Science Café Archives | Faculty of Science

November 16, 2022

Science Café | The Anthropocene: Inside the Quest for the Human Epoch at Crawford Lake,...

Science Café | The Anthropocene: Inside the Quest for the Human Epoch at Crawford Lake, Ontario

October 19, 2022

Science Café Recording | Advancement of Techniques for Food Authentication The Last Barrier to Prevent...

Science Café Recording | Advancement of Techniques for Food Authentication The Last Barrier to Prevent Food Fraud with Yaxi Hu

October 5, 2022

Science Café Recording | Climate Change – Energy, Technology, and Humanity with Jason Armstrong

September 21, 2022

Science Café Recording | Geoheritage of the National Capital Region: What’s Here and Why Care...

Science Café Recording | Geoheritage of the National Capital Region: What’s Here and Why Care with Beth McLarty Halfkenny

March 23, 2022

Science Café Recording | From proton to picture to party tricks with Avery Berman

March 9, 2022

Science Café Recording | Sports Analytics: What makes a great basketball shot? with Olivier Chabot

February 10, 2022

Science Café Recording | How physicists and artists search for dark matter

December 6, 2021

Science Café Recording | Sugar and the Hungry Brain with Neuroscientist Melissa Chee

December 6, 2021

Science Café Recording | A New Generation of Blood Donors: Challenging inequities in donor screening...

Science Café Recording | A New Generation of Blood Donors: Challenging inequities in donor screening policies

December 6, 2021

Science Café Recording | Could Yellowstone Erupt With Catastrophic Global Consequences? (Possibly. Not Likely!)

April 30, 2021

Online Science Café – Probing the Infinitesimal to the Infinite with the ATLAS Experiment at...

Online Science Café – Probing the Infinitesimal to the Infinite with the ATLAS Experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

One of the goals of particle physics is to explain the structure of matter at the smallest distance scales. For decades, the properties of the basic building blocks of matter... More

March 23, 2021

Online Science Café – A Gut Feeling About Stress

In this online Science Café recorded March 10, 2021 Carleton Neuroscience Professor Alfonso Abizaid talks about stress and how, under some circumstances, stress can increase appetite and alter our metabolism... More

March 3, 2021

Online Science Café – Creating a “Landscape of Practice” to Advance Trauma and Violence-Informed Physical...

Online Science Café – Creating a “Landscape of Practice” to Advance Trauma and Violence-Informed Physical Activity

The health and wellness benefits of physical activity are recognized globally, with the World Health Organization recommending that adults 18 years and older should do at least 150-300 minutes of... More

February 24, 2021

Online Science Café – Join Hanane Hadj-Moussa to explore how natural gene silences could solve...

Online Science Café – Join Hanane Hadj-Moussa to explore how natural gene silences could solve human problems

Our body relies on the coordination of thousands of molecules to regulate virtually all biological functions, with microRNAs emerging as a ‘master controller’. MicroRNAs are short RNAs which do not... More

December 22, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Argel Aguilar-Valles Discuss the Workings of Novel Antidepressants

More than 1/3 of patients diagnosed with major depression do not respond to traditional antidepressant treatments, such as serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Recently, ketamine was approved for the treatment of those... More

December 8, 2020

Online Science Café – Join Sean Landsman for an Exploration of Migratory Fishes as Ecosystem...

Online Science Café – Join Sean Landsman for an Exploration of Migratory Fishes as Ecosystem Service Providers

When we think of migratory fish, most conjure up images of bright red sockeye salmon darting past grizzly bears in the Pacific Northwest. And while sockeye salmon, and indeed all... More

October 21, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Erling Rud explain approaches and challenges with developing a...

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Erling Rud explain approaches and challenges with developing a vaccine to prevent COVID-19

COVID-19 is a novel, highly pathogenic viral infection caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that originated in Wuhan City, China in late 2019. As of July... More

October 14, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Erin Vanzyl discuss her research on understanding how defects in...

Online Science Café – Watch Erin Vanzyl discuss her research on understanding how defects in pre-mRNA splicing affect cancer cells

Cancer is a class of related diseases that are associated with the uncontrolled growth of cells in different parts of the body. Changes in cells leading to cancer are caused... More

October 1, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Matthew Holden discuss how to improve patient outcomes in...

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Matthew Holden discuss how to improve patient outcomes in surgery using machine learning

When a patient undergoes surgery, the operating room contains many devices to help perform and monitor the operation. For example, medical imaging devices allow us to see the patient's anatomy,... More

September 20, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Vivian Nguyen discuss the afterlife of science

Science has always been portrayed as molecules, beakers, lab coats and math symbols. We often don’t think about how people actually interact with scientific information, and where the ‘science’ goes... More

August 7, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Kyle Biggar discuss the anti-cancer potential of a novel...

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Kyle Biggar discuss the anti-cancer potential of a novel KDM5C inhibitor

Cancer is caused by unregulated cellular growth, leading to catastrophic consequences for the tissues and organs in which these cells uncontrollably multiply. Research over the past 15+ years has revealed... More

July 15, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Alex Wong discuss ultraviolet decontamination of medical masks

Adequate personal protective equipment is critical for ensuring the safety of nurses, doctors, and other frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, personal protective equipment supply chains are stretched, with... More

June 18, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. David Miller explain how fungal toxins affect our food...

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. David Miller explain how fungal toxins affect our food supply

Although most people worry about man-made chemicals, far more serious are four important fungal toxins or mycotoxins. These compounds were discovered because they affected humans or domestic animals, not theoretical... More

May 28, 2020

Online Science Café – Watch Prof. Edana Cassol explain how our immune systems fight viruses

Immune systems are suddenly top-of-mind as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to change the way we live and work. The pandemic has also increased public awareness of newly emerging viruses. Our... More

July 26, 2019

Science is for Everyone: How Carleton’s Faculty of Science is bringing community together one Café...

Science is for Everyone: How Carleton’s Faculty of Science is bringing community together one Café at a time

By Lauren Hicks The Science Café In 2008, the Dean of Science kick-started the Science Café—an outreach initiative aimed at connecting Carleton University’s researchers to the greater Ottawa community through... More

March 13, 2019

Encrypt, Decode: The Role of Math in Information Security Throughout History

Daniel Panario, School of Mathematics and Statistics For centuries, mathematics has provided methods and ideas to hide information. These mathematical methods enable us today to communicate with some degree of... More

February 27, 2019

Chronic Pain: Uncovering a Path Towards Better Treatments

Michael Hildebrand, Department of Neuroscience The inability to effectively and safely treat chronic pain is one of the major public health challenges facing Canada today. One in five Canadians experiences... More

February 13, 2019

Deep Underground, Looking for Dark Matter

Simon Viel, Department of Physics Dark matter is one of the main mysteries in fundamental physics today. Everything we can see directly around us is made of ordinary matter, yet... More

January 30, 2019

From Molten Magma to Modern World: Exploring the Early History of Earth

Hanika Rizo, Department of Earth Sciences Rocky planets like the Earth formed in the first hundreds of millions of years of our solar system. The planet grew through the addition... More

January 16, 2019

2019: UNESCO International Year of the Periodic Table of the Elements. Fun and Insights on...

2019: UNESCO International Year of the Periodic Table of the Elements. Fun and Insights on the 150th Anniversary of Mendeleev’s First Table

Jeff Manthorpe, Department of Chemistry On March 6, 1869, at a meeting of the Russian Chemical Society, Dmitri Mendeleev publicly presented his periodic table for the first time. The intervening... More

November 28, 2018

Vaccine Research and Development: Challenges and Successes!

Erling Rud, Department of Health Sciences Since Edward Jenner’s discovery that giving a boy cowpox could protect people from the ravages of Smallpox, over 200 years ago, we as a... More

November 14, 2018

Children and Online Safety

Sonia Chiasson, School of Computer Science In this talk, I will present research that we have conducted over the last few years about children and online safety. We will first... More

October 10, 2018

Kill Cancer, Save the Rest! Advancing Cancer Radiation Therapy With Physics

Rowan Thomson, Department of Physics Cancer affects many Canadians with 1 in 2 people expected to develop the disease in their life. More than half of cancer patients undergo radiation... More

September 26, 2018

Lessons from Earth’s Geological History for Modern Climate Change

Richard Ernst, Department of Earth Sciences Earth’s history is characterized by dramatic climate changes, including global warming (Hothouse events), global cooling (Icehouse events, i.e. Snowball Earths or regional glaciations), anoxia... More

September 12, 2018

Can Humans Hibernate? Maybe….

Jeff Smith, Department of Chemistry Growing up in Canada, most people are familiar with the concept of hibernation. We see squirrels and groundhogs fatten up in the fall and disappear... More

March 22, 2017

The Flaws of nature

Andrew Simons, Department of Biology The living world seems to provide an endless array of examples of exquisitely designed features: adaptations that allow survival under harsh conditions, that provide impeccable... More

March 8, 2017

Using Human stem cells for treating and understanding diabetes

Jenny Bruin, Department of Biology Diabetes is a chronic disease with devastating complications and an enormous global impact. There are currently 3.5 million people in Canada and more than 415... More

February 22, 2017

Ethical birding for the everyday naturalist

Shawna Masson | Department of Biology Bird watching comes with a code of ethics enthusiasts abide by. These practices help us protect the pastime we love so dearly. With bird... More

February 8, 2017

The fascinating stories rocks can tell: from nanoscale processes in Earth’s most complex material to...

The fascinating stories rocks can tell: from nanoscale processes in Earth’s most complex material to the collision of continents

Fred Gaidies, Department of Earth Sciences Some of the most elemental properties of our planet’s crust include its behaviour during plastic deformation, the way it transmits seismic waves, or the... More

January 25, 2017

Uninvited guests in our homes: all things visible and invisible

David Miller, Department of Physics In less than one generation, the percentage of time spent indoors has greatly increased. There are Canadian data spanning 40 years. In Canada, between 1975... More

January 11, 2017

Staying safe online: exploring cyber threats and protection strategies

Sonia Chiasson, School of Computer Science Why do users behave insecurely even though most will readily state that security and privacy are important? We will cover some of our recent... More

November 9, 2016

Sexual selection and mate choice: how and why animals are choosy when seeking mates

Jean-Guy Godin|, Department of Biology In nature, most animals do not mate randomly with members of the opposite sex, but rather are choosy when seeking mates. Because females generally pay... More

October 26, 2016

Mathematics of gambling and some common gambling fallacies

Jason Gao, School of Mathematics and Statistics Gambling, according to the dictionary, refers to an activity which risks something of value in order to obtain a reward. Typical examples are... More

October 12, 2016

Can computers generate creative designs for everyday objects?

Oliver van Kaick, School of Computer Science Computer tools for modeling 3D shapes have become quite advanced. These tools are used for the development of computer games, special effects in... More

September 28, 2016

X Rays: from Röntgen to digital radiography and beyond

Paul Johns, Department of Physics X rays are the key technology of hospital imaging departments, and are also used in dentistry, industry, and for security scanning. X-ray technology was the... More

April 6, 2016

From Destruction Comes Creation: Using Taphonomy to Understand Dinosaur Behaviour

Jordan Mallon, Department of Earth Sciences Taphonomy is the study of those processes that act on an organism after it dies and before it becomes fossilized. Taphonomic processes are often... More

March 23, 2016

Grow Your Own App

Dwight Deugo, School of Computer Science You can brew your own beer, bottle your own wine, and even fix your own home – there is probably an app to help... More

March 9, 2016

Battling cancer using computers and statistics

Nelson Miksys, Department of Physics In 1901, Pierre Curie first suggested to treat cancer by surgically implanting radioactive material into a tumour. Over 100 years later this technique, called brachytherapy,... More

February 10, 2016

How to save more threatened species

Joe Bennett, Institute of Environmental Sciences Despite the efforts of global and national conservation agencies, the number of species threatened with extinction continues to grow. New techniques to objectively prioritize... More

January 27, 2016

Folic Acid and the Brain

Nafisa Javadji, Department of Neuroscience Folic acid is a vitamin that we mostly get from our diet. Although the importance of folic acid in the pre-natal period for the developing... More