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Up, up and away: The coolness of vanishing helium

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Helium. The supercool supercoolant—the gas that keeps party balloons aloft, carries entire houses all the way to Paradise Falls and turns humans briefly into chipmunks—is vanishing. Leaking out of colourful balloons, helium molecules rise up through the atmosphere and disappear into space. Although it’s one of the most abundant elements in the visible universe, it’s rare on Earth, and a non-renewable resource. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Should we worry? Poof! and no more birthday balloons bobbing overhead. Would that be such a bad thing? Well, the ocean life currently struggling with mylar and latex trash might celebrate, but the rest of us could miss this amazing element—it’s much more valuable than just as a filler for gaudy party tchotchkes.

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Image of a hand collecting green and blue bubbles.

Predatory publishing: Open access on the prowl?

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Image of a hand collecting green and blue bubbles.

If you follow science communications in general out there on the Web, you’ll have noticed last month’s Open Access (OA) Week, when the academic and research publishing world celebrates making knowledge available for all. Maybe you’ve wondered what OA is all about, and what makes it different from traditional research publishing. You may also have caught a whiff of the predatory publishing controversy that seems to dog the OA world.

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Around town: Where’s the Patient’s Voice …?

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By English: Clinic Painter (eponymous vase)Français : Peintre de la Clinique (vase éponyme) (User:Bibi Saint-Pol, own work, 2007-07-21) [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsMost of the conferences covered in the Around Town series are annual or occasionally biennial events, hosting professionals for continuing education to update their skills, knowledge base and networking in the subject of their passion. The Patient’s Voice conference, held November 12–14, 2015 in Vancouver, was different: this was an evaluation of progress made since the first meeting ten years ago.

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Celebrating Frances Oldham Kelsey for Ada Lovelace Day

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Ada Byron aged 17

Every year, Ada Lovelace Day rolls around, reminding the world that yes, we do need to reach out in support of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). To defend this assertion, this year I’m only putting forward two pieces of evidence: #timhunt and #shirtgate, both of which happened in the year since the last Ada Lovelace Day.

And with that justification, here’s my contribution, countering the seemingly ingrained misogyny within the world of STEM with my celebration of female contributions to science.

In 1960, Canadian pharmacist and physician Frances Oldham Kelsey was hired by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Washington, D.C., to review drug applications for licensing in the United States. Since Kelsey had experience in placental drug transfer, teratogens and pharmaceutical safety, it is perhaps fitting that one of the first drug approvals to land on her desk was Richardson-Merrell’s application for thalidomide.

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Diagram of generic protein structure.

Around town: Human Proteome Organization World Congress 2015

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For a former protein scientist, the arrival of the HUPO World Congress in Vancouver is a Big Deal. First, one of my ongoing Talk Science to Me projects is a subcontract writing primary research reviews for a proteomics blog. Second, I am a proteins #fangirl.

Whenever I think about proteins, Tigger’s song floats around my head, for proteins are indeed wonderful things (not to mention flouncy, bouncy, trouncy, pouncy, fun fun fun fun fun…but that could just be me)[1] to study, as I remember from way back when I sat behind a bench.

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A stack of colorful binders and folders.

Editing academia: Working with students

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A stack of colorful binders and folders.

I loved academic writing when I was a student, and now I get really excited when I get to work with students as an editor. In the past few months, Talk Science has done formatting, copy-editing and writing coaching for graduate students in sociology, political science and education.

The Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC) has guidelines for working on theses and dissertations that clearly outline everything you should consider. We follow these strictly at Talk Science, and I’ve gone through and picked out a few points to expand on with my own experiences.

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Around town: The 8th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2015)

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Vancouver AIDS Memorial, Sunset BeachNext week, Vancouver welcomes the 8th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention to the Vancouver Convention Centre. According to the conference website, this biennial forum is expected to receive about 6,000 delegates from a wide range of HIV/AIDS disciplines around the world.

Organized by the International AIDS Society (IAS), the conference is also a partnership with the University of British Columbia (UBC) Division of AIDS, which works out of St. Paul’s, Providence Health Care’s downtown hospital.

In addition to learning through seminars and keynote presentations (find the full program here), delegates will have the opportunity to experience first-hand part of the continuum of care that Vancouver offers people with addiction and mental illness, as well as HIV. Conference attendees can sign up for an engagement tour of Insite, North America’s first legal supervised drug injection site, to learn about the city’s outreach to marginalized members of our community.Read More »Around town: The 8th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2015)