Pickton Murders With Forensic Athropologist Tracy Rogers
Here we present the extended edition of Kris Abel’s interview with Dr. Tracy Rogers, Director of the forensic program at UofT’s Mississauga campus and the lead forensic anthropologist during the Robert Pickton serial murders in British Columbia. Dr. Rogers discusses that case, along with advances in 3D scanning technology, the high percentage of women in... Read More
Storm Chaser George Kourounis on Good Books & Severe Weather
In this extended edition of our eBook series, Kris Abel meets Storm Chaser George Kourounis just before he left for Hurricane Matthew to discuss his expanded work with volcanoes, how he protects his gadgets, and the books that inspire him in his work. For more info: stormchaser.ca www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/WildWeather George’s eBook Recommendations: The Martian by Andy... Read More
The Highway of Tears VR with Director Lisa Jackson
Here we present the full discussion between Kris Abel and filmmaker Lisa Jackson about her Virtual Reality documentary exploring the Highway of Tears murder cases in British Columbia, commissioned by the CBC’s The Current. You can try the experience at this year’s ImagineNATIVE film and media festival. For more info: www.imaginenative.org/ www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/ge…ce-george-1.3792165 lisajackson.ca/
Scanning Precious eBooks With John Shoesmith, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
In this extended edition of our eBook series, Kris Abel meets with John Shoesmith, outreach librarian at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library to understand the considerations made in scanning what is likely their oldest book, the Four Gospels In Greek (Codex Torontonensis), into a digital format for conservation. For more info visit: fisher.library.utoronto.ca/ archive.org/details/thomasfishercanadiana
Brainwave Expressions At Nuit Blanche With Artist Lisa Park
Here we present the extended version of Kris Abel’s interview with artist Lisa Park who uses biosensors to create her art. At this year’s Nuit Blanche in Toronto she presented Eunonia II, a piece where spectators can wear an EEG headset to send their brainwaves to an array of speakers and water bowls to give... Read More
Rachel Pohl, IMAX Adventurer, On Inspiring Reads
In this extended edition of our eBook series, Kris Abel meets painter and climber Rachel Pohl to talk about trying new things and finding inspiration to overcome tough climbs through her favourite eBooks. You can see Rachel in the IMAX adventure film America Wild: americawildfilm.com/ which is now playing at the Ontario Science Centre: www.ontariosciencecentre.ca... Read More
1st Female Video Game Programmer, Rima Break of Ubisoft Toronto
Here we present the extended version of Kris Abel’s interview with Rima Break, Studio Production Director of Ubisoft Toronto, who discusses her start in the video game industry at the first female programmer at Ubisoft Montreal (making her also the first in Canada). For more info: toronto.ubisoft.com/ montreal.ubisoft.com/en/
Flames! Flowers! Leslie Cramer of the Blazin’ Lily Gals
Here we present the extended version of Kris Abel’s interview with Leslie Cramer of The Blazin’ Lily Girls, a Calgary-based artistic collective who wowed the crowds at this year’s Beakerhead art & science festival with large, LED-decorated, flame-shooting metal flowers. For more info: www.facebook.com/blazinlilygals/ beakerhead.com/
OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Space Mission Special
In this look at a bold space mission to send a probe to bring back a piece of a primitive asteroid, Kris Abel speaks with Dr. Tim Haltigin of the Canadian Space Agency, Dr. Kim Tait, curator of mineralogy at the Royal Ontario Museum, and Dr. Rebecca Ghent, associate professor of Earth sciences at the... Read More
Interactive Fire Art With Trish Lamana
Here we present the full version of Kris Abel’s interview with Trish Lamanna of Site 3 Fire Arts about their RiskeeBall interactive flame experience at the Hamilton SuperCrawl festival. For more information visit: www.site3.ca/
Understanding Blue Whales Through Their Bones With Jacqui Miller
Here we present the full version of Kris Abel’s interview with Jacqueline Miller, mammalogist with the Royal Ontario Museum, on the process of preserving two blue whale skeletons and performing valuable scientific research. For more info visit: www.rom.on.ca/en/collections-res…rojects/blue-whale
Converting Animation Into VR with NFB Director Jelena Popovic
Here we present the full version of Kris Abel’s interview with Jelena Popovic, VR producer on Minotaur for The National Film Board of Canada. She shares the process of taking Munro Ferguson’s animated film Minotaur and Kid Koala’s soundtrack and converting them into a new virtual reality experience. See the trailer for Minotaur VR; vimeo.com/154227600... Read More
Edible insect Chef Caryn Goldin Of Entomo Farms
Here’s my interview with Chef Caryn Goldin, culinary manager at Entomo Farms, the largest edible insect farm in North America. From crickets and mealworms, in whole or powder form, she dishes on what is driving their growing adoption in our local food industry. For more information visit: entomofarms.com/
Jessica Ching On Her EveKit HPV Home Test
Here’s my interview with industrial designer and Eve Medical co-founder Jessica Ching who discusses her EveKit home test kit and HerSwab specimen collection device for HPV and sexually transmitted infections. For more information visit: evekit.com/ Here’s the full episode of What She Said
The Secret Lives Of Pokemon With Biologist Aaron Phillips
Evolutionary biologist and teacher at the Royal Ontario Museum Aaron Phillips has agreed to pretend that the creatures of Pokemon Go are real and, because we know so little about them, new to science. Here he studies the physiology of a selection of Pokemon to offer insights, much like his profession does animals of the... Read More
Tech Fashion Designer Wendy Ng’s Empowering Jackets
Here’s my interview with civil engineer and fashion designer Wendy Ng about her Dystropolis collaborations for conceptual tech clothing and her Hack-Your-T-Shirt workshop from this year’s Maker Festival. dystropolis.com/ www.facebook.com/Dystropolis.by.wendy.ng Watch her Soft Power runway display from MakeFashion.ca here: youtu.be/-ei3zOS8cIA Here’s the full episode of What She Said
Emma Mogus, Weston Youth Innovation Winner, On Tongue Tech
Here’s my interview with Emma Mogus, 17 year-old inventor from Oakville, Ontario and winner of the 2016 Weston Youth Innovation Award for her T.I.C. (Tongue Interface Communication) device. For more info visit: www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/innovationaward/ bookswithnobounds.com/ Here’s the full episode of What She Said
The Portrayal Of Scientists Within Ghostbusters With Alex Leitch & Rachel Ward-Maxwell
Here’s our Ghostbusters round table with astrophysicist Rachel Ward-Maxwell of the Ontario Science Centre and creative technologist Alex Leitch, co-founder of Site 3 coLaboratory. www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/ www.site3.ca/ Here’s the full episode of What She Said
Erin “RobotGrrl” Kennedy On Beach-Cleaning Robots
Here’s the extended version of my What She Said interview with Erin Kennedy who is leading an initiative to inspire makers and technologists to design robots that can assist in clean-up of public beaches and shorelines from the constant build-up of ecology-harming litter. For more visit: www.robotmissions.org/ shorelinecleanup.ca/ Here’s the full episode of What She Said... Read More
Scanning Sculptures With Art Gallery of Ontario’s Lisa Ellis
Lisa Ellis, conservator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, joins us to share her international investigation into the Boxwood micro-sculptures. Crafted 500 years ago, little is known about who made the astonishingly detailed wooden items that often bear a religious theme, and Lisa is working with NASA, the MET, the Rijksmuseum, and other institutions to... Read More
Science Fair Winner Rachel Brouwer On Water Filtration
Winner of both the Canada-Wide and World-Wide Science Fairs, Rachel Brouwer joins us from Nova Scotia to share her water filtration and purification system as action is being taken to test her design in Uganda and Kenya. cwsf.youthscience.ca/ We also celebrate David Saint-Jacques, the next Canadian astronaut selected for a mission to the International Space... Read More
Planetary Scientist Dr. Marianne Mader On Meteorites & Meteor-wrongs
What’s it like performing with Chris Hadfield? What’s the difference between a Meteorite and a Meteor-wrong? Dr. Marianne Mader, Managing Director for the Centres for Earth & Space and Fossils & Evolution at the Royal Ontario Museum joins us to discuss all things space. We also explore the tech dresses from the Met Gala, a... Read More
NASA Space Apps Hackathon Winners A Kid On The Moon
From NASA’s international Space Apps Challenge, we’re joined by Huanning Wang and Tanya Oleksuik, two of the Toronto Hackathon winners responsible for the creative kids app A Kid On The Moon. They represent a team that was among 15,000 people competing across 193 hackathons in 72 countries. Check out their App prototype at: 2016.spaceappschallenge.org/challenges/…on-the-moon And... Read More
Hairstyle Archaeology, Ellen Rilpley, & Bull Whips
We explore the internal pushback Intel has received from their $300 million diversity initiative, the incredible Hairstyle Archaeology research of Janet Stephens, the Bull Whip skills of Neuropsychologist Jessica Cail, and give a nod to Ellen Ripley as fans celebrate #AlienDay426. Watch Janet Stephens’ tutorials here: www.youtube.com/user/jntvstp And catch The Secret Lives Of Scientists including... Read More
Forensic Science Pathologist Dr. Chitra Rao
In 1984 Dr. Chitra Rao became Canada’s first full-time female pathologist. She was also the first in her profession to visit the bodies at the crime scene before they arrived at her morgue. She joins us to share her career as director of pathology at Hamilton General Hospital. Over 31 years she performed 7,700 autopsies,... Read More
Video game creators Emma Westecott & Samantha Stahlke, Astronaut Jeremy Hansen
Spirit, a video game of possession and platform puzzles, won Best Technical Achivement at this year’s Level Up! student showcase. We’re joined by Lead Programmer Samantha Stahlke to discuss her UOIT team’s win. youtu.be/RkhU61v_E6E The organizer of Level Up!, Dr. Emma Westecotte is an assistant Professor of game design at OCAD in partnership with UofT... Read More
Tattoo Collector & Expert Louise Schiffmacher
A world renown tattoo collector and expert, Louise and her husband Henk are the proprietors of the Amsterdam Tattoo Museum and the famous Schifmmaker & Veldhoen Tattooing Studio. They are leading experts on the history of tattoos and their cultural use around the world and have given tattoos to Kurt Cobain, The Red Hot Chilli... Read More
Jurassic Park Science With Palaeontologist Victoria Arbour
Canadian palaeontologist Victoria Arbour is helping us update the science of Jurassic Park as we explore two amazing discoveries that ignite our imagination. Does the recent discovery of a pregnant T-Rex with intact DNA mean we can clone dinosaurs? Will a chicken, recently grown in a lab with dinosaur legs pave the way to a... Read More
SciBabe Yvette d’Entremont On GMOs, Gluten, & Critical Thinking
Using her background and training as a chemist, Yvette d’Entremont uses her blog to navigate the online world of self-proclaimed nutritionists and mommy bloggers with a mixture of laughter and common sense to filter out the reliable from the woefully misleading, all under the name SciBabe and an engaging sense of fun. We ask her... Read More
Twitter Engineer Helen Zeng & Girls Crack The Code
Twitter software engineer Helen Zeng talks to us about the joy of coding and the importance of tech camps for kids like Toronto’s own Girls Crack The Code. After getting the chance to meet Helen and check out Twitter Canada’s headquarters, three of the Girls Crack The Code teens join us to share their insights... Read More
Maker Workshops For Kids With Steam Labs’ Lindy Wilkins
Community technologist and instructor Lindy Wilkins is our special guest to help us discuss the cool March Break workshops and summer camps you can find at Maker Spaces across Canada. Her own group at Toronto’s steamlabs.ca/ is running a week-long series of workshops for kids covering robotics, 3D Print, and Minecraft. They run special programs... Read More
The Remarkable Women Who’ve Won Sci-Tech Oscars
To complement the issue of diversity that has dominated the conversation around this year’s Oscars, we look at the Academy’s Scientific-Technical Awards to profile the embarrassingly short list of women who have won during the ceremony’s 18 year history and how attitudes and awareness of the issues is starting to change. This week also sees... Read More
Neutron Stars With Astrophysicist Victoria Kaspi
Having just won the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, Canada’s highest science honour and won that includes a $1 million prize, Professor Victoria Kaspi joins us to share her study of neutron stars, pulsars, and the mystery of Fast Radio Bursts. She is the Professor of physics at McGill University, the... Read More
Tech Fashion Designer Kathryn Blair On MakeFashion.ca
She creates clothes that shape-shift, illuminate, and change to match your mood, temperature, and popularity on social media. Tech fashion designer Kathryn Blair joins us from Calgary to discuss her runway designs with MakeFashion.ca, the influential Calgary-based show that has set the stage for wearables in New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Las Vegas, Rome, and... Read More
Bats & Woolly Mammoths With Cylita Guy
We love bats and so does our guest this week. Cylita Guy is a PhD researcher at University of Toronto studying zoonotic diseases and their wildlife reservoirs and she talks to us about her focus on bats. She also works for the Ontario Science Centre which has just launched a new exhibit, Mammoths & Mastodons:... Read More
Anonymous Researcher Gabriella Coleman & Super Bowl Tech
Are there women in Anonymous? And what actions would get you kicked out of the international hacker group? Our special guest Gabriella Coleman has spent years using her background in cultural anthropology to study Anonymous and find out the answers to such questions. She holds the Wolfe Research Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy and... Read More
Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan & Lilly Wyden of Instagram
The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Canada’s new Minister of Science joins us this week to discuss science institutions, social media, and the need to inspire more women to take an interest in science. kirstyduncan.liberal.ca/ www.instagram.com/sciencemin/ Lilly Wyden of Instagram talks to us about their #Empty events which recently took over the Ontario Science Centre and her... Read More
Cisco Offers Free Tech Courses For Women Entrepreneurs
Willa Black and Donna Cooney of Cisco Canada join us to share Cisco’s Women Entrepreneurs Circle, an initiative that offers 90 hours of free online tech and business courses while providing guiding experts and digital resources to assist women looking to start their own business. With just 15% of small and mid-sized Canadian businesses being... Read More
Hacking Online Harassment & CES Tech Women
With the Consumer Electronic Show over, we discuss our favourite stories from the Las Vegas show including Intel’s announcement of the Hack Harassment Initiative, a campaign to focus the tech industry’s efforts against online harassment that will include Lady GaGa’s Born This Way Foundation. www.hackharassment.com/ We share the wild, creative inventions of some of the... Read More
First Doll In Space & E-Drink On The Tonight Show
We start the new year off by celebrating an international effort to send a STEM doll into space that began with the dreams of a 6 year-old Canadian girl named Abigail. www.lottie.com/blogs/blog/817716…-year-old-abigail We’re also thrilled to see student inventor Ann Makosinski making headlines again with a new thermal energy invention and share how she won... Read More