By providing researchers with unprecedented vision into the past, present and future, new imaging technologies are helping us see into our cells, our communities, our environment and even into our solar system.
On Thursday (May 7) hundreds of local high school students and members of the community will visit The University of Western Ontario for the eighth-annual Scientific Journey, to hear how researchers are using imaging technologies to advance knowledge and solve issues facing today’s world.
The Scientific Journey is free and no pre-registration is required. Parking at Western will also be free for this event, which will be held from 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in Room 145, Natural Sciences Centre.
Four Western professors will deliver 20-minute layperson lectures about the impact such technologies have had on their research programs, and on society at large.
Presented by Western and Partners in Research, the Scientific Journey is a free opportunity for the community to learn about innovative research projects underway in the city. An outstanding London secondary school teacher will also be recognized with the Dr. Bessie Borwein Award for encouraging the value of scientific discovery in young minds.
Presentations include:
• Who has Seen the Wind? Wind is all around us: it rustles leaves in the morning, blows smoke in our eyes around the campfire, chills us on a cold winter day and refreshes us in the heat of summer.
It is also one of the most powerful forces in nature: tornadoes can lift whole houses into the air and throw cars hundreds of metres like a punted football. Hurricanes have leveled entire cities.
Engineering professor Greg Kopp explores the wind’s nature, how humanity has thought of it through the centuries and what engineers are doing to help us deal with it.
• Gallactic Train Wrecks: Starbirth in Cosmic Collisions. When the force of gravity brings two galaxies together, the resulting interaction wreaks havoc on the pair. Their spiral symmetry becomes twisted and long trails of gas and stars are pulled far from their cores.
At the same time, collisions and compressions of giant clouds of gas trigger bursts of star formation.
Physics and Astronomy professor Sarah Gallagher uses images from space telescopes to reveal the new generation of stars born within the destruction of these cosmic collisions.
• Visualizing How Your Body Moves. Optical motion capture has been used by the motion picture and gaming industries to measure how the body moves in three dimensions, allowing computer-generated imagery to leap forward in its ability to astound audiences.
Mechanical and Materials Engineering and Kinesiology professor Thomas Jenkyn uses motion capture to study people with orthopaedic and sports injuries. His use of x-rays for motion capture allows for the direct, three-dimensional measurement of the motion of bones as a person performs tasks like walking, running and jumping. This allows Jenkyn to, quite literally, look inside the moving body.
• How Cancer Cells Invade and Spread in the Body. At the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Moshmi Bhattacharya’s research focuses on determining how breast cancer cells spread in the body.
Called metastasis, this process is the leading cause of death in cancer patients. Bhattacharya is studying various proteins that can regulate the cell cytoskeleton, which she has shown is elevated in breast tumours.
She is studying how cancer cells use these proteins to migrate and invade in the body by using advanced microscopy to image living cancer cells. These studies will provide a better understanding of the events of the metastatic process.