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InnnovationCanada.ca was launched with a commitment to telling stories that showcase the exciting transformation taking place across Canada's research landscape. Stories about talented people dreaming and working tirelessly to push the frontiers of knowledge and innovation. Stories about the researchers and their teams who have raised the bar on what our country can accomplish, as it strives to create a better future for every Canadian.
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| InnovationCanada.ca » Showcasing Research Excellence in Canada Updated : Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:39:24 -0400 Keeping phones focused The transparent silicon wafer is smaller than a pencil’s eraser tip and as thin as a sheet of paper. But the LensVector autofocus camera lens — the world’s tiniest — has big prospects. And it may soon turn the cellular-phone industry on its ear. Developed by Tigran Galstian, a physics and engineering professor who works out of the Centre for Optics, Photonics and Laser Technology at Université Laval, the lens is designed for miniature cameras used in cellphones, smartphones, laptop computers and other mobile devices. Unlike conventional mechanical autofocus units, which move back and forth to bring objects into focus, the LensVector lens has no moving parts, does not require a motor and, at 4.5 millimetres square and less than 0.5 millimetre thick, is a fraction of the size. It is also cheaper to produce, consumes less power, makes no noise (which is ideal for video cameras) and is less likely to break. “The architecture of the lens itself is innovative,”... Publ.Date : Wed, 07 Jul 2010 05:00:00 -0400 Send in the bacteria The video clip is the stuff of science fiction: a swarm of 5,000 bacteria lift microscopic epoxy bricks and assemble them one by one to form a pyramid, as if they were building a tower of blocks. A computer directs their movement by controlling magnetic fields.But for Sylvain Martel and his team of researchers at École Polytechnique de Montréal, the first scientists to “train” living bacteria to build a structure, this feat is no futuristic science experiment. It holds real promise as a miraculous tool in the fight against cancer. “Our primary goal is to use bacteria to carry drugs directly to tumours,” says Martel, director and founder of the NanoRobotics Laboratory and a professor in the department of computer and software engineering and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. “It’s hard for people to believe that we can control bacteria using a computer. We had to demonstrate that we could control them and make them move blocks in... Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:00:00 -0400 Seeing red Ram Krishna of Toronto has had type 2 diabetes for almost 25 years, but he only started taking insulin a couple of years ago to help better control it. Since the insulin regimen began, he has had to test his blood glucose level more regularly — about three to five times a week. To do so, he does what most of the two million to three million Canadians with diabetes do — he uses a blood glucose meter. Jabbing his finger with a spring-loaded lancet, he transfers a drop of blood to a very small test strip and inserts it into the meter, which delivers a glucose-level reading within seconds. Although the testing isn’t difficult, it is inconvenient, particularly for people with diabetes who have to test often — some up to 10 times a day — and can be expensive, with each test strip costing about $1. “I don’t have private insurance, so I’m careful,” says Krishna, “and I compromise on how often I test.” Test strips may eventually... Publ.Date : Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:00:00 -0400 Making (brain) waves (Courtesy of Carleton University) Imagine your brain as a bustling city. The grey matter in your head could be compared to a dense network of mixed-use buildings, with snaking utility lines and connecting sidewalks throughout. Steam delivers heat through pipes out of the main utility centre, lights blink on and off, and information zooms around at a blazing speed. Cranks turn to keep everything motoring along. That's a plausible visual for what's happening as we process information, cues and signals. Those cues can be ever so slight: the intonation at the end of a sentence (in English, lilting up for a question, for example) fires up a signal in one part of the brain, but another part lights up when we hear a sentence spoken in a bored monotone, like, maybe, in the classroom of a tired lecturer. While subtleties of speech have different effects on the brain, age is a factor, as well. Brain function in a child is markedly different from that in a fully grown person. In test material given... Publ.Date : Wed, 14 Jul 2010 05:00:00 -0400 Fertilizer from the sea When the first European settlers arrived to scratch out a living on the thin soils across Atlantic Canada, they quickly made use of the seaweed on the beaches around them as a plentiful source of crop fertilizer. This age-old European practice continues in the region to this day, and now a Nova Scotia-based scientist wants to find out why. Balakrishnan Prithiviraj, an associate professor of marine bioproducts at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro, is studying the molecular properties of common seaweed to find out how they interact with terrestrial plants. In particular, he wants to isolate the chemical compounds in seaweed that promote healthy growth in land crops. Prithiviraj is studying how seaweed affects Arabidopsis thaliana — a small flowering plant in the cabbage and mustard family and the first plant ever to have its entire genome sequenced. In his greenhouse laboratory, he adds seaweed bio-products to the plants to see how they affect plant growth. In particular,... Publ.Date : Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:00:00 -0400 Increase Online Traffic |