Signing up enhances your TCE experience with the ability to save items to your personal reading list, and access the interactive map.
Create AccountThis article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on May 5, 2003. Partner content is not updated.
THE SARS OUTBREAK has swept many people into its vortex of tragedy, fear and confusion. The DISEASE suddenly changed their lives in ways they couldn't have imagined.FOR MONTHS now the warnings have been relentless: the avian flu, rampaging through Southeast Asia, could morph into some sort of monstrous microbe. Tens of millions of people could die, say the experts at no less esteemed institutions than the World Health Organization and the U.S.
Media convergence refers to the merging of previously distinct media technologies and platforms through digitization and computer networking. This is also known as technological convergence. Media convergence is also a business strategy whereby communications companies integrate their ownership of different media properties. This is also called media consolidation, media concentration or economic convergence. (See also Media Ownership.)
In 1950, one of Canada’s greatest medical innovations was developed at the University of Toronto’s Banting Institute. Cardiac surgeon, Dr. Wilfred Bigelow and research fellow, Dr. John Carter Callaghan were trying to understand how hypothermia (see Cold-Weather Injuries) could slow the beating of an animal’s heart before surgery. They were also looking for a way to stimulate the heart when it faltered as it cooled. This largely unknown area of research could have tremendous applications for humans. The doctors partnered with Dr. John A. Hopps from the National Research Council of Canada, who created a portable artificial external pacemaker. It was designed to send electric pulses to the heart, which caused the heart to contract and pump blood to the body. The device was successfully tested on a dog in 1950. This landmark discovery paved the way for the use of implantable pacemakers in humans.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on October 5, 1998. Partner content is not updated.
One of the easiest ways to understand bitumen is to compare it to its cousin, conventional crude oil. Whereas conventional crude oil flows freely, bitumen does not. At room temperature it looks like cold molasses, and must be either heated or diluted before it flows.
The petrochemical industry, which produces chemicals using OIL AND NATURAL GAS as major raw materials, occupies an important position in Canada's MANUFACTURING and consuming sectors. Oil and natural gas are composed primarily of hydrocarbons. Most petrochemicals contain hydrogen or carbon or both.
Some 2000 Canadians between the ages of one and 19 are killed each year because of injury, and over 85 000 are hospitalized. With the control of infectious diseases, injury has become the leading cause of death and disability in Canadian children and youth.
If life expectancy is any indication of health, Canadian women are, on average, much healthier than they were 70 years ago. The life expectancy of female babies born in 1921 was 61 while female babies born today are expected to live to age 82.
GM plants were first marketed in the 1990s. The first commercialized GM crop was a TOMATO called Flavr Savr (resistant to rotting), marketed in 1994 by a US-based company, Calgene. Since then, many GM crops have been commercialized.
Tipis are cone-shaped dwellings that many Plains Indigenous peoples used to live in until the mid-1800s. Today, tipis retain cultural significance and are sometimes constructed for special functions. (See also Architectural History of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)
Canada helped develop the world’s first nuclear reactors and nuclear arms. During the Second World War, Canada participated in British research to create an atomic weapon. In 1943, the British nuclear weapons program merged with its American equivalent, the Manhattan Project. Canada’s main contribution was the Montreal Laboratory, which later became the Chalk River Laboratory. (See Nuclear Research Establishments). This Allied war effort produced the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. It also led to the development of Canada’s nuclear energy industry.
Click here for definitions of key terms used in this article.
Few inventions have left as profound a mark on the world as the automobile. The first automobiles built in Canada were regarded as novelties, but the Canadian automotive industry eventually expanded to become one of the country’s significant manufacturing and exporting sectors. Assembly-line production helped reduce the cost of automobiles and made it possible for more individuals to purchase them. The rise of the automobile has impacted travel and it has necessitated research and regulations into pollution, safety standards and sustainability (see Transportation; Traffic Law in Canada).
Everybody agrees it was a dirty job. When Canadian Peacekeepers arrived in Croatia in 1993, many had to work near abandoned industrial sites destroyed during the war that had torn apart the old Yugoslavia. Some got covered in reddish grit while filling sandbags.
It was a sight to behold: men and women who have dumped all over the province's public electrical utility from the dawn of political time, running in rhetorical circles in an effort to persuade worried voters and nervous consumers that Ontario Hydro's decision to write $6.
Most of the criminological research in Canada has been done at those universities where centres focusing on research have evolved. The Université de Montréal established Canada's first School of Criminology with Denis Szabo in 1960.
Death, the irreversible cessation of life, has always intrigued and frightened mankind. Every known culture has attempted to provide an explanation of its meaning; like birth or marriage it is universally considered an event of social significance, amplified by ritual and supported by institutions.
The word "bus," short for omnibus, refers to any self-propelled road vehicle capable of carrying more persons than a private automobile.
The study of plant life is organized in 3 ways, which are also applicable to zoological material.
