Summer Issue
August 2004

Pumping Pax, goosing genes, and making muscle

When scientists sing the praises of a protein, you can bet it must be an important one. That certainly is the case with Pax7, a humble organic molecule that might just be the key to treating crippling genetic disorders like muscular dystrophy.

Reality Television “I wanted to be ... a star!”

“He behaves like I do, talks like I do, eats breakfast and brushes his teeth like I do, he …even loves like I do!”

“And yet, he (or she, as the case may be), an ordinary guy like me, is about to accomplish something extraordinary that I would never dare try myself but with which I will quite happily identify.”

He is about to become – there’s no other word for it – a star!

Dipping into our Most Valuable Asset

Canadians have been blessed with an amazing abundance of water—no fewer than three oceans bathe our shores. In addition to the five big ones, Canada is speckled with more lakes and surface water systems than any other country in the world. Yet for all of their size and abundance, lakes are complex and subtly balanced, and much more fragile than most people would imagine.

Soldiers are not born; soldiers are made

When newspapers around the world displayed front-page images of American soldiers mistreating Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison, Claire Turenne Sjolander’s concern was not only for the horrifying actions, but the resulting analysis.