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Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
The 4 biggest mysteries the new Vera Rubin Observatory could solve
On a mountaintop in Chile's sprawling Atacama Desert, a new telescope has turned its mechanical eyes to the heavens, stargazing with unprecedented intensity. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will take hundreds of pictures, every night, for the next 10 years. Astronomers around the world are absolutely giddy over Rubin, which is named for the late astronomer who discovered evidence for the existence of dark matter. The observatory's mirrors will collect a tremendous amount of light, catching the glint of very faint, faraway objects. That light will be focused into the largest digital camera on the planet, a 3,200-megapixel camera the size of an SUV, capable of producing pictures from multiple wavelengths of light. Instead of focusing on one segment of sky for hours at a time, Rubin is designed to take in a wide field of view, swiveling every five seconds to stare at a new spot with minimal shakiness. Stitched together, the observations will produce unprecedented time-lapse views of the entire night sky from the Southern Hemisphere, revealing a lively universe. (Vera Rubin was the GOAT of dark matter) Rubin is scheduled to begin full operations later this year, after technicians complete some final testing. So where does one point a half-billion dollar telescope? Scientists predict that the observatory will discover millions of asteroids and comets, several million supernova, 17 billion stars in the Milky Way, 20 billion galaxies, and other astrophysical phenomena that may have never been detected before. Our cosmic cup runneth over. Other observatories, on the ground and in space, have granted us countless cosmic wonders, but no telescope has basked in the night sky quite like this before. One might wonder whether 10 million exploding stars is perhaps too many, and indeed, astronomers I spoke with about Rubin say they're a tad overwhelmed. "A hundred years ago, you went to the telescope, you took your data, maybe on a photographic plate, and you brought it home and locked it in your desk drawer," Pauline Barmby, an astronomer at Western University in Canada, says. There will be so much data "that we really have to come up with much different ways of analyzing it," Barmby says. Scientists are ready to sift through the observations, which could help solve some of astronomy's biggest mysteries, from the workings of the solar systems to the large-scale forces driving the future of the universe. Here are the four biggest mysteries the panoramic observatory will investigate. For the last decade, astronomers have pondered about a mystery that stands to completely rewrite science textbooks: Is there actually another planet in our solar system, something the size of Neptune, drifting in the darkness? Scientists refer to this hypothetical world as Planet Nine, and Rubin may settle the matter of its existence. (Pluto, you might have heard, no longer holds the title of the ninth planet in the solar system, having been reclassified, on the grounds of various astronomical definitions, as a dwarf planet in 2006.) The theory for Planet Nine arose out of observations of icy celestial bodies that orbit beyond Neptune, in a region called the Kuiper belt. A handful of these objects seem to be tracing unexpected orbits through space; something other than the sun's gravity appears to be influencing their movements. One explanation is the presence of a giant, unseen planet, exerting enough gravity to mold their orbital journeys. There are other explanations that could explain the strange orbits, from the extravagant (perhaps there's a tiny black hole out there, or evidence for a new theory of gravity), to the more mundane (maybe there's nothing odd about the orbits, and our picture of the Kuiper belt is just incomplete.) Existing telescopes aren't capable of spotting the faint glow of such a faraway maybe-planet. But Rubin may find Planet Nine within the first year or two operations, says Megan Schwamb, an astronomer at Queen's University, Belfast, in Northern Ireland. Scientists have worked out a search area in the night sky. If the planet is there, "we'll see it like we see Pluto," Schwamb says—a bright pinprick in the inky shadows of the Kuiper belt, reflecting the light of its star. If there's no grand X-marks-the-spot moment for Planet Nine, "that doesn't mean it's not there," Samantha Lawler, an astronomer at Campion College in Canada, says. "It could just be farther out, or it could be smaller or less reflective." Astronomers will need to keep scrutinizing the behavior of trans-Neptunian objects, and Rubin is poised to discover 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects, expanding the current catalog tenfold. In a sea of these newly found celestial bodies, convincing evidence of Planet Nine may float to the surface, or become washed away altogether. While Schwamb and Lawler would be delighted to welcome a new planet, they're thrilled at the prospect of learning more about the realm beyond Neptune, which is intriguing in its own right. The frozen objects in the Kuiper belt are remnants of the formation of our cosmic neighborhood, like eraser shavings brushed off to the side of the page, and astronomers can study them to better understand its bygone eras. "I have no doubt there will be other weird patterns that we see in those orbits that will lead to other interesting ideas about what may or may not be in our solar system now, and how it has changed over time," Lawler says. In 2017, a ground-based telescope in Hawaii caught an unusual object hurtling through the solar system, untethered from the gravity of the sun. Oumuamua, as the object was later named, left astronomers with many questions about a previously undiscovered cosmic population, and some wild conjectures about alien origins that are still floating around today. A second surprise object, named Borisov, showed up in 2019, further deepening the mystery. Rubin will provide many more opportunities to study these interstellar objects, which can coast through the galactic hinterlands for hundreds of millions of years before encountering the warmth of a star. These objects appear without warning, and move fast, so they can be difficult to catch—unless you're constantly making time lapses of the night sky. Interstellar objects are believed to be ejected from their home systems during planet formation, a notoriously turbulent time. (Bits of our own solar system, hurled away several billions of years ago, are likely floating somewhere in the galaxy.) Some researchers estimate that Rubin, over the course of its decade-long run, may discover between five and 50 interstellar objects. Chris Lintott, an astrophysicist at Oxford, is more optimistic, betting on 100. It's quite the range, which underscores just how new, and exciting, this area of study is. Each time Rubin detects an interstellar object, it will spark a frenetic chase: telescopes around the world and in space will track the target until it zooms out of reach, checking to see how it's moving, what it's made of, and—because why not?—whether it bears signs of artificial technology. Each cosmic wanderer Rubin finds will provide a glimpse of how planet formation may have unfolded across the Milky Way. Are giant planets like Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus common around other stars? Rubin's interstellar catch of the day could help answer that question. Or its findings could indicate these types of planets are rarer than we thought. "If we find very few [interstellar objects], I think we might have to rethink what sort of planetary systems exist in the galaxy," Lintott says. Even with the powerful new observatory, astronomers likely won't be able to trace interstellar objects to their exact starting points "because they've been mixed around the galaxy so much," says Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. But they can analyze their chemical composition to glean information about their home star, including its age. Scientists may even be able to determine if two or more interstellar objects originated from the same cluster of stars. And they can use Rubin's future catalog to test various theories, including whether entire corridors of these interstellar objects exist, winding through the galaxy like ribbons. Even a small sample of them "tells us so much about these processes happening across our whole wonderful, wide galaxy," Bannister says. Galaxies form in a messy process, says Barmby, the Western University astronomer. "There's gas falling in, there's gas getting blown out, there's stars forming, there's stars dying, and all of that stuff happens on super-long timescales that we can't actually watch happen." Sometimes, in the process, stars in one galaxy get taken up by the gravitational force of another. These are known as stellar streams, and the new observatory is expected to reveal many more of these in our own Milky Way, hovering like bees around the shimmering rose of the galaxy. Rubin's observations will allow astronomers to track the motions of individual stars over long periods of time, which can reveal whether they originated inside the Milky Way or came tumbling in from a nearby galaxy. Rubin is also expected to discover more of the small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, which have unwillingly donated some of those stars. Each galaxy has its own fascinating cosmic personality; one of the smallest has just a few hundred stars, compared to the Milky Way's 10 billion, says Yao-Yuan Mao, an astrophysicist at the University of Utah. He expects that Rubin will discover all the little galaxies that can possibly be observed, not counting those that are situated behind the bright disk of the Milky Way, which will remain forever out of view from Earth's perspective. "We will get a super complete picture of our Milky Way system," Mao says. And by comparing our galaxy system with that of others, astronomers can tackle one of the most animating questions in the field: whether the way the cosmos works here, in our part of it, is the same as everywhere else. "The knowledge that we inferred from studying the Milky Way—is that generally applicable across the universe?" Mao says. "Or is there something special or unique about the Milky Way itself?" As Rubin captures pictures of millions of cosmic objects, the observatory will also be searching for signs of two completely invisible things: dark matter and dark energy. All of the stars, galaxies, gas—all of the matter we can observe—turns out to be just 5 percent of "the total stuff in the universe," says Alex Drlica-Wagner, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago. The rest is dark matter, a kind of matter that doesn't emit or absorb light, which accounts for 25 percent of the universe's composition, and dark energy, a phantom entity that makes up 70 percent. While scientists have never directly observed either, they've seen the cosmos behaving in certain ways that suggest they must exist. Rubin won't reveal all of their secrets, but the sheer amount of data will serve as a veritable playground for scientists to test their theories about these phenomena. Astronomers first suspected the existence of dark matter in the 1930s when they noticed that some galaxies remained clustered together even though they were traveling fast enough to fly apart, suggesting that another force was keeping the galactic web intact. In the 1970s, Rubin's namesake astronomer discovered a similar effect at the edges of galaxies, where whizzing stars that should have escaped were instead being held tight. The mark of the unseen material can even be found using starlight itself. Dark matter can bend light as it passes by, making its source—a distant galaxy, for example—appear distorted. Rubin will collect these warped views, allowing astronomers to "map out where the dark matter is by how we see the light bending as it travels to us," Drlica-Wagner says. Those maps can help illuminate the nature of dark-matter particles, including whether they're cold or hot—seemingly small characteristics with the capacity to reshape our understanding of how the universe assembles galaxies. Dark energy is even more mysterious. The idea emerged in the 1990s, when astrophysicists calculated that the universe was expanding faster over time rather than slowing down, which ran counter to laws of physics that governed the rest of the cosmos. Dark energy was determined to be the driving force, although scientists don't know what it actually is, only that it appears to behave differently than anything else in the universe, Drlica-Wagner says. Unlike dark matter, which, like the regular cosmic stuff, is likely made up of some kind of particles, dark energy stretches the very fabric of space, pushing galaxies apart rather than drawing them together. Rubin's massive catalog of exploding stars will come in handy here: Scientists can use certain kinds of supernovas to trace the universe's expansion, and, in turn, dark energy's role in it. Rubin data could confirm or refute new theories that suggest dark energy is changing over time, rather than remaining constant, upending even Einstein's predictions for this perplexing force. In the end, the most exciting discoveries Rubin makes might be the ones astronomers haven't yet anticipated. Such is the nature of really good new telescopes: the thrill of what we don't know we don't know. "If someone says, I have never seen a six-foot-tall-rabbit, you can say, sure, how hard have you looked?" Michael Wood-Vasey, an astronomer at the University of Pittsburgh who has spent years helping to prepare the Rubin observatory for operations, says. Perhaps the new observatory, with its constant, scouring gaze, will turn up some cosmic rabbits.
National Geographic
8 hours ago
- Science
- National Geographic
The 4 biggest mysteries the new Vera Rubin Observatory could solve
No telescope has basked in the night sky quite like this before. Here's what it could reveal about the universe. Vera Rubin Observatory, its dome reflecting the last sunlight at sunset in Chile. May 30, 2025. Photographs by Tomás Munita On a mountaintop in Chile's sprawling Atacama Desert, a new telescope has turned its mechanical eyes to the heavens, stargazing with unprecedented intensity. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will take hundreds of pictures, every night, for the next 10 years. Astronomers around the world are absolutely giddy over Rubin, which is named for the late astronomer who discovered evidence for the existence of dark matter . The observatory's mirrors will collect a tremendous amount of light, catching the glint of very faint, faraway objects. That light will be focused into the largest digital camera on the planet, a 3,200-megapixel camera the size of an SUV, capable of producing pictures from multiple wavelengths of light. Instead of focusing on one segment of sky for hours at a time, Rubin is designed to take in a wide field of view, swiveling every five seconds to stare at a new spot with minimal shakiness. Stitched together, the observations will produce unprecedented time-lapse views of the entire night sky from the Southern Hemisphere, revealing a lively universe. The Vera Rubin Observatory will offer an unprecedented view of the universe's wonders. Chile's new Vera Rubin Observatory, May 31, 2025. Rubin is scheduled to begin full operations later this year, after technicians complete some final testing. So where does one point a half-billion dollar telescope? Scientists predict that the observatory will discover millions of asteroids and comets, several million supernova, 17 billion stars in the Milky Way, 20 billion galaxies, and other astrophysical phenomena that may have never been detected before. Our cosmic cup runneth over. Other observatories, on the ground and in space, have granted us countless cosmic wonders, but no telescope has basked in the night sky quite like this before. One might wonder whether 10 million exploding stars is perhaps too many, and indeed, astronomers I spoke with about Rubin say they're a tad overwhelmed. "A hundred years ago, you went to the telescope, you took your data, maybe on a photographic plate, and you brought it home and locked it in your desk drawer," Pauline Barmby, an astronomer at Western University in Canada, says. There will be so much data "that we really have to come up with much different ways of analyzing it," Barmby says. Scientists are ready to sift through the observations, which could help solve some of astronomy's biggest mysteries, from the workings of the solar systems to the large-scale forces driving the future of the universe. Here are the four biggest mysteries the panoramic observatory will investigate. The Milky Way is seen above the observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope. For the last decade, astronomers have pondered about a mystery that stands to completely rewrite science textbooks: Is there actually another planet in our solar system, something the size of Neptune, drifting in the darkness? Scientists refer to this hypothetical world as Planet Nine , and Rubin may settle the matter of its existence. (Pluto, you might have heard , no longer holds the title of the ninth planet in the solar system, having been reclassified, on the grounds of various astronomical definitions, as a dwarf planet in 2006.) The theory for Planet Nine arose out of observations of icy celestial bodies that orbit beyond Neptune, in a region called the Kuiper belt. A handful of these objects seem to be tracing unexpected orbits through space; something other than the sun's gravity appears to be influencing their movements. One explanation is the presence of a giant, unseen planet, exerting enough gravity to mold their orbital journeys. Deputy Observing Specialist Manager Alysha Shugart commands the TMA and Dome from platform 8 at the observatory. The M3 inner mirror, outer M1 mirror and LSST Camera of Simonyi's Survey Telescope at Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. May 30, 2025. There are other explanations that could explain the strange orbits, from the extravagant (perhaps there's a tiny black hole out there , or evidence for a new theory of gravity ), to the more mundane (maybe there's nothing odd about the orbits, and our picture of the Kuiper belt is just incomplete.) Existing telescopes aren't capable of spotting the faint glow of such a faraway maybe-planet. But Rubin may find Planet Nine within the first year or two operations, says Megan Schwamb , an astronomer at Queen's University, Belfast, in Northern Ireland. Scientists have worked out a search area in the night sky. If the planet is there, "we'll see it like we see Pluto," Schwamb says—a bright pinprick in the inky shadows of the Kuiper belt, reflecting the light of its star. Enormous cables on Level 5, beneath the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA), at the Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. The Simonyi Survey Telescope at Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. May 30, 2025. If there's no grand X-marks-the-spot moment for Planet Nine, "that doesn't mean it's not there," Samantha Lawler , an astronomer at Campion College in Canada, says. "It could just be farther out, or it could be smaller or less reflective." Astronomers will need to keep scrutinizing the behavior of trans-Neptunian objects, and Rubin is poised to discover 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects, expanding the current catalog tenfold. In a sea of these newly found celestial bodies, convincing evidence of Planet Nine may float to the surface, or become washed away altogether. While Schwamb and Lawler would be delighted to welcome a new planet, they're thrilled at the prospect of learning more about the realm beyond Neptune, which is intriguing in its own right. The frozen objects in the Kuiper belt are remnants of the formation of our cosmic neighborhood, like eraser shavings brushed off to the side of the page, and astronomers can study them to better understand its bygone eras. "I have no doubt there will be other weird patterns that we see in those orbits that will lead to other interesting ideas about what may or may not be in our solar system now, and how it has changed over time," Lawler says. Among the questions that the Vera Rubin Observatory could help answer: Is there a Planet 9? Scientists hope that the observatory can help map the universe's dark matter. In 2017, a ground-based telescope in Hawaii caught an unusual object hurtling through the solar system, untethered from the gravity of the sun. Oumuamua , as the object was later named, left astronomers with many questions about a previously undiscovered cosmic population, and some wild conjectures about alien origins that are still floating around today. A second surprise object, named Borisov , showed up in 2019, further deepening the mystery. Rubin will provide many more opportunities to study these interstellar objects, which can coast through the galactic hinterlands for hundreds of millions of years before encountering the warmth of a star. These objects appear without warning, and move fast, so they can be difficult to catch—unless you're constantly making time lapses of the night sky. Rubin Observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope during calibration. Interstellar objects are believed to be ejected from their home systems during planet formation, a notoriously turbulent time. (Bits of our own solar system, hurled away several billions of years ago, are likely floating somewhere in the galaxy.) Some researchers estimate that Rubin, over the course of its decade-long run, may discover between five and 50 interstellar objects. Chris Lintott, an astrophysicist at Oxford, is more optimistic, betting on 100. It's quite the range, which underscores just how new, and exciting, this area of study is. Each time Rubin detects an interstellar object, it will spark a frenetic chase: telescopes around the world and in space will track the target until it zooms out of reach, checking to see how it's moving, what it's made of, and—because why not?—whether it bears signs of artificial technology. Each cosmic wanderer Rubin finds will provide a glimpse of how planet formation may have unfolded across the Milky Way. Are giant planets like Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus common around other stars? Rubin's interstellar catch of the day could help answer that question. Or its findings could indicate these types of planets are rarer than we thought. "If we find very few [interstellar objects], I think we might have to rethink what sort of planetary systems exist in the galaxy," Lintott says. Even with the powerful new observatory, astronomers likely won't be able to trace interstellar objects to their exact starting points "because they've been mixed around the galaxy so much," says Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. But they can analyze their chemical composition to glean information about their home star, including its age. Scientists may even be able to determine if two or more interstellar objects originated from the same cluster of stars. And they can use Rubin's future catalog to test various theories, including whether entire corridors of these interstellar objects exist, winding through the galaxy like ribbons. Even a small sample of them "tells us so much about these processes happening across our whole wonderful, wide galaxy," Bannister says. From interstellar objects to galaxy formation, the new telescope will give astronomers a stunning new view of deep space. The Vera Rubin Observatory is named for the pioneering scientist who explored the mysteries of dark matter. Petr Kubánek, right, and Robinson Godoy Torres checking on actuators and valves inside the M1M3 mirror cells of the Simonyi Survey Telescope, Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. May 30, 2025, Galaxies form in a messy process, says Barmby, the Western University astronomer. "There's gas falling in, there's gas getting blown out, there's stars forming, there's stars dying, and all of that stuff happens on super-long timescales that we can't actually watch happen." Sometimes, in the process, stars in one galaxy get taken up by the gravitational force of another. These are known as stellar streams, and the new observatory is expected to reveal many more of these in our own Milky Way, hovering like bees around the shimmering rose of the galaxy. Rubin's observations will allow astronomers to track the motions of individual stars over long periods of time, which can reveal whether they originated inside the Milky Way or came tumbling in from a nearby galaxy. Rubin is also expected to discover more of the small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, which have unwillingly donated some of those stars. Each galaxy has its own fascinating cosmic personality; one of the smallest has just a few hundred stars, compared to the Milky Way's 10 billion, says Yao-Yuan Mao , an astrophysicist at the University of Utah. He expects that Rubin will discover all the little galaxies that can possibly be observed, not counting those that are situated behind the bright disk of the Milky Way, which will remain forever out of view from Earth's perspective. "We will get a super complete picture of our Milky Way system," Mao says. And by comparing our galaxy system with that of others, astronomers can tackle one of the most animating questions in the field: whether the way the cosmos works here, in our part of it, is the same as everywhere else. "The knowledge that we inferred from studying the Milky Way—is that generally applicable across the universe?" Mao says. "Or is there something special or unique about the Milky Way itself?" Observing Specialist Minhee Hyun, left, and Yijung Kang at the Control Room of Vera Rubin Observatory, Chile. May 30, 2025. As Rubin captures pictures of millions of cosmic objects, the observatory will also be searching for signs of two completely invisible things: dark matter and dark energy. All of the stars, galaxies, gas—all of the matter we can observe—turns out to be just 5 percent of "the total stuff in the universe," says Alex Drlica-Wagner , an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago. The rest is dark matter, a kind of matter that doesn't emit or absorb light, which accounts for 25 percent of the universe's composition, and dark energy, a phantom entity that makes up 70 percent. While scientists have never directly observed either, they've seen the cosmos behaving in certain ways that suggest they must exist. Rubin won't reveal all of their secrets, but the sheer amount of data will serve as a veritable playground for scientists to test their theories about these phenomena. Astronomers first suspected the existence of dark matter in the 1930s when they noticed that some galaxies remained clustered together even though they were traveling fast enough to fly apart, suggesting that another force was keeping the galactic web intact. In the 1970s, Rubin's namesake astronomer discovered a similar effect at the edges of galaxies, where whizzing stars that should have escaped were instead being held tight. The mark of the unseen material can even be found using starlight itself. The observatory's telescope will be the largest digital camera on the planet, a massive 3,200-megapixel camera. Dark matter can bend light as it passes by, making its source—a distant galaxy, for example—appear distorted. Rubin will collect these warped views, allowing astronomers to "map out where the dark matter is by how we see the light bending as it travels to us," Drlica-Wagner says. Those maps can help illuminate the nature of dark-matter particles, including whether they're cold or hot—seemingly small characteristics with the capacity to reshape our understanding of how the universe assembles galaxies. Dark energy is even more mysterious. The idea emerged in the 1990s, when astrophysicists calculated that the universe was expanding faster over time rather than slowing down, which ran counter to laws of physics that governed the rest of the cosmos. Dark energy was determined to be the driving force, although scientists don't know what it actually is, only that it appears to behave differently than anything else in the universe, Drlica-Wagner says. Unlike dark matter, which, like the regular cosmic stuff, is likely made up of some kind of particles, dark energy stretches the very fabric of space, pushing galaxies apart rather than drawing them together. Rubin's massive catalog of exploding stars will come in handy here: Scientists can use certain kinds of supernovas to trace the universe's expansion, and, in turn, dark energy's role in it. Rubin data could confirm or refute new theories that suggest dark energy is changing over time, rather than remaining constant, upending even Einstein's predictions for this perplexing force. The observatory is expected to return so much data, scientists are preparing to be overjoyed—and perhaps overwhelmed. In the end, the most exciting discoveries Rubin makes might be the ones astronomers haven't yet anticipated. Such is the nature of really good new telescopes: the thrill of what we don't know we don't know. "If someone says, I have never seen a six-foot-tall-rabbit, you can say, sure, how hard have you looked?" Michael Wood-Vasey, an astronomer at the University of Pittsburgh who has spent years helping to prepare the Rubin observatory for operations, says. Perhaps the new observatory, with its constant, scouring gaze, will turn up some cosmic rabbits.
Cision Canada
9 hours ago
- Health
- Cision Canada
Over $7.7M in Ontario-Based Platforms to Advance Open Science and Brain Health Innovation Français
Two cutting-edge platforms at CAMH and Western University aim to accelerate AI-driven brain research and global data sharing TORONTO, June 20, 2025 /CNW/ - Brain Canada is pleased to announce an investment of more than $7.7 million to support two innovative research platforms based in Ontario that will drive forward brain health discovery, data sharing, and open science collaboration. Funded through the Canada Brain Research Fund (CBRF), a visionary partnership between Brain Canada and the Government of Canada, through Health Canada, these two projects will provide Canadian and international researchers with the tools and infrastructure they need to transform how brain disorders are studied, understood, and treated. "Through the Canada Brain Research Fund, the Government of Canada is pleased to support these two essential and innovative research initiatives, which will help drive new discoveries and improve care for people affected by neurological conditions," said the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health. The newly supported platforms are the Brain Health Data Challenge (BHDC) platform, led by Dr. Tristan Glatard at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and the Mesoscopic Integrated Neuroimaging Data (MIND) Platform, led by Dr. Ali Khan at Western University. "Canada is at the forefront of a global shift toward open science in brain research," said Dr. Viviane Poupon, President and CEO of Brain Canada. "These two platforms exemplify how we can responsibly share data, scale innovation, and build collaborative networks to unlock the full potential of neuroscience and AI." ABOUT THE PROJECTS Building Reproducible AI Frameworks for Brain Health with the Brain Health Data Challenge Platform Tristan Glatard, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) (Grant total: $4.9M) With vast amounts of brain health data now available, artificial intelligence is revolutionizing how we understand, diagnose, and treat neurological conditions. However, data privacy regulations often prevent this information from being used in open AI challenges—a key method that has already accelerated innovation in fields like cancer and medical imaging. The BHDC platform will create a secure, privacy-compliant framework to enable AI competitions using Canadian brain health data. By unlocking these datasets for responsible and collaborative use, the platform will foster the development of reproducible and equitable AI models, helping clinicians tailor treatments and improve care for people living with brain disorders. "With this transformative investment from Brain Canada, CAMH is proud to lead the development of a secure and robust framework for ethical AI in mental health," said Dr. Aristotle Voineskos, SVP of Research and Science, CAMH. "The Brain Health Data Challenge will empower researchers globally to address complex brain health questions using advanced data science—while upholding the highest standards of privacy and equity. By enabling predictive, reproducible AI for serious mental illness, we move closer to better care, earlier interventions and improved quality of life." The Mesoscopic Integrated Neuroimaging Data (MIND) Platform Ali Khan, Western University (Grant total: $2.9 million) The MIND Platform combines ultra-powerful MRI and lightsheet microscopy, which enables researchers to see the brain's structure and activity in unprecedented detail. By linking images of living brains with detailed microscopy of brain tissue, scientists can gain deeper insights into how diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's progress, affect brain circuits, and can be treated. The MIND Platform builds on two internationally recognized imaging facilities at Western University to create a centralized, standardized repository for high-resolution brain tissue data. Through a user-friendly online portal, researchers around the world will be able to send brain tissue for imaging and access powerful tools to analyze the data—without requiring advanced infrastructure at every site. By adopting global data standards and a robust open science framework, the MIND Platform will fuel national and international collaboration, enabling deeper understanding of brain structure, function, and disease. "Western is internationally recognized for its strengths in neuroimaging, with a long history of innovation and collaboration," said Robert Bartha, Vice Dean of Research and Innovation at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. "The MIND Platform builds on that foundation, pairing powerful imaging technologies with open science to push the boundaries of how we explore and understand the brain." Together, these platforms mark a major step forward in Canada's leadership in brain research, making it easier for scientists to share knowledge, build on each other's work, and transform brain health through open, data-driven innovation. About Brain Canada Brain Canada is a national charitable organization that enables and supports excellent, innovative, and collaborative brain research in Canada. Through the Canada Brain Research Fund, a public-private partnership with the Government of Canada through Health Canada, Brain Canada funds initiatives that advance knowledge, drive innovation, and accelerate the development of diagnostics, treatments, and cures. About the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital and a world leading research centre in this field. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental illness and addiction. CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto and is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. For more information, please visit or follow @CAMHnews on Bluesky and LinkedIn. About Western University Western University delivers an academic experience second to none. Since 1878, The Western Experience has combined academic excellence with life-long opportunities for intellectual, social and cultural growth in order to better serve our communities. Our research excellence expands knowledge and drives discovery with real-world application. Western attracts individuals with a broad worldview, seeking to study, influence and lead in the international community. CAMH [email protected] Western University Crystal Mackay Director, Media Relations m. 519-933-5944 e. [email protected] Brain Canada Kate Shingler, Senior Director, Strategic Communications [email protected] 514-550-8308 SOURCE Brain Canada
CTV News
3 days ago
- CTV News
‘Adopting a critical stance': Researchers at Western launch project to get people talking about AI
It's impacting our lives faster, and in more ways than we realize. Now researchers at Western University are hoping to de-mystify artificial intelligence, and how it fits into our digital worlds. 'If you're using a Google search, if you're watching a streaming service, it tells you what videos to watch, or what things you'll like. If you're using any sort of social media, those algorithms are sort of dictating whose posts you'll see and do not see. If you're online, it's telling you which advertisements should show up if you previously searched for this thing,' explained Dani Dilkes. The E-learning and Curriculum Specialist at Western University's Centre for Education, is one of the educators behind the Generative AI Challenge. 'So, generative AI is a subset of artificial intelligence, and it involves the generation of new content. So, you can generate text, videos, images,' explained Cortney Hanna-Benson, associate director, Digital Learning Centre at Western. The project asks participants to take on a weekly AI challenge posted online. For instance, testing AI tools for bias and stereotypes, or a quiz gauging how people feel about AI. 'So it's less about pushing them towards adoption, and more about adopting a critical stance of what using AI means, or what engaging with AI looks like,' said Hanna-Benson. Each challenge shows how important it is to have some general knowledge of AI. That's because so much of what AI generates is not necessarily truth or accurate, said Dilkes. 'And it does have a high error rate to produce what are called hallucinations, so incorrect information. Often it will reference resources that don't actually exist. And that's actually part of the point of the challenge. The reason it does that is how it understands knowledge. It's not fact-checking. It doesn't actually really understand what you're asking. It's basing its responses on probability,' she said. The Generative AI challenge is eight weeks, and open to anyone.
National Post
4 days ago
- Health
- National Post
Why more Canadians are landing in emergency departments with cannabis-induced vomiting
Emergency departments are seeing a spike in visits owing to a once unusual, highly unpleasant and, in rare cases, potentially life-threatening side effect of chronic cannabis use: severe bouts of vomiting lasting hours, even days. Article content As pot becomes more potent and more convenient to purchase, emergency doctors are reporting more cases of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS, a gastrointestinal condition that can affect people who use cannabis frequently (several times a week, if not daily) over months or years. Article content Article content In addition to 'cyclical' vomiting, other signs include morning nausea, intense abdominal pain and 'relief through compulsive hot showers or baths,' Western University researchers recently wrote. It's increasingly affecting teens and young adults, they report. 'Yet few people — including many clinicians — know it exists.' Article content Article content Emergency department visits for CHS increased 13-fold in Ontario after the legalization of recreational cannabis in 2018, one study found. While weed's legalization wasn't associated with a sudden or gradual change in cases, pot's commercialization — unlimited number of stores, more products — overlapping with the COVID-19 pandemic, was associated with an immediate bump in rates. Article content The potency of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, is also off the charts, said Western's Jamie Seabrook, rising from about three per cent in dried cannabis in the 1980s to, according to Health Canada, 15 per cent in 2023. Some strains have as high as 30 per cent THC. Article content Article content 'When I talk to youth, they can easily access strains that are upwards of 25 per cent. And that's huge,' said Seabrook, a professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics, and the department of pediatrics. The human brain continues to develop up to around age 25, he said. THC exposure over this period has been linked with problems with attention, memory and learning, as well as increased risks of paranoia, psychosis and, more recently, schizophrenia. Article content Nine of the 10 'displayed an abnormal washing behaviour during episodes of active illness.' Article content The Ontario study documented 12,866 emergency department visits by 8,140 individuals between January 2014 and June 2021, or pre- and post-legalization. About 35 per cent were aged 19 to 24. Nearly 10 per cent of visits led to hospital admissions. Monthly rates of CHS emergency visits increased from 0.26 per 100,000 population in January 2014, to 3.43 visits per 100,000 population in 2021.
