Headshot of Anne McIlroy.Bill Grimshaw
Wine sold in cartons rather than bottles might not appeal to some connoisseurs, but Gary Pickering of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., has found that Tetra Paks lower levels of "green" compounds that make vino smell and taste like grass, bell peppers, asparagus, or rotting peanuts.
These odiferous chemicals, known as methoxypyrazines, are produced when grapes are picked before optimal maturation, says Dr. Pickering, a wine scientist. Ladybugs also make them to ward off predators, and if too many of the insects are harvested along with the fruit, they can taint the wine.
Dr. Pickering and his colleagues added a dash of three of these compounds into batches of riesling and cabernet franc and put the wine into cartons and bottles sealed in a variety of ways, including with natural corks and screw caps.
After 18 months, the researchers found that levels of methoxypyrazines had dropped by about a third in the wine in the cartons, a much greater decrease than in the bottles.
But the cartons also let in more oxygen than the glass bottles and that can lead to a reduction in desirable flavours and aromas.
SPACE'S ARCTIC FRONTIER
Scientists at the University of Calgary have received $10-million in federal funding to build a radar station in the Arctic that will offer a fresh perspective on what happens at the edge of space.
The Resolute Bay Incoherent Scatter Radar, which will bounce radar off individual electrons, will be part of an international network of about a dozen similar stations around the world that help researchers learn more about how the outer limits of Earth's atmosphere interacts with space.
But this is the first one in the Arctic, U of C physicist Mike Greffen says, and it could help scientists understand more about space storms, the sudden release of radiation that can damage sensitive satellites, navigation systems and power grids.
SUMMER CAMP FOR SCIENTISTS
John Coates, a former Wall Street trader who is investigating the role that testosterone and other hormones play in financial risk-taking, is going to Science Foo Camp in July.
It is an invitation-only, three-day event organized by Google, Nature Publishing Group and O'Reilly Media that is gaining a reputation as the Davos of the scientific research world.
Dr. Coates, a Canadian who is a senior research fellow at the University of Cambridge, started wondering if hormones were related to trading decisions during the dot.com bubble in the late 1990s.
His friend John Mighton, an award-winning Toronto playwright and mathematician who started charity JUMP Math to help children learn math, is also going.
Foo camp brings together 200 guests, including Nobel laureates and original thinkers from a wide variety of fields, for an unorthodox conference at the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif.
Dr. Mighton says he is looking forward to meeting big names in artificial intelligence and quantum information, and is thinking about how to describe himself to his fellow campers. In past years, there have been reports that guests can use only three words when they introduce themselves to the group. The rule is enforced with a gong.
TUBERCULOSIS BREAKTHROUGH
The bacteria that cause tuberculosis can survive in the body for years because they feed on cholesterol inside the white blood cells that normally engulf and destroy invaders.
Now, a team of researchers based in British Columbia has determined the structure of an enzyme that allows TB bugs to break down cholesterol and use it for energy. Their work could lead to new ways to fight a disease that is increasingly resistant to available antibiotics.
Igor D'Angelo, who has since moved from the University of British Columbia to the private sector, used the synchrotron at the University of Saskatchewan to map the structure of the protein. A synchrotron is source of brilliant light used to analyze the microstructure of material down to the level of the atom.
The next step, Dr. D'Angelo says, is to develop drugs that would stop the enzyme from doing its job.
He and his colleagues at UBC, Lindsay Eltis, Natalie Strynadka and Jenna Capyk, described their findings in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Anne McIlroy is The Globe and Mail's science reporter.