U of M chemist earns award for work on new drug candidate for treating Lou Gehrig’s disease

A University of Manitoba PhD candidate with a dramatic life story has been awarded the Mitacs Innovation Award for co-inventing an aspiring new drug candidate for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, announced Monday.

“I thought, like, it’s a spam call. Then someone told me that, ‘You have been selected for the (award),’ so I was numb for 10 to 20 seconds,” says medicinal chemist Nitesh Sanghai, currently pursuing a doctorate at the U of M’s college of pharmacy under the supervision of Prof. Geoffrey K. Tranmer.

Sanghai doesn’t talk about “rags to riches” but instead “grass to grace” in describing his trajectory. The 43-year-old from Jharia, a small town in the Jharkhand district of India, says he was the first person in his family to pass India’s Grade 10 board examination, a gateway to further secondary and post-secondary education.

“I thought of breaking the cycle and pursuing studies with passion and privilege, which my family never had,” he says.

Rare red auroras dazzle as part of Manitoba light show

Solar storm chasers, rejoice: 2025 was an excellent year for aurora borealis, and the remainder of the year could be just as active.

In the cool of a Portugal night, it’s time to pick the grapes

VIMIEIRO, Portugal (AP) — Under a moonlit sky and the glow of headlamps, workers gingerly pluck grape clusters while much of Portugal sleeps.

They harvest in the Alentejo region, sometimes called the “Tuscany of Portugal” for its rolling vineyards, olive groves and forests that supply cork for the wines. In this vineyard about a 90-minute drive east of Lisbon, the cool autumn night carries the smell of ripe fruit. The workers' laughter blends with the sound of rustling leaves.

The night harvest is a time-honored practice in viticulture, meant to preserve the freshness of grapes and shield them from the adverse effects of daytime heat, sunlight and oxidation. As summers in Portugal grow longer, hotter and more unpredictable — in part due to climate change — the practice has become more common here.

Bárbara Monteiro, co-owner and manager of the Herdade Da Fonte Santa vineyard said she struggled at first to convince her harvesters to work at night — midnight to 8 a.m. They began doing so in 2019.

New study adds to the possibility of favorable conditions for life at Saturn’s moon Enceladus

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have uncovered new types of organics in icy geysers spouting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, bolstering the likelihood that the ocean world may harbor conditions suitable for life.

Their findings, reported Wednesday, are based on observations made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2008 during a close and fast flyby of Enceladus. The small moon, one of 274 orbiting Saturn, has long been considered a prime candidate in the search for life beyond Earth because of its hidden ocean and plumes of water erupting from cracks near its south pole.

While Enceladus may be habitable, no one is suggesting that life exists.

“Being habitable and being inhabited are two very different things. We believe that Enceladus is habitable, but we do not know if life is indeed present," said the University of Washington's Fabian Klenner, who took part in the study.

Researchers solve decades-old color mystery in iconic Jackson Pollock painting

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have identified the origins of the blue color in one of Jackson Pollock's paintings with a little help from chemistry, confirming for the first time that the abstract expressionist used a vibrant, synthetic pigment known as manganese blue.

“Number 1A, 1948,” showcases Pollock's classic style: paint has been dripped and splattered across the canvas, creating a vivid, multicolored work. Pollock even gave the piece a personal touch, adding his handprints near the top.

The painting, currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is almost 9 feet (2.7 meters) wide. Scientists had previously characterized the reds and yellows splattered across the canvas, but the source of the rich turquoise blue proved elusive.

In a new study, researchers took scrapings of the blue paint and used lasers to scatter light and measure how the paint's molecules vibrated. That gave them a unique chemical fingerprint for the color, which they pinpointed as manganese blue.

Residents pour cold water on proposed development in St. Vital

Some south St. Vital residents hope to stop a development proposal to build 23 new homes over fears the construction would put their well water at risk.

The proposal aims to add the homes at 45 Daman Farm Rd., 100 Jean Louis Rd. and 2974 St. Mary’s Rd., a 57-acre property on the west side of St. Mary’s Road in the St. Vital Perimeter South neighbourhood. The area is located within city limits but does not have city water and sewer service.

“This particular property lies in a sensitive groundwater area and every well that’s drilled in this area just contaminates the water even further by adding more salt,” said Michelle Olivson, who lives in the area.

City staff recommended the housing application be rejected over the groundwater concerns but city council’s property and development committee voted in favour of the project Friday, echoing a previous community committee vote.

Study estimates 2023 Canadian wildfire smoke caused 82,000 premature deaths globally

VANCOUVER - Smoke from record-breaking Canadian wildfires in 2023 caused an estimated 5,400 acute deaths and about 82,100 premature deaths worldwide, a new study shows.

The study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature acknowledges some variation in mortality estimates depending on the methods used, but says its overall conclusion is the smoke led to an "enormous and far-reaching" health burden.

Canadian co-author Michael Brauer says the findings serve as a "wake-up call" for areas that haven't typically seen repeated or prolonged exposure to wildfire smoke.

The health impacts will only increase with worsening climate change, he says, and understanding them is crucial for managing the risk and protecting people.

Takeaways from a hunt for ‘secret’ fresh water under the North Atlantic seabed

ABOARD LIFTBOAT ROBERT, North Atlantic (AP) — It turns out the Continental Shelf has been holding a secret from the ages. Beneath the sea floor off the U.S. northeast lies an enormous reserve of fresh water whose existence was long unknown, then was suspected and now is confirmed.

The first global expedition to drill systematically for undersea fresh water has come away with thousands of samples of it. And this comes as rising sea levels and other harms from a warming climate threaten freshwater supplies on land.

Expedition 501, a $25 million collaboration of more than a dozen countries including the U.S., drilled 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) off the coast into what is now believed to be a freshwater reserve stretching from New Jersey to Maine. It's just one of many prospective depositories of fresh water hiding under shallow salt waters around the world that might some day be tapped to slake the planet’s intensifying thirst.

Associated Press journalists visited the drilling platform last month, some seven hours out to sea by supply boat from Fall River, Massachusetts, to view the operation. Here are some takeaways:

Scientists tap ‘secret’ fresh water under the ocean, raising hopes for a thirsty world

ABOARD LIFTBOAT ROBERT, North Atlantic (AP) — Deep in Earth's past, an icy landscape became a seascape as the ice melted and the oceans rose off what is now the northeastern United States. Nearly 50 years ago, a U.S. government ship searching for minerals and hydrocarbons in the area drilled into the seafloor to see what it could find.

It found, of all things, drops to drink under the briny deeps — fresh water.

This summer, a first-of-its-kind global research expedition followed up on that surprise. Drilling for fresh water under the salt water off Cape Cod, Expedition 501 extracted thousands of samples from what is now thought to be a massive, hidden aquifer stretching from New Jersey as far north as Maine.

It's just one of many depositories of “secret fresh water” known to exist in shallow salt waters around the world that might some day be tapped to slake the planet’s intensifying thirst, said Brandon Dugan, the expedition's co-chief scientist.

Green chemist and musician on fighting climate change

There’s no shortage of doom and gloom associated with the words “climate change” these days. As a result, many people are stressed out and feeling helpless.

Particularly concerning is that, more than ever, younger people are experiencing considerable distress with environmental anxiety, also known as eco-anxiety or climate anxiety. The Journal of Mental Health and Climate Change, an open-access publication that features interdisciplinary scientific research on mental health and climate change, continues to write extensively on this subject.

While prominent environmental activists, including well-known science broadcaster David Suzuki, paint a bleak picture of the future, many other professionals in various fields are working tirelessly to educate, inspire and fight the good fight for the next generations.

Born and raised in Lynn Lake, Man., Devin Latimer is one of those professionals. The faculty member in chemistry at the University of Winnipeg is also a long-time musician, bass player with local band Leaf Rapids and the Juno award-winning Nathan Music Co.

Getting river rehab rolling: Other cities' success in stemming effluent offer splashes of hope for Winnipeg's waterways

From giant cisterns to rain gardens, storage tunnels and parks, cities across Canada — and the rest of the world — have shown there are plenty of options to stop the overflow of sewage into freshwater.

Shoal Lake 40 toasts clean water

SHOAL LAKE 40 FIRST NATION – As he raised his glass, Chief Vernon Redsky looked at the water and a memory came rushing back. It reminded him of when he was a kid, he said, and the water in Shoal Lake was crystal-clear like that, back when he and his friends would splash along the shore, drinking from the lake when they got thirsty.

So he thought about that as he clinked his glass against two others, and took a sip. A toast, to the first officially safe tap drinking water in Shoal Lake 40: on Wednesday, after 24 years, the Treaty Three First Nation’s boil water advisory officially ended.

“It’s surreal to be at this moment,” Redsky said at a ceremony to celebrate the achievement, as well as the opening of the community’s new school.

One day earlier, a government official in Kenora, Ont., had officially approved the latest test results from Shoal Lake 40’s new water treatment plant, which started pumping this summer. That night, Redsky couldn’t sleep; he called a former chief to talk about the long road they had travelled to get to this point.