International Year of Chemistry.

Its difficult to throughly endorse a worldwide celebration of chemistry, and its "contributions to our well-being", when it's sponsored by chemical industry corporations of such notorious disrepute as BASF (with partner Monsanto in the shadows), the Dow Chemical Co., and DuPont. In fact, it may be even more imperative with sponsors such as these to contemplate the negative impact of industrialised chemistry during a year of events where that particular side of the matter is unlikely to be widely scrutinised.

But then the International Year of Chemistry is an initiative of the IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) and UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), which has been endorsed by the UN with the stated aim of raising awareness among the general public of the vital contributions chemistry makes to our lives ever day (and hopefully attract youngsters to the field). The aim of the year's events is also to raise awareness of the potential chemistry has for solving contemporary as well as future global problems. Both these aims are quite worthwhile.

It may also be pertinent to reflect on the fascinating history of the field, from the dimly lit alcoves of ancient alchemists to the gleaming laboratories (and toxic waste sites) of today. Especially when the year coincides with the 150th anniversary of the first printing of Michael Faraday's (1791 - 1867) The Chemical History of the Candle, based on a series of lectures for young people which today have transmogrified into the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures (not to forget the 220th anniversary of Faraday's birth). It also coincides with 350th anniversary of the first printing of Robert Boyle's (1627 - 1691) The Skeptical Chymist, a volume considered a cornerstone in the field, which contributes to Boyle being regarded as the founder of modern chemistry.

More importantly, as the organisers have noted, the year coincides with the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize being awarded to Marie Skłodowska Curie (1867 - 1934) — the perhaps most renown among female scientists in any field. As such it presents an ample opportunity to highlight the work of the many female chemists (like, among many others, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, Lise Meitner, Clara Immerwahr, Ida Noddack, Rachel Fuller Brown, Agnes Pockels, Rosalind Franklin, or Irène Joliot-Curie), as well as female scientists in other fields, whose contributions to our knowledge of the universe we inhabit generally remain widely unrecognised and unacknowledged. Chemistry, after all, is the one field of science which connects material sciences, astronomy, physics, biology, and geology, through its concern with the very building blocks of everything (atoms and their subatomic particles: protons, electrons, and neutrons).

Most of the year's official events are organised through national chemical societies and regional chemical federations, hence for the most part consist of rather exclusive or trade oriented events — such as conferences, congresses, fairs, meetings, and symposia. However, there are a number of "outreach" events planned as well, including lectures, open discussions, workshops, and art exhibitions actually aimed at increasing public (rather than fellow chemists) appreciation of chemistry. Luckily, by the very nature of chemistry, the general public need not rely on "official" efforts to educate itself. As the science of matter and the changes it undergoes, chemistry — through its concentration on the composition, behaviour, structure, and properties of matter — is perhaps the most substantial, hands-on science, which can be practically engaged in by anyone with practically anything.

Everyone engages in it everyday, through simple acts like boiling an egg, without necessarily being aware of it: chemistry is all around us. With a little help form the nearest public library, and an assortment of ordinary household items, we can all easily set about exploring the wonders of the matter that surrounds us, binds us together, and makes us what we are from the comfort of our own homes.

World Oceans Day.

On Tuesday the second annual official World Oceans Day will be celebrated. First suggested by the Canadian government at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, it had been celebrated unofficially until receiving UN endorsement in 2009. It's an opportunity to not only consider the world's oceans but also reflect on our relationship with them. Some 74% of the Earth's surface (or roughly 361 km²) are covered by a continuous body of water, conventionally divided into several oceans and seas. It's a vast quantity — some 1.3 billion cubic metres, more than half of which over 3,000 metres deep — and its sheer size may very well be one of the reasons we tend to take it for granted.

In the Solar System, Earth is the only planet with liquid water on its surface. While we may one day discover water on some of the Solar System's moons, or even on planets in other systems, it may prove a long and in many ways impractical trek for a drink. Never mind that access mightn't be unrestricted; even on Earth we have great difficulty sharing and distributing the oceans seemingly infinite resources. Not that the oceans simply serve as a reservoir: they're the very cradle of life on our planet and home to a myriad of creatures. Life evolved in the oceans three billion years prior to the occurrence of plants and animals on land. Thus the oceans are, in a sense, the ancestral home of all life on Earth.

The oceans generate most of the oxygen we breathe, they absorb carbon-dioxide, and have a significant effect on our climate. The evaporation of ocean water is the source of most rainfall, while the temperature of the oceans determine climate and wind patterns. Yet the vitality of the world's oceans is threatened by our activities and the climate changes they've brought about. Over-exploitation, illegal and unregulated fishing, destructive fishing practices and pollution — particularly from land-based sources — threaten vulnerable marine ecosystems. Increased sea temperatures, sea-level rise, and acidification caused by changes in the climate further threaten not only marine life, but coastal and island communities as well as national economies.

The oceans area also essential to trade: roughly 90% of the world's non-bulk, non-perishable cargo is shipped across the seas. Despite being slow, shipping remains significantly less costly than other types of transcontinental transport. Because of this, the oceans are also affected by criminal activity. Piracy may look cool at the cinema, but in reality armed robbery threatens the lives of mariners and the safety of shipping. Smuggling of contraband and trafficking of people endanger lives, security, and peace not only across the oceans but eventually across lands as well.

Serving as the world's transport medium of choice entails other hazards: though silicone-based paints are now used to keep fouling organisms (like barnacles) off ships' hulls, the majority of the more than 51,000 commercial vessels that ply the world's oceans have hulls treated with biocides that poison and contaminate marine life, including commercial fish species — placing human health at risk. Ships also produce almost as much air pollution as half of the total number of cars on the planet (some 300 million), propelled by cheap sulphur-rich "bunker-oil" which produces tiny particles of soot and sulfuric acid known to damage lungs, and believed to be responsible for as many as 60,000 deaths a year worldwide.

The oceans are essential to the health and survival of all life on the planet, they provide nutrients that help sustain us, and are of great economic importance to everyone who relies on fishing, tourism, and other marine resources for income. So take some time on Tuesday to celebrate the oceans and their inhabitants, the nourishment they provide, their importance for trade and communication. (It could be as easy as watching Finding Nemo with the kids.) While The Ocean Project's theme this year is Oceans of Life, the UN's theme is Our Oceans: opportunities and challenges, and though most events in Canada will be held along our ocean coasts, those of us inhabiting the largely landlocked prairies should take time to consider what's downstream the many rivers that provide our needs. Each and every on of them eventually empties into the oceans. Along with whatever we put in them.

Note: this is a slightly updated version of an article originally published on June 7, 2009.

International Year of Natural Fibres.

The International Year of Natural Fibres was officially launched in Rome today, with the objective to raise the profile of natural fibres, highlight their origin, history, wide range of uses, and value to consumers as well as producers, while devising ways of sustaining natural fibre production and emphasise their environmental benefits in the face of increasing competition from artificial and synthetic fibres. (Wood fibre will be covered during the International Year of Forests in 2011.) Events throughout the year will be organised jointly by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and producers of all manner of natural fibres.

A natural fibre is essentially any elongated substance produced by plants (like cotton seed hairs, flax and hemp stem fibre, sisal leaf fibre, or coconut husk fibre) or animals (wool, hair, or secretions like silk) that can be spun into filaments, threads, or ropes. Fabrics produced from natural fibres have been an essential part of human life as long as agriculture itself, and though the methods employed to produce fabrics have changed over time, their function has remained practically the same. Most natural fibres end up in the clothing, upholstery, containers and other textiles that insulate, soften, and decorate our surroundings. But an increasing amount is employed for industrial purposes as, for instance, components in paper and composite materials — including automobile parts.

Hemp and flax seeds have also been revealed to be rich sources of omega-3 fatty acids and other valuable nutrients. Hemp oil in particular offers a balanced fatty acid spectrum, while hemp seed provides a reasonably well-balanced protein, significant amounts of vitamin E complex compounds and trace minerals. Its composition, taste, and culinary diversity make hemp oil and seed a promising staple in the growing market of "natural foods".

Apart from traditional and promising new industrial uses, natural fibres are a vital economic resource in numerous regions of the world, the roughly 30 million tonnes produced annually providing an important source of income to those who produce, process, and market them. More often than not the producers are small scale farmers in the world’s so called "developing" countries, hence the sale and export of natural fibres contributes significantly not only to clothing people, but also to maintaining food security and alleviating poverty.

One of the challenges faced by natural fibre producers in the last four decades is the increased competition from artificial and synthetic fibres (like rayon, nylon, acrylic, polyester, or spandex). Therefore, the year's activities also aim to contrast the significant environmental benefits of natural fibre consumption and production with that of synthetic, petrochemical varieties, and promote sustainability by ensuring that these benefits aren't compromised by unsound practices (for instance, a pesticide-intensive crop like cotton currently uses 25% of the world's insecticides and 10% of the world's pesticides).

Worldwide events will include conferences, exhibits, and fashion shows, with at least one event set to take place in Canada.

International Year of Astronomy.

Though preceded in some places (Berne, Edmonton, Hong Kong, and Stockholm among others), the official opening of the International Year of Astronomy is currently underway in Paris. The year's events and celebrations will coincide the 400th anniversary of the publication of Astronomia nova by Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630), in which he described the fundamental laws of planetary motions, and the first astronomical observation through a telescope by Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), changing our understanding of mankind's place in the Universe, rendering space a three-dimensional place rather than a mere canvas adorned with stars.

The main aim of the year's activities is to reignite the sense of wonder for our place in the Universe, and attempt to promote a greater appreciation of astronomy and the impact and contribution it and other fundamental sciences have on all our lives. The organisers, the International Astronomical Union (celebrating its 90th anniversary this year), UNICEF, and others, also aim to bring attention to how light pollution is diminishing the chances of an increasingly urban population engaging in one of humanity's oldest pastimes — one once heavily censured by religious fanatics with disasterous consequences not only for those who dared to gaze at the sky.

As one of the oldest fundamental sciences, astronomy has had a profound impact on human culture, and continues to be one of the most powerful expressions of human intellect. And while a mere century ago we were stuck at the bottom of an ocean of turbulent air, peering at distant worlds, today great telescopes are in Earth orbit observing the heavens in gamma rays, X rays, ultraviolet light, visible light, and radio waves. A hundred years age we were barely aware of our own galaxy. Today we know that the Universe we inhabit is composed of some 100 billion galaxies, of which the Milky Way, or "our galaxy" (as though anyone could possess it), just happens to be one.

Our sun — one of perhaps 400 billion in the galaxy — is just an average-sized, ordinary yellow star near the inner edge of one of the spiral arms, accompanied on its 250 million year journey around the centre of the Milky Way by an entourage of small worlds. Some are planets some are moons, some asteroids, some comets. We humans are one of some 50 billion species that happened to evolve on a fairly small planet that we call Earth, the third from the local star. A hundred years ago we had no means of knowing with certainty whether there were other solar systems in the Universe. Today we have observed more than 200 planets around other stars in our galaxy.

And while we have sent spacecrafts to examine some 70 of the worlds in our system, entering their atmospheres, even landing on the surfaces of a handful of them, much remains to be observed, examined, and discovered. For instance, what roughly 90 percent of our Universe is actually made of; or the peculiar distribution of galaxies (they hang out in packs, rarely alone); or the nature of gamma ray bursts in which entire solar systems are regularly gobbled up; or whether there is intelligent life anywhere else, and what the origin and fate of this Universe is. The most amazing discoveries will likely be ones we can't even possibly anticipate today.

Some of the exceptional events during the year include 100 Hours of Astronomy, aimed at allowing as many people around the world as possible to gaze through a telescope for the first time — much like Galileo did 400 years ago — in a 100-hour, round-the-clock, round-the-world event that will include live webcasts from research observatories, public observing events and other activities. Another is She is an Astronomer, aimed at promoting gender equality in astronomy and science in general. It’s still common in some places to consider women lacking in scientific abilities, to be too emotional to be objective, and not possessing the type of intelligence necessary for science.

Today women populate most of the subdisciplines of science, though they’re still a minority. In astronomy and planetary studies women only recently burst upon the scene, contributing a slew of discoveries and providing a desperately needed breath of fresh air. Their contributions, and those of the sky-gazers, astronomers, scientists, and engineers that preceded them, have replaced the tidy anthropocentric universe of our ancestors with a cold, immense, indifferent universe, in which humans are relegated to relative obscurity. Yet they have also revealed a universe of fascinating magnificence, and intricate, elegant order far beyond anything our ancestors ever imagined.

While it may be a question of preference, it must ultimately be better to understand the Universe as it really is, than inhabit an imaginary space ordered as we wish it to be. So, take some time this year to examine the sky above you, participate in events (Canadian events here), consider the place we inhabit, and get to know your Universe.

Mother of All Demos.

Networked collaboration, videoconferencing, digital text editing, hyperlinks, a pointing device (superficially resembling a rodent) called a “mouse,” surely are familiar to the average computer user today. But on this day, 40 years ago, some 1000 participants of the Fall Joint Computer Conference had their minds blown as they were exposed to all of the above for the very first time, during a 100 minute demonstration now known in hacker lore as The Mother of All Demos. At a time when most people thought computers were purely for computing, this was the stuff of an interactive future decades away.

The team that launched this point-and-click revolution in 1968 was led by Dr Douglas Engelbart, founder of the Augmentation Research Centre (ARC) at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California. Engelbart had spent twenty years trying to secure support for building a working prototype of an interactive, collaborative computer system that would allow people to work collectively to solve complex problems. What his team unleashed at the San Francisco conference was the oN-Line System (NLS), the very first attempt to put these ideas into practical form. It was a gamble: Englebart and his team didn't yet have a fully developed system, and had used research funding without official approval.

The presentation wasn't only successful, but so far ahead of computing at the time, its technology so convincing, that it directly contributed to the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and the development of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. But while many of the NLS components and features, such as the mouse, hypertext, the graphical user interface, multiple windows, information organised by relevance, integrated text and graphics, two-way video and teleconferencing are now ubiquitous, the NLS itself was far too oriented towards extremely powerful systems and highly specialised operators to become the standard system its creators envisioned.

Unlike many of their contemporaries, Engelbart’s team wasn’t interested in automation but augmentation, not merely designing a tool but a system for working with knowledge. They strived to change the entire process of how we work, think and interact with data, as well as the machines we employ for that purpose. Today, the basic premise of the NLS permeates modern computing, but its scope is yet to be fully realised; while their presentation inspired much of the hardware and software now widely used, the manner in which the ARC team used the NLS to collaborate is presently just being introduced with the evolution of web communities and services like social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.

Jacques Piccard, 1922-2008.

The Belgian-born Swiss oceanographer, hydronaut and engineer, who developed underwater vehicles and explored the deepest point in the oceans, has passed away. His father, Auguste, a physicist and explorer, inspired Tintin’s professor Cuthbert Calculus, while his uncle Jean-Felix, a chemist and explorer, inspired Star Trek’s Captain Picard. Jacques Piccard's mesoscaphe, the Ben Franklin, which explored the Gulf Stream, can be seen in Vancouver.