Technology

Your Blood Predicts Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 23 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

My first laboratory job was right after earning my Master鈥檚 degree, and it was on a research project on Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. I had to test DNA samples from participants for a particular form of the gene APOE. We get one copy of the gene from our mother and another from our father, and this gene like all others comes in different flavours. People who had a very specific form of the APOE gene, I learned, were predisposed to Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.

Confronting Nefarious Nitrosamines

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 09 May 2025 20:44:53 +0000

鈥淏oil the nipples!鈥� was the advice given in 1984 by the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. to parents who were bottle feeding their infants or calming them with pacifiers. The presence of nitrosamines, compounds that had been found to cause cancer in animals, had been recently detected in rubber products and the concern was that they could be transferred to babies.

RECCO Reflectors Echo Safety Signals

Cat Wang, B.Sc. — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:56:48 +0000

A goal of mine in 2025 was to tackle a new outdoor sport: backcountry skiing. With the promise of untracked snow and uncrowded runs, venturing off-piste was enticing. But with that also came the need to ensure safety 鈥� I geared up with an avalanche kit, most of which was intuitive: Shovel? Check. GPS? Check. But one thing that kept coming up was the RECCO tag on all sorts of gear. As I read the logo time and time again, I wondered 鈥� what was this technology?

Harm from Noise-Cancelling Headphones? More Questions than Answers

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 18:50:51 +0000

Are noise-cancelling headphones making it harder for teenagers and young adults to understand speech in a noisy environment?

The Dangers of Mirror Life

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 18:40:42 +0000

One of the better-known episodes of the original Star Trek series is called 鈥淢irror, Mirror鈥� and it dramatizes a freak transporter accident which sends Kirk, Uhura, Bones, and Scotty to an alternate universe. Their mirror universe colleagues on the Enterprise are greedy, violent, and bent on conquest. And Mirror Universe Spock sports a goatee, so we know he鈥檚 evil.

Dental X-Rays May Be Overused But They Are Safe

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 18:22:15 +0000

X-rays of our teeth are routinely prescribed by dentists, but you know what else follows a certain periodicity? Media coverage of the alleged danger and overuse of these dental radiographs.

Is There a Magic Bullet for Alzheimer's Disease?

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 19:14:12 +0000

This article was first published in聽The Montreal Gazette.

In 1888, bacteriologists Emile Roux and Alexandre Yersin demonstrated that diphtheria occurs when bacteria release a toxin that damages tissues.

The Beginnings of Chemical Synthesis

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:52:42 +0000

Chemistry can be roughly divided into two branches, analysis and synthesis. Chemists either try to identify existing substances or make new ones. By the early 19th century, a number of substances had been isolated from plants, with morphine from the poppy, quinine from cinchona bark, and coumarin from tonka beans being examples. However, given that these substances were derived from living species, they were believed to be endowed with a 鈥渓ife force鈥� that could not be duplicated in the lab, and that such 鈥渙rganic鈥� substances could not be synthesized.

Oh, That Bathtub Ring!

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 19:49:35 +0000

In 1933 Calgon Incorporated of Pittsburgh introduced its flagship product, appropriately named 鈥淐algon.鈥� The name was derived from the phrase 鈥渃alcium gone,鈥� which was an accurate description of what the product was designed to do, namely soften water. Hard water has a high content of dissolved minerals, mostly salts of calcium and magnesium. Various problems ensue when the concentration of these is greater than about 120 mg per liter. Unlike the sodium salts of fatty acids that are the basis of soaps, their calcium and magnesium salts are insoluble, resulting in the classic bath tub ring.

Tiny MicroRNAs Win Big Nobel Prize

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 04:50:40 +0000

It may surprise you but when microRNAs were discovered, the scientific community shrugged. 鈥淪o what?鈥� it seemed to say. Here we are, in 2024, and this discovery has resulted in two of its leading figures, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

How can something be so important to win the top award in science yet appear to be so trivial as to earn a collective 鈥渕eh?鈥�

The reason is that we are an egocentric species. We don鈥檛 much care about worms.

Genetic Engineering Has Been Applied to Cheese Making: No Reason to Be Cheesed Off.

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 16:33:42 +0000

Cheese producers were cheesed off.聽 People were just not eating enough veal.聽 Slaughterhouses were running short of calf stomachs and the cheese industry was feeling the pinch.聽 There was not enough rennet to meet the demands of turophiles (that's "cheese lovers" from the Greek 鈥渢uro鈥� for cheese) around the world.

Can You Trust Dr. Wikipedia?

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 14:15:01 +0000

Do you know who invented the electric toaster? If you answered Alan MacMasters, a young Scotsman with high cheekbones and quite a head of hair, you鈥檝e been lied to by Wikipedia.

Say Cheese!

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 16:48:57 +0000

Cheese producers were cheesed off. People were just not eating enough veal. Slaughterhouses were running short of calf stomachs and the cheese industry was feeling the pinch. There was not enough rennet to meet the demands of turophiles (that's "cheese lovers" from the Greek 鈥渢uro鈥� for cheese) around the world.

Media Has an Expiration Date

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 31 May 2024 16:00:00 +0000

The tragedy occurred as I was rewatching the final season of聽Six Feet Under, arguably the best television series ever made.

Each episode begins with a death, sometimes comical, sometimes deeply affecting. In this case, the entire episode died. The image started to freeze, displaying rectangular blocks of colour. The audio soon followed. The episode lived up to its name, 鈥淭he Silence.鈥�

Reports of the Death of Dental Cavities Are Greatly Exaggerated

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 17 May 2024 16:00:00 +0000

If I asked you to name the most common chronic disease in children, what would you say?