Science + Tech – Views & Research

Real science from real scientists

An orange tent and orange campfire flames at dusk with the sun setting on the horizon

What are the risks of contracting West Nile virus from a mosquito in Canada?

Mehra Balsara, Carleton University; Antoinette Ludwig, Université de Montréal; Catherine Cullingham, Carleton University, and Marc Avramov, Carleton University

Man in glasses stares at his phone with two brightly coloured computer screens beside him

Focus apps are failing neurodivergent minds, new research finds

Joanna McGrenere, University of British Columbia and Kevin Chow, New York University

After you upload your data to the cloud, where does it go? The challenge of dual-use technologies

Bryn Williams-Jones, Université de Montréal

Two young women with long hair sit in a cafe smiling at something on their phone.

Holocaust education has a growing Gen AI problem

Regan Lipes, MacEwan University

A close-up of a finger pointing at an old photograph of a couple and their child.

A chimpanzee peers at the camera with green leaves in the background

Why do male chimpanzees throw rocks at the same trees for more than a decade? We travelled to remote Guinea-Bissau to find out

Robyn Nakano, University of Victoria and Ammie Kalan, University of Victoria

A man in a red t-shirt wears a harness and holds medical equipment.

How mobile deep-space medical systems could support future landings on the moon and Mars

Dr. Farhan M. Asrar, Toronto Metropolitan University

As corporations race for the stars, we need international collaboration on space governance

Peter Brown, Western University

Did NASA’s Curiosity rover find signs of ancient life on Mars? An astrobiologist explains how we determine ‘life’

Allyson Brady, Carleton University

NASA's Curiosity rover robot on the brown, rocky surface of Mars

a man wearing a blue jacket kneels down on the ground inspecting a human skull

New DNA analysis identifies more members of the ill-fated Franklin expedition

Douglas Stenton, University of Waterloo

A doctor in mask and scrubs looks ta a large screen with an image of a brain on it.

Why brain health is an urgent priority for G7 member countries

Guy Rouleau, McGill University

When words look like their meaning, we process them faster, new research reveals

David Sidhu, Carleton University

Close up of a cricket against a background of leaves.

Cricket nuggets? Caterpillar cookies? Canadians would consider eating insects if they can’t see them

Rassim Khelifa, Concordia University

Is your AI chatbot manipulating you? Subtly reshaping your opinions?

Richard Lachman, Toronto Metropolitan University

From AI companions to climate action, we undervalue what lies ahead

Rahul Ravi, Concordia University

A man builds a companion on the Character.AI website.

How teaching the history of science can help equip students to face polarized times

Cristiano Barbosa de Moura, Simon Fraser University

people at a protest carry a banner with the words: enough is enough

a person in a white lab coat using a syringe to take a liquid from a vial

To lead in global innovation, Canada must prioritize basic science

Shay M. Freger, McMaster University and Mathew Leonardi, McMaster University; Adelaide University

A woman sits at a computer examining medical tests results.

Canada’s fragmented electronic health records harm patients and cost taxpayers billions: New research

Braden Manns, University of Calgary; Stephanie Hastings, University of Calgary, and Sunand Kannappan, University of Calgary

We found a way to turn Canada goose poop into chicken feed and crop fertilizer

Rassim Khelifa, Concordia University and Carlos Antonio Lopez Manzano, Concordia University

Why your pet reptile ‘surfs’ the glass or rubs against the barriers of their enclosure

Melanie Denomme, Brock University

A lizard touches a glass barrier with one hand and looking out through the barrier.

New test promises to detect cancer earlier — from tiny particles in bodily fluids

Sara Hassanpour Tamrin, University of Calgary and Arindom Sen, University of Calgary

A female and a male researcher in white lab coats examine images on a computer screen.

College students are noticing their AI-smoothed writing sounds strong — and not like them

Nurul Hassan Mohammad, University of Toronto

A person at a computer looking stonyfaced and chagrined.

A great tit with a black head and yellow belly, against a pink-orange backdrop.

Paris has successfully cut noise pollution, but urban birds still can’t sing at their natural pitch

Dan Mennill, University of Windsor

A non-human primate looks at and cuddles its infant.

The way primates parent their young shows how strict labels miss the mark

Libby Ware, Université de Montréal

Your browsing history could soon set your grocery bill — and Canada isn’t ready for it

Jake Okechukwu Effoduh, Toronto Metropolitan University

A shopper reaches for groceries in a grocery store

How should schools teach AI? 3 models to consider

Hugo G. Lapierre, Université de Montréal; Normand Roy, Université de Montréal, and Patrick Charland, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

A screen showing an icon that says school AI brainstormer.

AI ‘deadbots’ can fuel pathological grief and affect how we deal with death

Emmanuelle Marceau, Université de Montréal

Image showing a face-to-face encounter between a woman and a robot

Slanguage: Why AI’s stylistic negation — ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ — is both annoying and doesn’t work

Joshua Gonzales, University of Guelph

A simulation of a robot sitting at a desk and typing on a keyboard while they look at a computer screen.

A star cluster is shown inside a large nebula of many-coloured gas and dust.

Are aliens real? Scientists have been hunting for extraterrestrial life since the time of Aristotle

Robert William Smith, University of Alberta

A large dinosaur emerges form the ocean.

Netflix’s The Dinosaurs rehashes a very old story of empire and conquest

Frederick Oliver Beeby Maglaque, University of British Columbia and Kirsten F. Hodge, University of British Columbia

The Earth

A Queen bumblebee is seen on a plant with pink flowers.

Queen bumblebees can breathe underwater — for days. We discovered how

Sabrina Rondeau, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa; Charles-Antoine Darveau, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa, and Nigel Raine, University of Guelph

The raccoon raiding your garbage bin might just be solving a puzzle — for the fun of it

Hannah Griebling, University of British Columbia and Sarah Benson-Amram, University of British Columbia

Can ‘mini brains’ replace lab animals?

Habib Rezanejad, MacEwan University

Two mice in glass cages in a laboratory with scientists in the background.

Wild macaques don’t abandon babies. So why did Punch’s mother?

Sarah E. Turner, Concordia University; Brogan M. Stewart, Concordia University; Megan M. Joyce, Concordia University, and Mikaela Gerwing, Concordia University

A Japanese macaque mother sits with her infant in the forest

Tracking wildlife using DNA: A scientific breakthrough made with an Indigenous community

Valérie S. Langlois, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) and Annie Claude Bélisle, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)

A white-tailed deer spotted in Chelsea, Quebec

How plants keep a genetic memory of the past

Daniel J Schoen, McGill University

A plant with yellow flowers and green leaves

What bite marks tell us about T. rex’s eating habits

Taia Wyenberg-Henzler, University of Alberta

A dinosaur biting the head of another dinosaur

Scientists have identified unique sounds for 8 fish species

Darienne Lancaster, University of Victoria

How ocean hydrothermal systems made the first life on Earth possible

Long Li, University of Alberta

black smoke emitted from a rock formation underwater

Lessons from the sea: Nature shows us how to get ‘forever chemicals’ out of batteries

Alicia M. Battaglia, University of Toronto

A white octopus with a reddish hue in the water

Gene-edited meat in Canada: To label or not to label?

Gwendolyn Blue, University of Calgary

Pigs lying together in a pen looking curiously at the camera.

Budget cuts threaten Arctic science

Roxana Suehring, Toronto Metropolitan University and Patricia Hania, Toronto Metropolitan University

Strong opinions matter: Why some birds refuse to follow the flock

Lauren Guillette, University of Alberta and Julia Self, University of Alberta

A maple leaft flag flying over a roof with tower peaks.

Canada cannot afford to lose international research talent — here’s what needs to change

Evren Altinkas, University of Guelph and Christina Clark-Kazak, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Space

A Starlink train passing through bright green and pink auroras over rural Saskatchewan

A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky

Samantha Lawler, University of Regina; Aaron Boley, University of British Columbia, and Hanno Rein, University of Toronto

A muted blue Earth with bright white clouds sets behind the cratered surface of the moon.

How the Artemis II crew trained to observe and photograph the moon: A NASA science team geologist explains

Gordon Osinski, Western University

I watched Artemis II lift off — as the first humans ventured to the Moon since 1972

Gordon Osinski, Western University

The Earth seen from a distance in space. Only a crescent of it is visisble; the rest is in shadow

NASA announces a big shake-up of the Artemis Moon program

Gordon Osinski, Western University

A dark illustration of Artemis astronauts on the moon.

white abstract figures repeated in a pattern on a black background

Space-time doesn’t exist — but it’s a useful concept for understanding our reality

Daryl Janzen, University of Saskatchewan

silhouette of a human figure against a background of swirling lights

What, exactly, is space-time?

Daryl Janzen, University of Saskatchewan

A total eclipse of the Moon, Saturn’s rings ‘disappear’, meteors and more: your guide to the southern sky in 2025

Nick Lomb, University of Southern Queensland

Information collected by the world’s largest radio telescope will be stored and processed by global data centres

Simon Blouin, University of Victoria; Falk Herwig, University of Victoria; JJ Kavelaars, National Research Council Canada; University of Victoria, and Sébastien Fabbro, University of Victoria

rows of white hexagonal satellite dishes

10 years ago, gravitational waves changed astronomy. A new discovery shows there’s more to come

Simon Stevenson, Swinburne University of Technology

Drawings of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking in a collage with a black hole artwork.

Move over Mercury – Chiron is in retrograde. What even is Chiron?

Laura Nicole Driessen, University of Sydney

Image showing a comet-like object with a tail against a background of stars.

A raw steak with potatoes and fresh vine tomatoes.

Truth, or misinformation? A statistician explains the challenge of assessing evidence

Mu Zhu, University of Waterloo

An ancient parchment leaf with calligraphy and colourful illustrations sits under a microscope.

As a ‘book scientist’ I work with microscopes, imaging technologies and AI to preserve ancient texts

Christina Dinh Nguyen, University of Toronto

A series of yellow emojis on a smartphone screen.

How emoji use at work can determine how competent your colleagues think you are

Erin Leigh Courtice, Toronto Metropolitan University

Why teens are so vulnerable to Big Tech social media platforms

Salima Kerai, University of Toronto

Is someone watching you? Facial recognition tech is here and Canada offers little privacy protection

Neil McArthur, University of Manitoba

A man wears a pair of black Ray-Ban smart glasses produced by Meta.

Smart glasses with facial recognition could be devastating to sex workers

Brynn Colledge, University of Waterloo

Two men examine smart glasses at a trade show in China.

Canada’s TikTok compromise fails on ownership and national security

Philip Mai, Toronto Metropolitan University and Anatoliy Gruzd, Toronto Metropolitan University

A smartphone with the TikTok icon against a background of the Chinese flag.

Digital media is using negativity to steal our attention — here’s how to reclaim it

Megan Shipman, Royal Roads University and Zachary Pierce-Messick, Johns Hopkins University

A woman sitting in bed resting her forehead against her hand as she scrolls on her phone

Does the exodus to UpScrolled signify the end of TikTok?

Jaigris Hodson, Royal Roads University

Social media can be understood as a role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons

Stephen M Yeager, Concordia University

A woman in costume as a gnome warlock crouches next to a stage prop.

Why Iran keeps turning off the internet during mass protests

Niloofar Hooman, McMaster University

A person balances on a rock as the sun sets behind them.

Novel ‘body-swap’ robot provides insights into how the brain keeps us upright

Jean-Sébastien Blouin, University of British Columbia and Patrick A. Forbes, Erasmus University Medical Center

A man dubiously shakes the hand of a humanoid robot

Humanoid home robots are on the market – but do we really want them?

Eduardo B. Sandoval, UNSW Sydney

What happens to your brain in nature? The neuroscience

Mar Estarellas, McGill University

No, your brain doesn’t suddenly ‘fully develop’ at 25. Here’s what the neuroscience actually shows

Taylor Snowden, Université de Montréal

The tryptophan switch? Why exercise boosts your mood

Meghan McCue, McMaster University

How nanomedicine gets inside your cells and treats you from the inside out

Suiyang Liao, University of British Columbia

a red capsule split open to reveal a strand of DNA separating into two single strands, against a background of blue capsules

How number systems shape our thinking and what it means for learning, language and culture

Jean-Charles Pelland, University of Bergen

Two children sit side-by-side, counting on their fingers

Bugonia: Why some people’s brains cling to the idea that aliens are real

Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol

rows of monochromatic gray clocks showing different times

Physicists and philosophers have long struggled to understand the nature of time: Here’s why

Daryl Janzen, University of Saskatchewan

A woman going through her laptop while alone on her bed.

How principles of self-compassion help fight loneliness in the age of AI

Li-elle Rapaport, University of Manitoba

A boy holds a smartphone so it obscures his face.

Just how bad are generative AI chatbots for our mental health?

Alexandre Hudon, Université de Montréal

From Anthropic to Iran: Who sets the limits on AI’s use in war and surveillance?

Emmanuelle Vaast, McGill University

MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter prepares to take off from the USS Abraham Lincoln

Artificial intelligence and biology: A novel era for health and medicine?

James Colter, University of Calgary

computer wiring in the form of a human hand reaching out against a dark background

Does ‘federated unlearning’ improve AI data privacy, or create cybersecurity risk?

Abbas Yazdinejad, University of Regina and Ann Fitz-Gerald, Balsillie School of International Affairs

A view of large buildings housing an AI data centre.

Will AI drones and wearable sensors revolutionize the workplace?

Atieh Razavi Yekta, University of British Columbia and Christopher McLeod, University of British Columbia

A worker stands with their back to the viewer wearing a hard hat on an assembly line.

Could you tell if your favourite song was made with AI?

Cate Cleo Alexander, University of Toronto and Lauren Knight, University of Toronto

A musician being photographed at an awards ceremony

What the Tumbler Ridge tragedy reveals about Canada’s AI governance vacuum

Jean-Christophe Bélisle-Pipon, Simon Fraser University

Flowers in an orange pylon in the foreground with a low brick building in the background

Reports of ‘AI psychosis’ are emerging — here’s what a psychiatric clinician has to say

Alexandre Hudon, Université de Montréal

Why people are turning to AI first for relationship advice

Maha Khawaja, McMaster University

A woman sitting on the floor using her laptop.

A close-up image of a yellow charging cord plugged into a blue electric car.

Will your electric car burst into flames? A solid-state battery would reduce the risk

Taiana Lucia Emmanuel Pereira, McMaster University

What a gaping hole on a bridge reveals about aging infrastructure in Canada

Amirreza Torabizadeh, Concordia University and Emre Erkmen, Concordia University

Canada could use thermal infrastructure to turn wasted heat emissions into energy

James (Jim) S. Cotton, McMaster University and Caleb Duffield, McMaster University

Investigators are increasingly using technology in conflict-related sexual assault cases

Valerie Oosterveld, Western University

a woman sits with her back to the camera in a tent

Dense, compact urban growth is favoured by mid-sized Canadian cities

Rylan Graham, University of Northern British Columbia and Jeffrey Biggar, Dalhousie University

a lake in the foreground with a city in the bakcground

Montréal’s bike infrastructure hardly takes up any space from cars on city roads

Daniel Romm, McGill University

cyclists on a designated lane next to cars

Science + Tech – Views & Research – The Conversation

Top stories

Real science from real scientists

What are the risks of contracting West Nile virus from a mosquito in Canada?

Focus apps are failing neurodivergent minds, new research finds

After you upload your data to the cloud, where does it go? The challenge of dual-use technologies

Holocaust education has a growing Gen AI problem

Why do male chimpanzees throw rocks at the same trees for more than a decade? We travelled to remote Guinea-Bissau to find out

How mobile deep-space medical systems could support future landings on the moon and Mars

As corporations race for the stars, we need international collaboration on space governance

Did NASA’s Curiosity rover find signs of ancient life on Mars? An astrobiologist explains how we determine ‘life’

New DNA analysis identifies more members of the ill-fated Franklin expedition

Why brain health is an urgent priority for G7 member countries

When words look like their meaning, we process them faster, new research reveals

Cricket nuggets? Caterpillar cookies? Canadians would consider eating insects if they can’t see them

Is your AI chatbot manipulating you? Subtly reshaping your opinions?

From AI companions to climate action, we undervalue what lies ahead

How teaching the history of science can help equip students to face polarized times

To lead in global innovation, Canada must prioritize basic science

Canada’s fragmented electronic health records harm patients and cost taxpayers billions: New research

We found a way to turn Canada goose poop into chicken feed and crop fertilizer

Why your pet reptile ‘surfs’ the glass or rubs against the barriers of their enclosure

New test promises to detect cancer earlier — from tiny particles in bodily fluids

College students are noticing their AI-smoothed writing sounds strong — and not like them

Paris has successfully cut noise pollution, but urban birds still can’t sing at their natural pitch

The way primates parent their young shows how strict labels miss the mark

Your browsing history could soon set your grocery bill — and Canada isn’t ready for it

How should schools teach AI? 3 models to consider

AI ‘deadbots’ can fuel pathological grief and affect how we deal with death

Slanguage: Why AI’s stylistic negation — ‘it’s not X, it’s Y’ — is both annoying and doesn’t work

Are aliens real? Scientists have been hunting for extraterrestrial life since the time of Aristotle

Netflix’s The Dinosaurs rehashes a very old story of empire and conquest

The Earth

Queen bumblebees can breathe underwater — for days. We discovered how

The raccoon raiding your garbage bin might just be solving a puzzle — for the fun of it

Can ‘mini brains’ replace lab animals?

Wild macaques don’t abandon babies. So why did Punch’s mother?

Tracking wildlife using DNA: A scientific breakthrough made with an Indigenous community

How plants keep a genetic memory of the past

What bite marks tell us about T. rex’s eating habits

Scientists have identified unique sounds for 8 fish species

How ocean hydrothermal systems made the first life on Earth possible

Lessons from the sea: Nature shows us how to get ‘forever chemicals’ out of batteries

Gene-edited meat in Canada: To label or not to label?

Budget cuts threaten Arctic science

Strong opinions matter: Why some birds refuse to follow the flock

Canada cannot afford to lose international research talent — here’s what needs to change

Space

A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky

How the Artemis II crew trained to observe and photograph the moon: A NASA science team geologist explains

I watched Artemis II lift off — as the first humans ventured to the Moon since 1972

NASA announces a big shake-up of the Artemis Moon program

Space-time doesn’t exist — but it’s a useful concept for understanding our reality

What, exactly, is space-time?

A total eclipse of the Moon, Saturn’s rings ‘disappear’, meteors and more: your guide to the southern sky in 2025

Information collected by the world’s largest radio telescope will be stored and processed by global data centres

10 years ago, gravitational waves changed astronomy. A new discovery shows there’s more to come

Move over Mercury – Chiron is in retrograde. What even is Chiron?

Digital life

Truth, or misinformation? A statistician explains the challenge of assessing evidence

As a ‘book scientist’ I work with microscopes, imaging technologies and AI to preserve ancient texts

How emoji use at work can determine how competent your colleagues think you are

Why teens are so vulnerable to Big Tech social media platforms

Is someone watching you? Facial recognition tech is here and Canada offers little privacy protection

Smart glasses with facial recognition could be devastating to sex workers

Canada’s TikTok compromise fails on ownership and national security

Digital media is using negativity to steal our attention — here’s how to reclaim it

Does the exodus to UpScrolled signify the end of TikTok?

Social media can be understood as a role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons

Why Iran keeps turning off the internet during mass protests

Novel ‘body-swap’ robot provides insights into how the brain keeps us upright

Humanoid home robots are on the market – but do we really want them?

Mind & body

What happens to your brain in nature? The neuroscience

No, your brain doesn’t suddenly ‘fully develop’ at 25. Here’s what the neuroscience actually shows

The tryptophan switch? Why exercise boosts your mood

How nanomedicine gets inside your cells and treats you from the inside out

How number systems shape our thinking and what it means for learning, language and culture

Bugonia: Why some people’s brains cling to the idea that aliens are real

Physicists and philosophers have long struggled to understand the nature of time: Here’s why