WHO:

Plus: Beeta Jafari, Gisoo, Odlar, Mayn-Zand, Kamand, Niaz dance groups & solos (Golbarg, Ghazaleh, Iana Komarnytska and more!)

WHAT: Festival showcasing the best of Iranian music, dance and art

WHERE: The Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen’s Park, Toronto

WHEN: Saturday, May 25, 2013 @10:00 AM to 5:30 PM / Sunday, May 26 @ 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM:

TICKETS: To buy online http://iranianheritageday.com/tickets

Free: Child (0 to 4 years)

$8.00 Child (4 to 14 years)

$10.00 Student and Seniors

$13.00 Adults

Tickets can also be purchased at Pegah Bookstore: 5513 Yonge St. / Iranian Plaza, Handicraft Store: 6095 Yonge St. / Super Parsian: 8129 Yonge St. / Super Shayan/Sarae Bamdad: 10720 Yonge St. / Parya Trillium Foundation: 344 John St.

Tickets are sold at discounted rate (30% off regular price) and are valid until Dec 31, 2013

WEBSITES: www.iranianheritageday.com

The Third Annual Iranian Heritage Day will be proudly presenting a cultural mosaic of Iranian classical, folklore, popular and contemporary music, dance and art including the Baarbad Ensemble, the Niaz dance group and more. This year will feature two electrifying premiere music and dance showcases called The Flight of Poupak and Longing for Freedom  All ages are welcome to the events being held at the Royal Ontario Museum on Saturday, May 25 and Sunday, May 26. For more information and updates please visit www.iranianheritageday.com

Now in its third year, the Iranian Heritage Day is an all-ages, two-day annual showcase of classical, folklore, popular and contemporary music and dance and interactive art, collectives, galleries and art educators. Side by side, established and emerging talented contributors bring a vibrant mix of art practices to Toronto’s cultural scene..

Along with many solo performances, there will also be two premiere feature showcases, The Flight of Poupak and Longing for Freedom

FLIGHT OF POUPAK

Music by Baarbad Ensemble, Dance by Beeta Jafari

The Flight of Poupak is a collaborative work of live music and dance that displays a journey of one’s evolution. Some of the musical creations of Iran’s great composer Faramarz Payvar have been rearranged for two santurs by Mehdi Rezania and Amin Reyhani. This story unfolds in three segments in which the styles completely change.

The journey begins in a state of struggle, pain and confusion, yet hope is also present. Hence the journeyer moves into an introspective and meditative state revealed in a drum duet by Bamdad Fotuhi and Alinima Madani. This inner exploration leads to deeper insights, and expansion of understanding. Thus a newly enlightened self is born from this higher level of consciousness. Consequently there is a joyous outcome and the ending of the piece expresses this with a renewed vigour. Beeta Jafari has used the movements of flying birds as inspiration for some of the choreography of this piece, as well as movements from various traditional dances of Iran.

LONGING FOR FREEDOM

Music by Mehdi Rezania, Dance by Iana Komarnytska

A bird finds herself in a cage. In panic she tries to fly away, but she cannot. She flies faster and faster to no avail until she is tired and alone. Her heart is pounding and one can hear it throbbing. While resting, she ponders her situation and realizes that the only way out is to break the cage. Resolutely, she attempts to break the cage by crashing into it with her body. She does it again and again, more rapidly each time.  When she is about to give up, the cage breaks open and she flies away, singing happily. To convey the story, choreographer Iana Komarnytska has employed and fused the elements of Iranian classical dance with those of western contemporary styles.

MUSICAL PERFORMANCES BY:

THE CIRCLE BAND:

The Circle is a Toronto-based, Persian music band founded in 2011, offering a unique style of music as fusion of jazz and pop with elements of traditional Persian instruments. The Circle focuses on classical and contemporary Persian poetry of Rumi and Khayam as well as contemporary poetries of Ahmad Shamlou and Sohrab Sepehri. The members are lead by songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist Shahab Baradaran withSara Nejad and Mona Ketabian on vocals, Reza Moghaddas on bass and Saman Shahi on piano. Their debut album was Beyond the Seas.

BAARBAD ENSEMBLE

Founded by Mehdi Rezania and Toloe Roushenas in 2004 for creating innovative and artistic music, Baarbad has been one of the most prolific Iranian-Canadian ensembles. The ensemble has presented music programs in various styles and genres from Persian classical and folklore to fusion music and recitals. Baarbad Music is a winner of Ontario Art Council grants of 2011 and has collaborated with orchestras such as Sinfonia Toronto and virtuoso musicians such as Hossein Behroozinia.

NEEMEHA

This band is a new generation of an experimental, alternative rock band based in Toronto. Their goal is to open a new dimension in on the music scene where they can be the voice of the Iranian people to the world.

DANCE PERFORMERS:

IANA KOMARNYTSKA is an international dancer from the Ukraine. Since 2004 she has been dedicated to the Middle-Eastern and Central Asian dance styles. The multiple award-winning dancer received her training in the Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, and Canada. A former participant of Ishtar Dance Co (Ukraine) and Arabesque (Canada), Iana is presenting two performances with live music:

Niaz choreographed by Farzaneh Kaboli, a piece which is a union of traditional Iranian music and dance inspired by the vibrant music of the late Maestro Alinaghi Vaziri, played by Mehdi Rezania

Freedom, choreographed by herself on the debut album of Mehdi Rezania, Salute to Sun.

MOSTAFA NOSRATY GROUP

MAYN ZARD KURDISH DANCE GROUP was formed in 2010 by Mostafa Nosraty, following his former group called The Greater Toronto Kurdish House Dance Group, founded in Toronto in 2008. The work includes a variety of dances that have roots in several thousand years of Kurdish history. In terms of style. The performance covers a wide range of forms, more than 20 that are performed in different parts of Kurdistan (including regions outside Iran). Group members lead by Mostafa Nosraty are: Ashkan Lahouri, Ava Homa, Beeta Jafari, Farhnaz Bahrami, Omid Zaroorian, Parisa Alizadeh and Sohila Dashti

BEETA JAFARI is a dancer and choreographer whose passion for dance has led her to study its various genres. She has trained in Iranian national and folkloric dances, as well as some of the dances of Central Asia from Ida Meftahi and Sashar Zarif. Currently, Beeta is part of a Kurdish folk group ‘Mayn-zard’ led by Mostafa Nosraty. She has performed at various events and venues in Toronto. Beeta is pleased to be one of the dance directors for the programming of  Iran Heritage Day at The Royal Ontario Museum this year.

ODLAR DANCE GROUP

Founded in Toronto, and with the goal of expressing the true authenticity of Azerbaijani folk dances, the members have been performing at various venues and events for the past six years in both Canada and abroad. Performers include Riza Rad and Nouchine Davarpanah. They both have had extensive training in dance for 15 years from the masters of Azerbaijani dance. Odlar group performs “Uzun-Dere” dance, translated to “long valley”. Music is composed by Uzeir hajibeyov.

IDA MEFTAHI DANCE GROUPS

GISOO GROUP was founded in Toronto in 2008 by six dancers of Iranian heritage. Directed by Ida Meftahi, a choreographer, performance historian, educator, and a protégé of Farzaneh Kaboli, Gisoo Dance aims to showcase the beautiful and rich vocabulary of Iran’s traditional, ritualistic and folk dance movements adorned with a contemporary approach. Since 2008, Gisoo Dance has performed in numerous cultural and artistic events and have also collaborated with the likes of Kurdish choreographer, Fethi Karakecili for Mem u Zin performed at Isabel Bader Theatre in 2011, as well as the Odissi choreographer, Paromita Kar.

Gisoo Dance includes Parand, Azar, Golbarg, Maral, Shiva, and Yassmin. Gisoo Dance is presenting two group pieces at the Iranian Heritage Day 2013, a group Azeri dance and a contemporary Iranian piece with the Dayereh, as well as the solo, Jan-e Man, performed by Golbarg.

KAMAND GROUP is a newly-founded Iranian dance quartet directed and choreographed by Ida Meftahi, Kamand’s members include Bahare, Elmira, Grace and Neda. Their repertoire is enriched by a wide range of Iranian movement motifs, qualities, and expressions. Kamand will be presenting a Khorasani piece at the Iranian Heritage Day 2013.

GHAZALEH FARID began dancing with Farzaneh Kaboli when she was seven. After moving to Canada in 2000, she pursued her dancing with Ida Meftahi. Ghazaleh will perform Rana, a Gilaki folk dance, inspired by folkloric movements and activities such as rice paddy and tea picking, specific to that region.

NAQALI GROUP

THE KOOCH GROUP is Montreal-based and includes director Nikta Sabouri, Fatemeh,  Amineh (actress and vocalist), Alborz (musician and director), Neda (photographer and graphic designer), Armin (musician) and Ayda (make-up artist).

NIKTA SABOURI was born in 1987 in Iran. She started her experience in theatre at the age of 15 and appeared on a public stage for the first time when she was 17. She began her bachelor’s in theatre directing at University of Tehran. At the same time she also performed in many plays, appearing in Saramago’s “Blindness”, directed by Gigi Dall’Aglio in Fadjr Theatre Festival 2007. After finishing her degree she came to Canada and is currently continuing her studies in theatre at UQAM. She is the director of Beizaei’s “Arash” that will be performed by “kooch” theatre group.

GALLERY PRESENTATIONS:

THE ART OF MINIATURE (by Alijan Alijanpour)

CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS OF IRAN (eight artists display their works)

RIDERS ON THE STONE (Sassanid Period’s Bas-relief on Rocks) by Siamak Eskandari

The tradition of carving bas-reliefs on rocks in Iran began in the Middle Elamite period (second millennium B.C.) and continued through the next dynasties, including Mede, Achaemenid, Parthia and Sassanid. Sassanians were the last pre-Islamic dynasty who ruled the Persian Empire for more than four centuries (224 A.D. to 651 A.D.) and their legacy played a key role in the formation of art and architecture of Iran in Islamic periods.

This very exciting exhibition focuses on the historic background and aesthetic aspects of Sassanid Empire’s art of rock reliefs by presenting about 40 photographs. Siamak Eskandari spent 10 years (1999 to 2009) and took thousands of black and white photos by his analog cameras of all 38 Sassanid’s rock reliefs scattered around Iran. The photos are selected from 500 hand-printed photographs.

Lady Beetles color patterns. Credit: Wikipedia

Multicolored Asian lady beetles are advancing round the globe, often driving out native species in many of the countries they invade, and their methods amount to no less than biological warfare: they infect their opponents with deadly parasites against which they themselves are immune. This was revealed in a study conducted by Fraunhofer IME, published in the current edition of Science Magazine, the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

From the human point of view, ladybugs are harmless creatures that are not only pretty to look at, but that also serve a useful purpose, as their diet includes aphids and other botanical pests. The multicolored Asian lady beetle or Harlequin ladybird (also known as the Japanese ladybug, the Halloween ladybug or the Harlequin ladybird) is an especially voracious eater; this little glutton can munch its way through up to 200 aphids a day. Its sizeable appetite led resourceful organic farmers to import Harlequin ladybird decades ago as a natural method of biological pest control. They initially introduced the insect onto fields and into greenhouses in North America before bringing it over to Europe – but from the 1990s onward, these little helpers started to become a problem in their own right. The beetle has reproduced uncontrollably, and is now considered a primary example of an invasive species.

The alien invaders also gained a foothold in Germany, where they are making life difficult for the 80 or so native ladybug species. This could have worrying consequences, as Professor Andreas Vilcinskas, biologist and joint head of the Institute for Phytopathology and Applied Zoology at Justus Liebig University Giessen, explains: “If things continue at this rate, many of these species will disappear.” Professor Vilcinskas also set up the Bioresources project group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in 2010, an initiative that is funded to the tune of 4.5 million euros by the Land Hesse through the LOEWE research promotion program (“State offensive for the development of scientific and economic excellence”). “Our aim is to utilize the enormous potential that the insect world holds for us. Insects are an incredibly diverse species in possession of many bio- molecules that could have all manner of medicinal and biotechnological applications,” Vilcinskas adds.

Fraunhofer research scientists consider invasive species such as the multicolored Asian lady beetles to be very promising. “If a species is able to successfully spread across the planet, then it must have a very strong immune system, else it would not be able to withstand the various pathogens it encounters every time it enters a new habitat.” Com- paring the invading beetle with two native species, the seven-spotted ladybug (Coccinella septempunctata) and the two-spotted ladybug (Adalia bipunctata), gives credence to the biolodist’s argument: laboratory tests indicate that the blood of the foreign insects has much greater activity against bacteria than the blood of both European species. Vilcinska’s team identified the active agent as harmonin, a substance that is exclusively produced by Harmonia. This substance proved to be an effective antibiotic that is capable of combatting tuberculosis and malaria pathogens, among others.

But harmonin is just one of many chemical weapons the multicolored Asian lady beetle uses to defend itself against microorganisms. Its armory also contains over 50 types of peptides with which it can fight off massive bacterial attacks, as revealed by Dr. Heiko Vogel’s in-depth molecular biological analyses conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena. “This makes Harmonia a record breaker. We know of no other animal that produces so many antimicrobial peptides,” says Vilcinskas. This gives the interlopers a distinct competitive advantage over their seven-spotted rivals and other ladybugs. But having a strong immune system still doesn’t explain their incredible assertiveness – for these little fighters invariably come out on top when they go head-to-head with their local relatives, too.

A startling observation made by the Fraunhofer team led them to discover the real secret to Harmonia’s success. When competing for food and space in their natural habitat, it’s not unusual for ladybugs to eat their rivals’ larvae and eggs. If a seven-spotted ladybug tucks into the young of its exotic opponent, then it’s a deadly meal: the hungry native dies. When a multicolored Asian lady beetle gobbles up the offspring of its local relation, however, it suffers no ill side-effects whatsoever. The answer to the mystery is contained within the invaders’ blood, which is filled with spore-like parasites. Some 18 months of molecular biological detective work finally identified the organism as belonging to a group of fungi-like unicellular parasites called Nosema, a microsporidian.

“Since making the discovery, we have examined multicolored Asian lady beetles from all over the world. We found microsporidia in every single animal in every population, even in the eggs,” explains Vilcinskas. This means that whenever a seven-spotted ladybug eats a Harmonia egg, the insect is invariably infected with the pathogens the egg contains. The microsporadia multiply in their new host, and eventually kill it. Researchers at the IME do not yet know why the Asian ladybugs aren’t affected by the microsporidia they carry – but they’re hot on the heels of a promising lead, as Vilcinskas reveals: “Presumably the beetles protect themselves using harmonin. We think that they use it to limit the rate of microsporidia reproduction, thus keeping levels harmlessly low.”

Edited article via Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Moreover, people in both the United States and Mexico linked the same pieces of classical orchestral music with the same colors. This suggests that humans share a common emotional palette – when it comes to music and color – that appears to be intuitive and can cross cultural barriers, UC Berkeley researchers said.

“The results were remarkably strong and consistent across individuals and cultures and clearly pointed to the powerful role that emotions play in how the human brain maps from hearing music to seeing colors,” said UC Berkeley vision scientist Stephen Palmer, lead author of a paper published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Our emotions can color the music we hear. (iStockphoto)

Using a 37-color palette, the UC Berkeley study found that people tend to pair faster-paced music in a major key with lighter, more vivid, yellow colors, whereas slower-paced music in a minor key is more likely to be teamed up with darker, grayer, bluer colors.

“Surprisingly, we can predict with 95 percent accuracy how happy or sad the colors people pick will be based on how happy or sad the music is that they are listening to,” said Palmer, who will present these and related findings at the International Association of Colour conference at the University of Newcastle in the U.K. on July 8.  At the conference, a color light show will accompany a performance by the Northern Sinfonia orchestra to demonstrate “the patterns aroused by music and color converging on the neural circuits that register emotion,” he said.

The findings may have implications for creative therapies, advertising and even music player gadgetry. For example, they could be used to create more emotionally engaging electronic music visualizers, computer software that generates animated imagery synchronized to the music being played. Right now, the colors and patterns appear to be randomly generated and do not take emotion into account, researchers said.

They may also provide insight into synesthesia, a neurological condition in which the stimulation of one perceptual pathway, such as hearing music, leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a different perceptual pathway, such as seeing colors.  An example of sound-to-color synesthesia was portrayed in the 2009 movie The Soloist when cellist Nathaniel Ayers experiences a mesmerizing interplay of swirling colors while listening to the Los Angeles symphony. Artists such as Wassily Kandinksky and Paul Klee may have used music-to-color synesthesia in their creative endeavors.

Nearly 100 men and women participated in the UC Berkeley music-color study, of which half resided in the San Francisco Bay Area and the other half in Guadalajara, Mexico. In three experiments, they listened to 18 classical music pieces by composers Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johannes Brahms that varied in tempo (slow, medium, fast) and in major versus minor keys.

In the first experiment, participants were asked to pick five of the 37 colors that best matched the music to which they were listening. The palette consisted of vivid, light, medium, and dark shades of red, orange, yellow, green, yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue, and purple.

Participants consistently picked bright, vivid, warm colors to go with upbeat music and dark, dull, cool colors to match the more tearful or somber pieces. Separately, they rated each piece of music on a scale of happy to sad, strong to weak, lively to dreary and angry to calm.

Two subsequent experiments studying music-to-face and face-to-color associations supported the researchers’ hypothesis that “common emotions are responsible for music-to-color associations,” said Karen Schloss, a postdoctoral researchers at UC Berkeley and co-author of the paper.

For example, the same pattern occurred when participants chose the facial expressions that “went best” with the music selections, Schloss said. Upbeat music in major keys was consistently paired with happy-looking faces while subdued music in minor keys was paired with sad-looking faces. Similarly, happy faces were paired with yellow and other bright colors and angry faces with dark red hues.

Next, Palmer and his research team plan to study participants in Turkey where traditional music employs a wider range of scales than just major and minor. “We know that in Mexico and the U.S. the responses are very similar,” he said. “But we don’t yet know about China or Turkey.”

Other co-authors of the study are Zoe Xu of UC Berkeley and Lilia Prado-Leon of the University of Guadalajara, Mexico.

Edited article via University of California – Berkeley and written by Yasmin Anwar

The 505 million year old fossil called Kooteninchela deppi (pronounced Koo-ten-ee-che-la depp-eye), which is a distant ancestor of lobsters and scorpions, was named after the actor Johnny Depp for his starring role as Edward Scissorhands – a movie about an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands.

Kooteninchela deppi is helping researchers to piece together more information about life on Earth during the Cambrian period when nearly all modern animal types emerged.

David Legg, who carried out the research as part of his PhD in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says:

“When I first saw the pair of isolated claws in the fossil records of this species I could not help but think of Edward Scissorhands. Even the genus name, Kootenichela, includes the reference to this film as ‘chela’ is Latin for claws or scissors. In truth, I am also a bit of a Depp fan and so what better way to honour the man than to immortalise him as an ancient creature that once roamed the sea?”

Kooteninchela deppi lived in very shallow seas, similar to modern coastal environments, off the cost of British Columbia in Canada, which was situated much closer to the equator 500 million years ago.  The sea temperature would have been much hotter than it is today and although coral reefs had not yet been established, Kooteninchela deppi would have lived in a similar environment consisting of sponges.

The researcher believes that Kooteninchela deppi would have been a hunter or scavenger. Its large Edward Scissorhands-like claws with their elongated spines may have been used to capture prey, or they could have helped it to probe the sea floor looking for sea creatures hiding in sediment.

Kooteninchela deppi was approximately four centimetres long with an elongated trunk for a body and millipede-like legs, which it used to scuttle along the sea floor with the occasional short swim.

It also had large eyes composed of many lenses like the compound eyes of a fly. They were positioned on top of movable stalks called peduncles to help it more easily search for food and look out for predators.

The researcher discovered that Kooteninchela deppi belongs to a group known as the ‘great-appendage’ arthropods, or megacheirans, which refers to the enlarged pincer-like frontal claws that they share. The ‘great-appendage’ arthropods are an early relation of arthropods, which includes spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, insects and crabs.

David Legg adds: “Just imagine it: the prawns covered in mayonnaise in your sandwich, the spider climbing up your wall and even the fly that has been banging into your window and annoyingly flying into your face are all descendants of Kooteninchela deppi. Current estimates indicate that there are more than one million known insects and potentially 10 million more yet to be categorised, which potentially means that Kooteninchela Deppi has a huge family tree.”

In the future, David Legg intends to further his research and study fossilised creatures from the Ordovician, the geological period that saw the largest  increase in diversity of species on the planet. He hopes to understand why this happened in order to learn more about the current diversity of species on Earth.

Edited article via Imperial College London

WOOFSTOCK began as a simple idea, albeit one with legs, by its founder Marlene Cook, to provide dogs and their owners with a unique destination for all things canine. Cook’s groundbreaking idea grew so rapidly that within its first few years, the Festival proved to be a true tour de force, annually drawing upwards of 150,000 dogs in the know, and their faithful humans in tow.

With canine family members in over 40% of North American households, WOOFSTOCK tapped in to one of the most prolific business markets in the world and became the largest, and only, canine festival of its kind, earning critical nods from around the globe. USA Today named WOOFSTOCK one of the top 10 places in the world to celebrate animals. From its early days as an annual summer festival, WOOFSTOCK outgrew its original home in the historic Distillery District and scored a prime location in the bustling St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood, taking over Front Street all the way to Yonge Street. All adjoining streets and parks make room for one of Toronto’s most anticipated summer festivals!

WOOFSTOCK quickly became famous for its signature events like the ever-popular Ms. and Mr. Canine Canada Pageant and its furry Fashion Show, and is adored for perennial favourites like the Running of the Pugs and the Stupid Dog Trick contests. From Extreme Doggie Makeovers to Yappy Hour with “Wooftini” cocktails, WOOFSTOCK has proven its pawsible for all dogs to go to heaven, right here in Toronto.

With over 5.2 million dog treats woofed down, WOOFSTOCK has had no trouble becoming a household noun amongst Canadians as the largest one-stop shopping extravaganza for those four-footed friends. Over the last decade, the festival has hosted over 3,000 one-of-a-kind exhibitors from across the continent offering the latest trends in pooch products from couture clothing to health supplements, pet parents will find all they need to survive in this dog eat dog world.

WOOFSTOCK’s 10^th Anniversary Festival launches Sunday, June 2, 2013 with the return of the wildly popular Doggleganger High Tea in the Fairmont Royal York Hotel’s glamorous Imperial Room. The exclusive launch event will feature a who’s who of pooches channeling their inner celebrity as they pose for the puparazzi. The pooch with the most outstanding celebrity look-alike costume will win a grand prize of a two-night stay at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel during WOOFSTOCK weekend. The Doggleganger High Tea has seen pooches channeling the likes of Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, and Justin Bieber. Will Kim KarCanine, pregnant with puppies, take this year’s grand prize?

This year’s 10^th Anniversary Festival is dedicated to Sydney Pie, Marlene’s beloved best friend.

Sydney Pie. December 2000 – March 2013

10^th ANNIVERSARY WOOFSTOCK FESTIVAL

Saturday, June 8 – Sunday, June 9, 2013

10am – 6pm

St. Lawrence Market Neighbourhood

ADMISSION: FREE

Full info at www.woofstock.ca

WOOFSTOCK Launch Party

Doggleganger High Tea 

Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 2 pm

Fairmont Royal York Hotel, Imperial Ball Room, 100 Front Street West, Toronto

ADMISSION: $10 donation to WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals)

More info at: www.woofstock.ca

“The saline waters bubbling out of fractures in the rocks are not unlike the black smoker fluids found at deep sea hydrothermal vents,” said University Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, a geochemist in U of T’s Department of Earth Sciences. “The water is the product of geochemical reactions with the rock and contains dissolved hydrogen, as well as noble gases – helium, neon, argon and particularly xenon – that have been trapped since early in Earth’s history.”

Noble gas isotopes from radiogenic reactions in the rock accumulate in water over time enabling scientists to calculate that these waters have collected the by-products of water-rock interaction for more than a billion years – possibly even back to the formation of these ancient rocks more than 2.7 billion years ago. Their discovery will be published in the May 16 issue of Nature.

The team behind this latest discovery is part of the same group that identified some of the deepest chemolithotrophic – rock and chemical-eating – microbial communities found to date. In 2006, at 2.8 km below the surface in South African gold mines, they found hydrogen-utilizing sulfate-reducing microbes eking out an existence in saline fracture waters that have been cut off from the sun for tens of millions of years.

“The ancient waters of the Canadian Shield contain abundant chemicals that we know microbes can use as energy in the absence of sunlight-driven photosynthesis,” said Sherwood Lollar. “This shows that ancient rocks have the potential to support life and this could be the case whether they are three kilometres below the Earth’s surface or below the surface of Mars.”

Large regions of Mars are made up of terrain like that of the Earth’s Precambrian Shield – billions of years-old rocks with similar mineralogy.

The Canadian Shield discovery puts the age of the fluids much farther back in time than the South Africa discovery, identifying a groundwater system that has been isolated from the planet’s surface for billions, rather than tens of millions of years. “Our discovery establishes that ancient fluids, hitherto thought to have survived only in microscopic fluid inclusions trapped in the rocks, may instead still flow from ancient fractures,” said Sherwood Lollar.

Sherwood Lollar says the team hopes answers can be found to other pressing questions such as: How widespread are ancient fluids trapped in the subsurface? What range of fluid ages might be preserved in the Canadian Shield and in billions-year-old rocks worldwide? How do microbes, if any can be found, in these very ancient fluids compare to those discovered in South Africa, and to surface life?

“These are like trapped time capsules,” said Sherwood Lollar. “They may tell us about the atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago, and about the fluids that formed the valuable ore deposits that are the foundation of Canada’s mineral wealth.”

Team members include co-principal investigator Sherwood Lollar and her postdoctoral fellow Long Li, co-principal investigator Christopher Ballentine and postdoctoral fellow Greg Holland, both of the University of Manchester, and Greg Slater from McMaster University.

Edited article via University of Toronto and written by Kim Luke

NORTH BY NORTHEAST (NXNE) has announced more music, film and comedy programming for the 19^th edition of the festival, taking over Toronto June 10-16, 2013 including electronic musician Dan Deacon, feature-length documentary FILMAGE: The Story of DESCENDENTS/ALL and comic Dylan Moran. Also launching today is the NXNE Schedulizer on nxne.com, where fans can choose their must-see NXNE events and create a personalized schedule.

NXNE Music has confirmed the 2013 line-up will include indie rock group Wintersleep, electronic luminary Dan Deacon, synth popper St. Lucia, the only Canadian date for Villagers, Canadian psych shoegazers No Joy, art rock group Braids, dream pop duo Still Corners, Montreal pair Blue Hawaii, Toronto DJ Ryan Hemsworth, DIY rapper Fat Tony, experimental pop duo Dusted, retro rock trio Shannon and The Clams, psych rock brothers Tonstartssbandht, indie rockers Still Life Still, Gold & Youth of Arts & Crafts, Toronto industrial dance rockers Odonis Odonis, Montreal duo Valleys, synth-pop artist Big Black Delta, grunge rockers Roomrunner, Chad Valley with his vintage pop sounds, noise rock quartet Dope Body, Toronto’s July Talk and electro dance group Bear Mountain. For the full list of confirmed NXNE Music programming visit www.nxne.com/artists.

NXNE Film, in partnership with Hot Docs, will present 30 films June 13-16, including the world premiere of FILMAGE: The Story of DESCENDENTS/ALL. This documentary, screening Saturday, June 15, chronicles the long history of punk bands ALL and Descendents, and the driving force behind both – drummer Bill Stevenson. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=T12pLSYHQMI

NXNE Film will also screen The Rolling Stones – Charlie Is My Darling – Ireland 1965, an intimate, behind-the-scenes diary of life on the road with the young Rolling Stones, documenting the fan frenzy at their first professionally filmed concert performances; an encore presentation of The National’s Mistaken for Strangers along with the theatrical debut of music video Silver Trembling Hands by The Flaming Lips; and the world premiere of Authentic: Young Rival’s Journey Through Canada, which follows indie rockers Young Rival as the band tours across Canada. Single Film tickets go on sale Thursday, May 16. See the entire NXNE Film schedule at www.bit.ly/17pUTyc.

NXNE Comedy will present more comics and showcases then ever before, including the lewd Big Jay Oakerson at various NXNE venues and Just for Laughs favourite Dylan Moran on Sunday, June 16 at the Panasonic Theatre. The Canadian Comedy Awards will announce the 2013 nominees on Wednesday, June 12 at Yuk Yuks and the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival will present their Best of the Fest showcase on Friday, June 14 at Measure as part of NXNE Comedy. For the full NXNE Comedy schedule, visit www.bit.ly/10Vv2FR.

NXNE Interactive has just confirmed that multidisciplinary artist Melissa Auf der Maur will host a panel called Women in Music: More Than Ever Before with members of Montreal trio No Joy and Toronto Star music critic Ben Rayner. Panelists will discuss the past, present and future of women in music and the role they take at the forefront of music today. The full list of NXNEi presenters is available here: www.nxne.com/presenters.

All NXNE passes, wristbands and tickets are now available online at www.nxne.com/tickets.

Clouds of gas and interstellar dust are the raw materials from which stars are made. But these tiny dust grains block our view of what lies within and behind the clouds — at least at visible wavelengths — making it difficult to observe the processes of star formation.

This is why astronomers need to use instruments that are able to see at other wavelengths of light. At submillimetre wavelengths, rather than blocking light, the dust grains shine due to their temperatures of a few tens of degrees above absolute zero [1]. The APEX telescope with its submillimetre-wavelength camera LABOCA, located at an altitude of 5000 metres above sea level on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes, is the ideal tool for this kind of observation.

This spectacular new picture shows just a part of a bigger complex called the Orion Molecular Cloud, in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). A rich melting pot of bright nebulae, hot young stars and cold dust clouds, this region is hundreds of light-years across and located about 1350 light-years from us. The submillimetre-wavelength glow arising from the cold dust clouds is seen in orange in this image and is overlaid on a view of the region taken in the more familiar visible light.

The large bright cloud in the upper right of the image is the well-known Orion Nebula, also called Messier 42. It is readily visible to the naked eye as the slightly fuzzy middle “star” in the sword of Orion. The Orion Nebula is the brightest part of a huge stellar nursery where new stars are being born, and is the closest site of massive star formation to Earth.

The dust clouds form beautiful filaments, sheets, and bubbles as a result of processes including gravitational collapse and the effects of stellar winds. These winds are streams of gas ejected from the atmospheres of stars, which are powerful enough to shape the surrounding clouds into the convoluted forms seen here.

Astronomers have used these and other data from APEX along with images from ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory, to search the region of Orion for protostars — an early stage of star formation. They have so far been able to identify 15 objects that appeared much brighter at longer wavelengths than at shorter wavelengths. These newly discovered rare objects are probably among the youngest protostars ever found, bringing astronomers closer to witnessing the moment when a star begins to form.

Notes

[1] Hotter objects give off most of their radiation at shorter wavelengths and cooler ones at longer wavelengths. As an example very hot stars (surface temperatures around 20 000 degrees Kelvin) look blue and cooler ones (surface temperatures of around 3000 degrees Kelvin) look red. And a cloud of dust with a temperature of only ten degrees Kelvin has its peak of emission at a much longer wavelength — around 0.3 millimetres — in the part of the spectrum where APEX is very sensitive.

Silicate nanoplatelets cause stem cells to become bone cells, as determined by the formation of bone matrix (in red). Image courtesy of Khademhosseini lab.

In new research published online May 13, 2013 in Advanced Materials, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) are the first to report that synthetic silicate nanoplatelets (also known as layered clay) can induce stem cells to become bone cells without the need of additional bone-inducing factors. Synthetic silicates are made up of simple or complex salts of silicic acids, and have been used extensively for various commercial and industrial applications, such as food additives, glass and ceramic filler materials, and anti-caking agents.

Silicate nanoplatelets cause stem cells to become bone cells, as determined by the formation of bone matrix (in red). Image courtesy of Khademhosseini lab.

“With an aging population in the US, injuries and degenerative conditions are subsequently on the rise,” said Ali Khademhosseini, PhD, BWH Division of Biomedical Engineering, senior study author. “As a result, there is an increased demand for therapies that can repair damaged tissues. In particular, there is a great need for new materials that can direct stem cell differentiation and facilitate functional tissue formation. Silicate nanoplatelets have the potential to address this need in medicine and biotechnology.”

“Based on the strong preliminary studies, we believe that these highly bioactive nanoplatelets may be utilized to develop devices such as injectable tissue repair matrixes, bioactive fillers, or therapeutic agents for stimulating specific cellular responses in bone-related tissue engineering,” said Akhilesh Gaharwar, PhD, BWH Division of Biomedical Engineering, first study author. “Future mechanistic studies will be performed to better understand underlying pathways that govern favorable responses, leading to a better understanding of how materials strategies can be leveraged to further improve construct performance and ultimately shorten patient recovery time.”

Edited article via Brigham and Women’s Hospital

“Nowadays, there are thousands of missing people around the world that could have been tortured and killed and buried in clandestine graves,” said Jamie Pringle, lecturer in geoscience at the School of Physical Sciences and Geography at Keele University in the U.K. “This is a huge problem for their families and governments that are responsible for the human rights for everybody. These people need to be found and the related crime cases need to be resolved.”

Mostly, people throw resources at the search for clandestine graves and try to see what works best, said Pringle. But he and his colleagues Carlos Molina and Orlando Hernandez of the National University of Colombia in Bogota are among those trying to refine the techniques for finding mass graves, so that eventually there might be a reliable toolkit for not only finding bodies, but discovering details like the time of deaths and burials–-all critical evidence for convicting murderers.

Previous studies on which Pringle has worked have involved simulated clandestine graves in the U.K. in which they buried pigs and then monitored soil gases, fluids and other physical changes over time. That research made it clear how much the detection of graves depends on understanding how corpses change in different soils and climates. This is being applied to active forensic cases throughout Europe.

International collaborations among forensic geophysicists have already proved helpful in cases such as the so-called IRA ‘Disappeared’ victims found on beaches in Northern Ireland and current work underway to detect Civil War mass graves in Spain.

In the latest project, being presented in a poster at the Cancún meeting, the researchers propose to bury pigs in eight different simulated clandestine mass grave scenarios in different soils and climates in Colombia. Then they will study the mass graves with geophysical methods like ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity, conductivity and magnetometry among others. Their plan is to survey the graves every eight days during the first month, 15 days in the second and third months, and monthly until 18 months have passed.

The data they collect will be used to map the mass graves and compare them, adjusting for site variables like soil type and rainfall. They also expect to compare their results with other studies and forensic cases.

“The project’s integrated geophysical survey results will support the search for mass graves and thus help find missing people, bring perpetrators to justice and provide closure for families,” said Molina.

Edited article via Keele University