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Researchers discover a single shape that tiles the plane aperiodically without reflection By Joe Petrik Cheriton School of Computer Science Just months ago, an international team of four that includes Cheriton School of Computer Science Craig Kaplan discovered a single shape that tiles the plane - an infinite, two-dimensional surface - in a pattern that can never be made to repeat.

Science, Health & Technology Alex Walls Using part of the Milky Way as an antenna, researchers have found evidence for gravitational waves that undulate over periods of years to decades by measuring changes in the tick of 'cosmic clocks', according to new research. The observations, published today in a suite of papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters , were collected over 15 years by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Physics Frontiers Center (PFC), a collaboration of more than 190 scientists including UBC astronomers.

An international team of scientists have used data collected by the NASA / / James Webb Space Telescope to detect for the first time ever a molecule known as methyl cation (CH3+), located in the protoplanetary disc surrounding a young star. They accomplished this feat with interdisciplinary expert analysis, including key input from laboratory spectroscopists.

Using the Canadian NIRISS instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope, astrophysics PhD candidate Louis-Philippe Coulombe has mapped the atmosphere of the intriguing exoplanet WASP-18 b. There's an intriguing exoplanet out there - 400 light-years out there - that is so tantalising that astronomers have been studying it since its discovery in 2009.

Understanding how animals make their way around in the world helps determine things humans are doing that might influence them Earth's magnetic field, generated by the flow of molten iron in the planet's inner core, extends out into space and protects us from cosmic radiation emitted by the Sun. It is also, remarkably, used by animals like salmon, sea turtles and migratory birds for navigation.

A new discovery about the structure of melanin has brought scientists one step closer to developing a new, potentially ultra-protective sunscreen derived from a biological substance found in nearly all organisms. Researchers from McGill's Department of Chemistry, in collaboration with The Ohio State University and the University of Girona, have announced a major advance in understanding the fundamental structure of melanin and one of its components that turns light into heat, protecting the body from sun damage.

Science, Health & Technology Alex Walls A Canadian-led research team has doubled the number of repeating fast radio bursts, adding 25 new 'cosmic probes'. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are cosmic radio signals: extremely short, energetic pulses of radio emission emanating from space. They're an astronomical mystery, as scientists aren't sure exactly what causes them and where they come from.

Astronomers have successfully launched a balloon-borne telescope that has begun capturing images of the universe on its first flight above the Earth's atmosphere. The Super Pressure Balloon-Borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) was flown to the edge of space by a helium-filled NASA scientific balloon the size of a football stadium.

An array of 350 radio telescopes in the Karoo desert of South Africa is getting closer to detecting the -cosmic dawn the era after the Big Bang when stars first ignited and galaxies began to bloom. A team of scientists from across North America, Europe, and South Africa has doubled the sensitivity of a radio telescope called the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array ( HERA ).

The behaviour of so-called "strange metals" have long puzzled scientists - but a group of researchers at the University of Toronto may be one step closer to understanding these materials. Electrons are discrete, subatomic particles that flow through wires like molecules of water flowing through a pipe.

Researchers from the  Atacama Cosmology Telescope  (ACT) collaboration have submitted a set of papers to the  Astrophysical Journal  featuring a groundbreaking new map of dark matter distributed across a quarter of the entire sky and extending deep into the cosmos. The result confirms Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity - which predicts how massive structures grow and bend light - with a test that spans the 14-billion-year life of the universe.

An UdeM study finds that a gravitational field does not seem to know where a particle that has been split in two, quantum mechnically, is, instead taking its average position as the as the only one. Anyone with a high-school diploma knows about Newton's law of universal gravitation: it's that the gravitation force behaves like 1 over the distance squared as you separate from a gravitating mass.

New HyperSpace collaboration envisions secure quantum connections across the Atlantic Ocean By Elizabeth Kleisath Institute for Quantum Computing Dr. Thomas Jennewein, a faculty member at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) and the University of Waterloo's Department of Physics and Astronomy, has his sights set high and wide - specifically on a quantum satellite orbiting high above the Earth to connect Canada and Europe via a secure quantum communication link.

A new theoretical model developed by earth scientists at the University of Oxford, University of Toronto and Durham University may help alleviate a global supply shortage of helium - a naturally occurring gas critical for a wide range of medical, scientific and industrial applications, from cooling the magnets of MRI scanners to filling non-combustible balloons.

The untethered soft robot could one day help doctors perform surgery A tiny robot that could one day help doctors perform surgery was inspired by the incredible gripping ability of geckos and the efficient locomotion of inchworms. The new robot, developed by engineers at the University of Waterloo, utilizes ultraviolet (UV) light and magnetic force to move on any surface, even up walls and across ceilings.

Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed a method of harnessing artificial intelligence to discover new and more efficient materials for clean energy technology. A team led by Alex Voznyy , an assistant professor in the department of physical and environmental sciences at University of Toronto Scarborough, used machine learning to significantly speed up the amount of time needed to find new materials with desired properties.

Unexpected resonance frequencies observed in reactions between two molecules A new study published today in Nature is changing our understanding of chemical reactions and overturning previous theoretical models by finding an unexpected resonance frequency during the reaction of two molecules. Resonance is when one object vibrating at the same natural frequency as a second object forces that second object into vibrational motion.

Inspired by the dynamic colour-changing skin of organisms such as squid, University of Toronto researchers have developed a multilayered fluidic system that can reduce the energy costs of heating, cooling and lighting buildings. The platform, which optimizes the wavelength, intensity and dispersion of light transmitted through windows, offers much greater control than existing technologies while keeping costs low due to its use of simple, off-the-shelf components.

"Suppose you knew everything there was to know about a water molecule - the chemical formula, the bond angle, etc.," says experimental physicist  Joseph Thywissen . "You might know everything about the molecule, but still not know there are waves on the ocean - much less how to surf them," he says.

How do stars form in distant galaxies? Astronomers have long been trying to answer this question by detecting radio signals emitted by nearby galaxies. However, these signals become weaker the further away a galaxy is from Earth, making it difficult for current radio telescopes to pick up. Now researchers from Montreal and India have captured a radio signal from the most distant galaxy so far at a specific wavelength known as the 21 cm line, allowing astronomers to peer into the secrets of the early universe.