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Ice cores tell the history of Canada’s climate, but now the government doesn’t want them anymore. (more…)
Category: news
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Panel would change Canada’s research landscape
Posted on the Nature News blog on 14 October 2011. In an effort to address Canada’s problem with innovation, an independent panel has recommended a radical overhaul that includes the creation of a new funding council and transforms the country’s largest research entity, the billion dollar National Research Council (NRC).
Study after study has shown that Canada’s businesses invest less on R&D, relative to the country’s gross domestic product, than those of many other OECDcountries and, unlike others, has actually decreased its spending over the last decade. Many of these business investments include government support in the form tax credits, training programs, or grants.
In an effort to make the best use of the government’s investments the six-member expert panel developed six broad recommendations include appointing a Minister of Innovation and creating the Industrial Research and Innovation Council (IRIC).
According to the panel’s report, to be released on 17 October, the proposed IRIC would be an arm’s-length funding agency to help entrepreneurs bring ideas to the marketplace. Under the plan, the council would focus on business-driven support by expanding some existing programs, such as the Industrial Research Assistance Program, which offers advice and funding to support high-risk R&D, while cutting the tax credits available for business R&D. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the granting agency that funds a large portion of Canadian scientists, but which also hosts a number of business-related support programs, would instead focus its innovation investments on projects housed within universities.
The panel’s recommendations also include breaking up the NRC by sending those of its member institutes that are engaged in more basic research to universities where their funding would be managed by NSERC and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The institutes undertaking more applied, industry-oriented research would be rolled into a non-profit research organization, overseen by the IRIC. These proposed changes parallel previous reports that the NRC would focus on industry-driven research.
When the report is released on Monday, the response is likely to be mixed. Some will favour the streamlining of multiple programs and greater direct support to R&D. Others will likely be concerned about the fate of the researchers, facilities and research at the various NRC instittutes.
Indira Samarasekera, president of the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, says folding NRC’s basic research institutes into universities could boost output, but that it will be challenging to implement, especially if the laboratory isn’t located on campus. “It can be difficult to get independent researchers to rally around a specific scientific problem that may be industry driven,” says Samarasekera, whose university houses the NRC’s National Institute of Nanotechnology. “But this is the best of both cultures.”
Gary Goodyear, the Minister of State for Science and Technology, would not comment on the specifics of the report, as it has not been officially released. In a statement he said the panel’s advice will help “modernize programs that support innovation” with the goal of encouraging more companies to invest in R&D.
According to the mandate, the panel’s recommendations could not increase or reduce federal funding to R&D initiatives. “Where we have identified opportunities for savings, we expect the government to reallocate the savings to provide funds for our other recommendations,” the panel wrote.
Canada’s innovation gap has been scrutinized before (here and here), but this time the report lays out a clear set of recommendations.
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Canada’s ice cores seek new home
Confusion over fate of valuable climate record chills researchers.
An unusual ‘help wanted’ advertisement arrived in the inboxes of Canadian scientists last week. The e-mail asked the research community to provide new homes for an impressive archive of ice cores representing 40 years of research by government scientists in the Canadian Arctic.
The note was sent out by Christian Zdanowicz, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in Ottawa. He claimed that the collection faced destruction owing to budget cuts at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), the government department that runs the survey, and a “radical downsizing” of the Ice Core Research Laboratory. The e-mail pressed scientists at universities and other institutions to take in the ice cores before they were left to melt.
But David Scott, director of the GSC’s northern Canada division, denies this and says that there have been no budget cuts at GSC. He says that GSC management did not approve the letter, and it contains a number of factual errors. “There is no shutdown of the ice-core facility being contemplated. We’re not actively dispersing the collection,” he says. “Nothing that meets the criterion of having scientific value would be destroyed.”
>> Continue reading at Nature.com
This story was posted on ScientificAmerican.com, and mentioned on Mother Jones‘ Blue Marble blog
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Mixed Reviews for Quebec’s Plan Nord
The government of Quebec (Canada) has launched its multibillion-dollar Plan Nord, which will open the vast northern reaches of the province to mining and energy development–and protect 50% of the territory from economic development.The 1.2-million-square-kilometre region—twice the size of France—is known for its wild rivers, biodiversity, diverse ecosystems and a large swath (about 20%) of Canada’s boreal forest. Boreal forest covers more than 25% of Quebec. More than 120,000 people, including 33,000 aboriginals also live in the region.
Quebec Premier Jean Charest said yesterday the government will invest CDN$80 billion into mining, forestry, transportation, energy development and tourism over the next 25 years.
The environmental aspects of the plan include the promise to set aside 600,000 square kilometres of the region to protect the environment and preserve biodiversity. By 2016, the government will have established several provincial parks, completed a survey of northern Quebec’s biodiversity, protected over 31,000 square kilometres of land, and adopted mitigation or restoration plans for each development project.
By protecting half of the forest, the Quebec government will keep more than 13.8 billion tons of CO2 sequestered—equivalent to about 70 years of industrial carbon dioxide emissions in Canada (Canadian Boreal Initiative, 2009 release).
The Plan Nord is getting mixed reviews from environmental groups. The Canadian Boreal Initiative, affiliated with the Pew Environment Group’s International Boreal Conservation Campaign applauded the sustainable development measures included within the plan (release). But others, including Greenpeace and Nature Quebec, said they could not endorse the plan as presented. The coalition of groups told the Globe and Mail the plan was “an attempt to regulate a mining boom rather than the expression of an authentic vision for the north.” They called for, among other things, an evaluation of the global environmental impacts of northern development.
From the Nature News blog.
Image: MRNF, Gouvernement du Quebec
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The numbers don’t lie
The day before Barry Shiffman was to fly from Toronto to Russia to begin serving on the Violin Jury of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, the 44-year-old learned he had prostate cancer.
“I was floored by the diagnosis. I sat for in the lobby of Sunnybrook for two-and-a-half hours thinking, ‘What is happening?’” recalls Barry, who is the associate dean of the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and father of two. “But once you get over the insanity, the realization, that you have cancer, then you think, ‘I am so lucky. It could have easily been missed’,” he says.
When Barry moved with his family to Toronto from Banff, Alberta in 2010, he thought he had his health under control. He had been previously diagnosed with a benign enlarged prostate, the harmless growth of the prostate often associated with aging. As a precaution, Barry had his PSA levels checked routinely, to rule out the possibility of prostate cancer.
The adult prostate gland makes a protein called prostate specific antigen (PSA). A healthy prostate releases small amounts of the protein into the blood, but prostate cancer will often increase its production. Men with PSA levels greater than 4 nanograms per millilitre of blood may be offered a needle biopsy to check the prostate for cancer.
In December, Barry’s PSA test came back higher than normal. His physician consulted with Sunnybrook’s Dr. Robert Nam, a urologic oncologist at the Odette Cancer Centre, and researcher behind a new online tool that provides a better assessment of prostate cancer risk. It helps patients avoid unnecessary prostate biopsies, but it can also detect prostate cancer at an earlier, more curable stage, and identify high-risk patients.
Dr. Nam developed the risk calculator when he realized that the PSA blood tests doctors use to screen for prostate cancer were no longer reliable. “When it was introduced 20 years ago it was a fabulous test. It caught all the cancers out there. But it couldn’t detect the low volume prostate cancers—the new cases that were just starting out and didn’t have enough cancer cells to crank up that PSA. But then we realized that we knew a lot about the established risk factors for prostate cancer,” Dr. Nam says.
Unlike the standard approach, the new calculator (also called a nomogram) considers age, ethnicity, family history of prostate cancer and urinary symptoms when calculating a man’s prostate cancer risk. Dr. Nam and his colleagues developed and checked the risk calculator with over 3,100 Canadian men, including 408 men with normal PSA levels. It worked better than conventional screening methods. Nearly a quarter of the men with a normal PSA were diagnosed with prostate cancer.
“The calculator empowers the patient. They still control what they want to do, but it gives them more information to make their decision,” says Dr. Nam. “That’s the bottom line.”
“I haven’t cancelled my plans for the summer,” says Barry. “My treatment plan doesn’t include chemo or radiation, but I will have surgery in April. Hopefully I’ll be back to life as I know it soon.”
Published in the Globe and Mail as a special informational supplement on Sunnybrook