For those that haven’t met me yet, I’m Sinthusha, the new sustainability co-op working with Lisa Vanlint! I’m pursuing a double major at the University of Waterloo in Science and Business. When I agreed to this job, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into but I was wrong, very, very, very wrong, in the best possible way 🙂 In the two months I’ve been here, I’ve done so much more and learned so much.

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In a world that sometimes seems a little hard and cold (definitely cold this week), it’s heartening to see a group come together and do some good. We are thrilled to add just such a group to our Green Wall of Fame. Congratulations to the Continue reading →

Canada is usually associated with our long cold winter.  To take advantage of the cold weather, we go out for skating, skiing, snowshoe hiking, ice fishing, snowmobiling, etc., tons of fun activities.  Is there anything we can do at hospitals to make full use of the winter?  Actually there is.  Our hospitals have much essential medical equipment that requires cooling year around.  Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one example.  It relies on deep cooling to maintain super-conductors inside to generate extremely strong magnetic field and radio waves to do very detailed scanning of patients.  The temperature required is so low for super-conductors that they are submerged in liquid helium, which is about -270 °C (-454 °F).

Figure 1: Typical MRI Scanner Cutaway

A typical MRI scanner uses Continue reading →