Ecology, Biodiversity and the Natural Environment

Inuit Nunangat: Where Two Worlds Collide (From the Art and Waste in Pannituuq [Pangnirtung] Project)

kvd1 — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 19:20:05 +0000

micky renders

Inuit Nunangat is a site where differing epistemologies and cosmologies collide. The Arctic waste crisis stems from a culture of wasting that is capitalist and not Inuit. With the delicate Arctic ecosystem degrading due to climate change, escalating resource extraction, the opening of the Northwest Passage, and the expansion of NORAD, unprecedented volumes of waste and contaminants are causing unknowable changes in life, land, sea, and ice. At the intersection of art, politics and activism, the Art and Wastes in Pangnirtung Project challenges assumptions about Inuit and exposes the pervasive nature of settler colonization as the root cause of wastes.

Location of photograph:

Pannituuq (Pangnirtung), Nunavut

Submission Year:

2023

Returning the Gaze

kvd1 — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:58:42 +0000

Siobhan Speiran

This was taken by Rubén Vargas at the wildlife sanctuary Proyecto Asis in Costa Rica, who captures the most beautiful images of the resident animals. I am standing in front of the capuchin enclosure observing the behaviours of Lulo, Lucy, Soplita, Pablita, and Cappuccino, while guided tours are taking place nearby. It is illegal to own wild animals in Costa Rica; these capuchins have been rescued from their past lives as companion animals or entertainers. While unable to be reintroduced to the wild, they receive life-long care and advocacy in the sanctuary community. My research looks at the intersections of animal welfare and conservation in Costa Rican sanctuaries, which are popular sites of sustainable, captive wildlife tourism. Here, the monkey returns my gaze in this photo, blurring the distinction between researcher and subject; I study him while he studies me.

Location of photograph:

Proyecto Asis, Costa Rica

Submission Year:

2023

Lithium Below, Stars Above

kvd1 — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 18:51:52 +0000

Dr. Christopher Spencer

Lithium is an element that is key to our energy transition away from fossil fuels and plays an important role in the battery technologies for space exploration. This photo was taken during an expedition to Western Australia exploring for lithium deposits that have the potential to reshape the global economy and resolve the global climate crisis.

Location of photograph:

Western Australia

Submission Year:

2023

Crystalline Acid

kvd1 — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 19:07:03 +0000

Dan Reddy

This photo taken with scanning electron microscopy depicts an extremely small yet precise volume (i.e., nanolitre-sized) of crystallized decanoic acid. We are using these spots of crystalline acid to extract and preconcentrate, or soak-up, chemicals of concern like opioids from wastewater samples. This preconcentration step improves our ability to monitor these chemicals. By doing so, we can improve how we detect these harmful compounds and protect local watersheds.

Location of photograph:

Chernoff Hall, Queen's University

Submission Year:

2022

George Konana Collecting Ice

kvd1 — Tue, 31 May 2022 13:57:58 +0000

Saskia de Wildt

The Inuit practice an ongoing relationship with the land through camping, hunting, and fishing. As part of the BearWatch project, I explore how such knowledge, accumulated over many generations, and Inuit values can be ethically engaged in a community-based polar bear monitoring program. This picture is taken on one of our trips out on the land around Gjoa Haven during spring 2022. It captures George Konana collecting ice from the lake for tea. He traces ice with the right quality to give his tea a nice ‘reddish, brown’ color. At this exact moment, he cracks out a huge piece, enough for a month of tea.

Location of photograph:

Gjoa Haven, Nunavut

Submission Year:

2022

Gastropod Mummy

kvd1 — Mon, 30 May 2022 17:31:51 +0000

Ruqaiya Yousif

This is a picture of a gastropod mummy laying down her egg cases. My research is to assess the stable isotope (C and O), clumped isotope (∆47), and trace element compositions of living and Quaternary shells from the Arabian/Persian Gulf. The aim is to link these analyses with modern oceanographic data to develop a robust proxy for understanding oceanographic change in the rock record. In simple terms, I am trying to link the shell chemistry with its surrounding environment and then use this link to assess oceanographic changes in the past 125K year. At the time of this picture, we were growing gastropods under laboratory conditions and performing in vitro fertilization of oysters.

Location of photograph:

Qatar

Submission Year:

2022

Jacqueline Monaghan

kvd1 — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 20:22:20 +0000

Plants and Pathogens

Microbial diseases and pests among food crops pose substantial threats to global food security. Plants have evolved diverse and robust immune systems, making disease the exception rather than the rule in natural environments.

Fixing financial fairy tales – The rise of sustainable finance in Canada

kvd1 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 19:33:12 +0000

The Institute for Sustainable Finance based at ��˴�Ƭ Smith School of Business is dedicated to exploring how the many different ways in which we spend money might be adapted to reflect the principles of sustainability.

Canada has the financial expertise to make sustainable finance a reality as we shape the future post COVID-19 | #QueensuResearch

Capturing the Art of Research: Celebrating the 2020 prize recipients

MLR7 — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 13:52:42 +0000

The Queen’s Art of Research photo contest celebrates its fifth year, with the selection of ten stunning winning images.

Explore photos from ��˴�Ƭ researchers with the Art of Research as they take you behind-the-scenes of their #QueensuResearch

Engineering Solutions: Leachate, liners, landfills, and learning

MLR7 — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 17:24:46 +0000

Human beings have undoubtedly been throwing things away for as long as we have had things to throw. These ancient middens – the predecessors of our modern landfills – provide a treasure trove of artefacts for archaeologists, who sift through discarded items for clues to how people once lived.

For the past 40 years, Kerry Rowe's research has focused on natural environmental components along with engineering principles to improve our ability to safely discard materials with more confidence that they will not come back to haunt us.

Deliberating on dilbit

MLR7 — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 17:18:56 +0000

Short for “diluted bitumen,” the term "dilbit" refers to a chemical concoction that makes petroleum extracted from oil sands easier to transport. Diane Orihel – an assistant professor in the School of Environmental Studies and Queen’s National Scholar – is exploring the effects of this increasingly controversial material.

Diane Orihel is exploring diluted bitumen – an increasingly controversial chemical concoction that makes petroleum extracted from oil sands easier to transport.

First Emergence

kvd1 — Wed, 08 May 2019 16:12:40 +0000

Ivana Schoepf

My research focuses on the effects that avian malarial parasites have on female reproductive success and offspring quality. To assess how malarial infection affects mothers and their offspring, I spent the spring and summer in the field at the Queen's University Biological Station catching female, adult red-winged blackbirds and treating them with either an antimalarial medication or a control solution. Female reproductive success was determined by looking at a variety of parameters, including incubation behaviour, which was measured using I-buttons (as seen in the photo). If experimental reduction of infection leads to higher reproductive success in females, I expected to find medicated females to be able to spend more time incubating their eggs. Our preliminary analysis shows that this is indeed the case.

Location of photograph:

Queen's University Biological Station

Prize name:

Winner, Out in the Field

Submission Year:

2018-19

OTTER Lab: Measuring flow around moving objects with high-speed lasers

moonr — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 18:31:51 +0000

On May 8, 2015, the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at Queen’s University unveiled a new Optical Towing Tank for Energetics Research (OTTER) laboratory which studies how animals such as birds and fish move by using high-speed laser measurements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elc3W1HGLR4

Maternal-fetal interaction during pregnancy

kvd1 — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 21:02:04 +0000

Nathalia Azevedo Portilho

The placenta is a highly specialized organ essential for normal fetal development and mother well-being during mammalian pregnancy. It is composed of maternal and zygote derived cells which interact to allow exchange of gases, nutrients and wastes, to promote immune protection of the fetus and also to produce pregnancy-associated hormones and growth factors. Abnormalities of these functions are associated with a wide range of pregnancy and postpartum complications. Due analogies, mouse placenta has been intensively studied.

Submission Year:

2015-16

Start Counting! - A Microscopic View of Algae

kvd1 — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 21:00:01 +0000

Michael Jessop

This photo was taken with a cell phone camera through a microscopic lens. The picture is a result of a summer undergraduate research project involving growth optimization of algae grown in wastewater. Growing algae on wastewater can remove many chemicals responsible for the pollution of our local water columns. The algae can then be harvested and extracted for oils that can subsequently be converted into a directly usable diesel fuel. Unfortunately, these algae require regular counting in order to determine how well they are growing.

Location of photograph:

Biosciences Complex, Queen's University

Submission Year:

2015-16