Quirks & Quarks for April 3, 1999

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Looking Back at El Nino

Some of the big stories of 1998 were weather stories. Nautural disasters like Hurricane Mitch, the eastern ice storm and the flooding of the Yangtze River All were blamed in part on El Nino ... a warming current in the Pacific Ocean that last year was the biggest in this century. Scientists who study the phenomenon are always ready to discuss the science and explore the lessons they've learned from it. Ants Leetmaa, Director of the Climate Prediction Centre at the U.S. National Weather Service joins a panel with Cynthia Rosenzweig, a research scientist for NASA at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. And Paul Epstein, Associate Director of the Centre for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, also adds his voice to the debate over El Nino's weather legacy.
For more on El Nino and weird weather check out CBC News Online's Indepth: Weather gone wild (www.cbcnews.cbc.ca/news/indepth/weather/)

Spotlight on Canadian light research

The Canadian Light Synchrotron is one of the newest research projects to be approved in this country. The government announced final funding for the $174 million project this week. But it's been a long time coming. Many scientists worked to bring the Synchrotron project to fruition. The synchrotron produces high intensity light that allows scientists to peer into the insides of molecules. Once it's built the Synchrotron will live at the University of Saskatchewan’s Accelerator Laboratory in Saskatoon. But scientists from around the country are interested in the plan. Dr. Michael Bancroft, a chemist and President of the Canadian Institute for Synchrotron Radiation (www.uwo.ca/cisr) in London Ontario explains the Synchrotron's applications and importance to Canadian science.

A cliff hanger

The edge of a cliff may be an unusual place to go hunting for trees but that's where Doug Larson has found hundreds of stunted, scraggly trees, some over 1000 years old. As part of the Cliff Ecology research group at the University of Guelph, he's climbed around the limestone cliff of the Niagara Escarpment and discovered lots about how the trees manage to survive under these harsh conditions. He's recently taken that knowledge and explored cliff ecosystems in the U.S. and Europe. Larson reports on his discovery in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.
For more on the ecology at the Niagra Escarpment check out the Cliff Ecology research group, of which Dr. Larson is the director.

Medical Column: Schizophrenic flu

Our medical columnist, Dr Miriam Schuchman, on faculty at the State University of New York in Buffalo shares some recent developments in discovering the cause of schizophrenia. Though it’s a common disease, affecting one per cent of the population worldwide, no one knows what causes it. Recently there has been a lot of talk about genetic factors, but increasingly the role environmental influences is being raised. A recent publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, has made environment an even more credible factor, even linking the disease to infections like the flu. The researchers found that both a family history of schizophrenia and nongenetic factors, such as birth during the winter and birth in an urban area, increased the relative risk of schizophrenia. Their results suggest that infections during pregnancy or childhood and other factors related to urban birth may play a part in causing schizophrenia.

NEJM: Understanding the Causes of Schizophrenia Feb. 25, 1999
Effects of Family History and Place and Season of Birth on the Risk of Schizophrenia Feb. 25, 1999 Vol. 340, No. 8

That's an idea!: Canadian Inventors

Steve Bogner from the Suffield Defence Research Establishment in Suffield, Alberta shares the invention of a 360 degree camera. It has eyes everywhere. He also tells us what it's like to be in love with your inventions. If you've got a love for inventing check out last week's inventor Inge Russell and learn more about the 360 degree camera from the DRES website (www.dres.dnd.ca/Products/RD96006/index.html) Next week meet inventor Dave Zakutin.

Question of the Week: Trapping Flies

Dr. Roger Horton, a plant physiologist in the Department of Botany at the University of Guelph answers a listener's question about how a Venus fly trap closes its leaves when it traps a bug.

Real Audio sound files: Listen in realtime, or download.
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