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Canadian software helps Syrian activists avoid web censors

Posted by Hannah

Late last year, Syrian activists found their Internet connections blocked. In need of a way to communicate, they turned to a Canadian technology company to deliver the networking system. “The request was channelled through a number of different sources. They wanted a way of getting around Internet censorship,” says Rafal Rohozinski, CEO of the Psiphon Inc. In December, the company distributed Psiphon 3 to the activists. From his Ottawa headquarters, Rohozinski watched the number of online connections in Syria grow — to 30,000. The software enabled them to tunnel past Internet filters and barriers to websites, social media and other … Read more…

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Regime Change: Q&A with John Smol

Posted by Hannah

Nature A freshwater ecologist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Smol studies lake sediments to understand climatic and environmental change. Nature Outlook asks him to share his experience. What can we learn from lake sediments? One of the biggest challenges in environmental science is the lack of long-term data, so we have to use indirect proxies. All over the planet, lakes act as passive samplers of the environment, recording information 24 hours a day. They contain biological, chemical and physical information. The deeper you go in the sediment, the older it gets. Typically, in North America you can go back … Read more…

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Radioactive medicine without the nuclear headache

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The Globe and Mail A made-in-Canada solution to our medical-isotope problem could come from a machine with a name that could have been pulled straight from the pages of a science fiction novel: the cyclotron. “It was really pooh-poohed, this idea of using cyclotrons; they said there was no way we could produce enough in a commercially meaningful way,” says John Wilson, the cyclotron facilities manager at the University of Alberta’s Cross Cancer Institute. In mid-2010, scientists at the University of Sherbrooke and the University of Alberta made technetium-99m, the most commonly used medical isotope, without a nuclear reactor. Last … Read more…

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Acidic oceans threaten fish

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Stocks could suffer as seas soak up more carbon dioxide.  Ocean acidification looks likely to damage crucial fish stocks. Two studies published today in Nature Climate Change reveal that high carbon dioxide concentrations can cause death and organ damage in very young fish. The work challenges the belief that fish, unlike organisms with shells or exoskeletons made of calcium carbonate, will be safe as marine CO2 levels rise. Fish could be most susceptible to carbon dioxide when in the egg, or just hatched. Oceans act like carbon sponges, drawing CO2 from the atmosphere into the water. As the CO2 mixes … Read more…

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International group calls for end to selective reporting of clinical trials

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Free access to all data will provide the best care for patients, says Cochrane Collaboration. People don’t like to reveal their failures. But when it comes to clinical trials, researchers should be compelled to make even their negative results public, according to a statement issued by an international group that reviews medical research studies. The release of all information and data from randomized clinical trials would allow physicians to provide the best possible care for patients, says the Cochrane Collaboration. In 2004, the pharmaceutical company Merck withdrew its blockbuster arthritis drug rofecoxib (Vioxx) from pharmacies around the world because of an increased risk … Read more…