seeking a Municipal Support Resolution (MSR), an instrument introduced by the provincial government to gauge a municipality's interest in building new energy projects. Article content Article content BESSes are needed as Ontario grapples with increased demand for energy, say proponents of the $650 million project. But one of the most contentious issues around BESSes, which use lithium-ion batteries to store electricity during off-peak periods in order to release it during peak demand periods, is the possibility of fire. Article content Ramsay told the committee he was speaking on the scope of the work that was done by Calvin Consulting in support of the Evolugen application. Article content 'We were responsible for modelling the consequences of potential fires from the BESS facility and the consequences in terms of the emission of hazardous gasses, particularly focusing on hydrogen fluoride,' said Ramsay. Article content Article content BESS Systems have transitioned to ones that use the LFP chemistry, which is used in the current application, he said. (LFP batteries are also known as lithium iron phosphate batteries.) Article content Article content 'This is a process which has occurred over many years during which we have been actively involved in this aspect of BESS projects,' Ramsay told the committee. 'The motivation for this, of course, was to try to improve the safety by reducing the incidences of thermal runaway and the consequences resulting from fires.' Article content In response to questions from Orléans East-Cumberland Ward Coun. Matt Luloff asking him to simplify his comments, Ramsay responded: 'Basically what we're saying is that as we've changed from the old chemistry, which seemed to be essentially inherently dangerous, to the one which is LFP, which we are beginning to see is much, much safer.'
Cision Canada
a day ago
- Cision Canada
The Novartis Oncology Young Canadian Investigator Awards (NOYCIA) returns for its 22nd year at ASCO 2025 Français
For over two decades, NOYCIA has fueled emerging research in Canada, driving scientific knowledge in cancer MONTREAL, June 10, 2025 /CNW/ - Novartis Canada is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Novartis Oncology Young Canadian Investigator Awards (NOYCIA), an annual national competition dedicated to advancing oncology through the promotion of research by supporting Canadian oncology researchers. This year marks the 22nd year of the awards, which took place on Sunday, June 1st at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. NOYCIA celebrates the innovative work by selecting ten oncology researchers from Canada who have had their abstracts accepted at ASCO and demonstrate excellence in their area of study. "At Novartis, we are deeply committed to advancing scientific knowledge through innovation and collaboration," said Sophia Kajla, Chief Scientific Officer and Vice-President, Scientific Affairs, Novartis Canada. "The NOYCIA Awards remain at the forefront of supporting innovative cancer research in Canada, reflecting Novartis Canada's ongoing commitment to advancing science and improving patient outcomes. We are proud to continue celebrating and investing in early-career oncology leaders who are pushing the boundaries of discovery and clinical impact." Following deliberation by NOYCIA's Scientific Panel, this year's award recipients were selected for their pioneering research, spanning a range of disciplines, from immune checkpoint inhibitors and immunotherapy to healthcare systems and health human resource planning: The 2025 NOYCIA recipients are: Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors and Immunotherapy: Luciana Siqueira, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Abstract: The association between emotional distress prior to receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors and overall survival among patients with cancer: A population-based study Supervisors: Dr. Lawson Eng & Dr. Marcus Butler Edmond Rafie, Research Center of the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal Abstract: Dietary compounds and patterns associated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) outcomes in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) Supervisor: Dr. Arielle Elkrief Patrick Tuan Hoang, University of Toronto Abstract: Identification of immunotherapy early treatment failure in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) using a novel cell-free DNA (cfDNA) tissue-agnostic genome-wide methylome enrichment assay Supervisor: Dr. Adrian Sacher Gregoire Marret, University Health Network Abstract: Spatial transcriptomics analysis to predict response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) in recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell cancer (RM-HNSCC) Supervisor: Dr. Lilian Siu Rami Habib, McGill University Abstract: JAK inhibitor for the treatment of steroid refractory and life threatening immune-related adverse events secondary to immune checkpoint inhibitors Supervisor: Dr. Khashayar Esfahani Transcriptomics and Molecular Analysis: Xin Wang, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Abstract: Correlative and spatial transcriptomic analysis of olaparib and durvalumab in patients with recurrent/refractory IDH-mutant gliomas Supervisor: Dr. Eric Chen Ronan McLaughlin, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Abstract: NeoPancONE: GATA6 Expression as a Predictor of benefit to Peri-Operative Modified FOLFIRINOX in Resectable Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma (r-PDAC): A Multicentre Phase II study Supervisor: Dr. Jennifer Knox Patient Experience and Decision-Making: Rena Seeger, University of Ottawa Abstract: Exploring decisional needs of patients considering first line treatment of Advanced EGFR+ lung cancer: An interpretive descriptive study Supervisor: Dr. Paul Wheatley-Price Novel Therapeutic Approaches: Asli Munzur, University of British Columbia Abstract: Clonal hematopoiesis (CH) in participants with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) receiving 177Lu-PSMA-617 or cabazitaxel: an exploratory post-hoc analysis of a randomized phase II trial (TheraP ANZUP 1603) Supervisor: Dr. Alex Wyatt Healthcare Systems and Workforce Planning: Philip Ding, University of Alberta Abstract: Rethinking future workforce planning by developing novel metrics of complexity in cancer care Supervisor: Dr. Winson Cheung "For over two decades, NOYCIA has been outstanding in encouraging and promoting Canadian-based cancer research, moving scientific knowledge and understanding in oncology forward through the endorsement of research," said Dr. Paul Wheatley-Price, NOYCIA Chair and medical oncologist, The Ottawa Hospital. "The calibre of research occurring in Canada is truly world-class, and the NOYCIA Awards provides the platform to recognize the tremendous contributions of our emerging leaders. It's incredibly rewarding to be part of this initiative and a privilege to continue to serve as the Chair of the Scientific Panel." In addition to recognizing the achievement and potential of scientific investigation, Dr. David Addiss, 2025 NOYCIA guest speaker and Director, Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics (FACE), Task Force for Global Health, encouraged the award recipients and other attendees to cultivate compassion, which is fundamental to the unique relationship between patients and their healthcare providers. "As clinicians and oncology researchers, you are motivated and sustained by compassion—the desire to alleviate and prevent suffering—which arises from a sense of shared humanity," said Dr. Addiss. "And although science shows that compassionate health care provides significant benefits for patients, providers and health systems, we face growing challenges of resource scarcity, time pressures, and other systemic constraints, which may limit our ability to fully realize this ideal in practice. Despite these challenges, connecting with and nurturing our compassionate impulse on a daily basis allows us to accompany and support our patients in a way that enhances both patient satisfaction and professional fulfillment." Mentorship Matters Program NOYCIA 2025 includes the Mentorship Matters Program which offers mentorship opportunities to trainees who attend the NOYCIA awards dinner. The program provides trainees with the opportunity to network with leaders in Canadian cancer centres. Canadian oncologists co-host a table during the NOYCIA awards allowing trainees from across Canada to have the opportunity to hear from mentors about career paths, programs and opportunities that their centres provide and to ask questions. About the Novartis Oncology Young Investigators Award (NOYCIA) With a mission to support Canadian oncology researchers, NOYCIA provides funding, support, and recognition to 10 researchers that demonstrate excellence in their specialist field of study. Eligible applicants include Post-Doctoral Students, Residents, Fellows, Graduate Students, Medical Students, PhD Candidates and Undergraduates who are affiliated with a Canadian institution and are the first author of an abstract accepted for the annual ASCO meeting. For more information about NOYCIA, go to: About Novartis Novartis is a focused innovative medicines company. Every day, we work to reimagine medicine to improve and extend people's lives so that patients, healthcare professionals and societies are empowered in the face of serious disease. Our medicines reach more than 250 million people worldwide. In Canada, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. employs approximately 600 people to serve the evolving needs of patients and the healthcare system and invests over $30 million in R&D yearly in the country. For more information visit
