Barbara Sherwood Lollar

Nobel Laureate John Polanyi: 'What can we do to prevent nuclear war?'

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 05:00:00 +0000

Nobel Laureate John Polanyi: 'What can we do to prevent nuclear war?'

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 11/14/2019 - 00:00

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U of T's John Polanyi remains committed to raising the public’s awareness of the threat of the arms race: “Our task is to keep that process of education going" (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Chris Sasaki

Topic

Global Lens

Alumni

Barbara Sherwood Lollar

Chemistry

Earth Sciences

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

John Polanyi

Nobel Prize

This past August, six months after the contentious breakdown of talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and mere days after joint U.S.- South Korea military exercises ended, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.

The missiles prompted an international response, including a call from South Korea for the restart of talks between the U.S. and its neighbour to the north.

The incident was yet another tense confrontation between nuclear powers – a litany that began in the mid-20^th century with the atomic bomb, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, the Korean War and other global events.

The chilling history of the Cold War, the arms race and nuclear proliferation was recently recounted by John Polanyi, Nobel laureate and a University Professor at the University of Toronto’s department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science, in a talk titled “What can we do to prevent nuclear war?”

Polanyi, a Fellow of the Royal Society – the United Kingdom’s national academy of sciences – as well as a Companion of the Order of Canada, was speaking at an event organized by the U of T chapter of Science for Peace. It took place on Oct. 2 at the George Ignatieff Theatre and was livestreamed.

In his opening remarks, Adnan Zuberi, a ��οalumnus and a member of the chapter’s board of directors, explained that Science for Peace “seeks to understand and act on matters of militarism, social injustice and environmental destruction.”

He added that Science for Peace was founded in 1981 when “many notable academic scientists at ��οsaw the Cold War and the number of nuclear weapons getting out of control and realized they had to step in and bring scientific reasoning and sensibility to de-escalate matters.”

Barbara Sherwood Lollar, a University Professor in the department of Earth sciences, introduced Polanyi, pointing out that the winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry could rightly claim a share in the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize as well. It was awarded to the Pugwash Conferences – a global movement of scholars dedicated to reducing the threat of armed conflict – and Polanyi was the founding chair of the Canadian Pugwash.

Sherwood Lollar described Polanyi as “a conscience for the idea of how scientists and engineers can act with and in support of society to move us forward on the kinds of goals and enormous challenges that are facing us.”

Polanyi began by paying his respects to Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate change activist who was in Canada at the time of the talk.

“What she said to the UN General Assembly could just as well be said about the arms race and nuclear weapons. She said, ‘You pretend that this can be solved by business as usual. Change is coming whether you like it or not.’ I see this as being true of the grievous danger we face in a nuclear war.”

As Polanyi continued, it became clear that his life and the history of the arms race have been woven together since the Cold War began.

In 1950, U.S. President Harry Truman was still deciding whether to greenlight the development of the hydrogen bomb – a device that would dwarf the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – when Polanyi’s friend, German-American theoretical physicist Hans Bethe, had an article published in Scientific American magazine that made a passionate case against the new weapon.

Polanyi quoted Bethe’s article, saying, “‘Can we [the U.S.], who insist on morality and humanity, introduce this weapon of total annihilation into the world? Shall we convince the Russians of the value of the individual by killing millions?’

“We’re still trying to absorb the truth of what Bethe said. That we shouldn’t have anything to do with such a weapon.”

The H-bomb was developed by both the U.S. and the Soviet Union and it was in the shadow of this growing threat that Polanyi attended the Pugwash Conference in Moscow in 1960.

In Moscow, Polanyi’s “hero,” Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard, addressed the problem of nuclear proliferation by suggesting that the U.S. and Soviets should be limited to one weapon each – “one buried under Moscow and one under Washington.”

Despite attempts to limit global nuclear arsenals, Polanyi explained, the number of weapons grew into the tens of thousands and eventually abated, not because of the effectiveness of mutual deterrence, but through a thawing of the Cold War under Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Polanyi observed that the threat of nuclear conflict is as real today as when U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev inched the world to the brink of nuclear war when the Soviets deployed ballistic missiles in Cuba.

He reminded the audience that the latest chapter is being written by Trump and Kim, “one of whom is becoming unhinged” – without specifying which of the two leaders he was referring to.

Despite the gravity of the subject and the dramas being played out on today’s geopolitical stage, Polanyi remains inspiring, optimistic and – as his talks and public appearances attest – committed to the importance of raising the public’s awareness of the threat of the arms race.

“Our task is to keep that process of education going,” he said, answering the question in the talk’s title. “We should rejoice that we were born at this time and have that noble task ahead of us.”

Renowned ��οgeoscientist presented with the Geological Association of Canada’s highest honour

noreen.rasbach — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 04:00:00 +0000

Renowned ��οgeoscientist presented with the Geological Association of Canada’s highest honour

noreen.rasbach Mon, 07/30/2018 - 00:00

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University Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar has been awarded the Geological Association of Canada’s Logan Medal for her sustained distinguished achievement in Canadian earth science (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Topic

Global Lens

Awards

Barbara Sherwood Lollar

Earth Sciences

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Research & Innovation

University Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar of the department of earth sciences has been awarded the Geological Association of Canada’s highest honour – the Logan Medal.

Presented to an individual who has displayed sustained distinguished achievement in Canadian earth science, the Logan Medal celebrates Sherwood Lollar’s exceptional career of geological contributions.

A Canada Research Chair in Isotopes of the Earth and Environment and the director of the Stable Isotope Laboratory at U of T, Sherwood Lollar has spent her career researching earth and environmental geoscience and isotope geochemistry in Canada and abroad.

“It’s a very special honour to be awarded a medal that reflects the long and distinguished history of Canadian achievement in geosciences,” said Sherwood Lollar.

Her research is wide-ranging and impactful, from projects that inform public policy and improve remediation of groundwater resources globally, to spearheading international research collaborations to uncover the most ancient water on earth, a discovery with potential implications for life on other planets.

“Geosciences occupy such a central role in science and society – from sustainable energy and mineral resources to climate change, water resource protection and environmental restoration – literally the intersection of humankind with the planet on multiple levels,” said Sherwood Lollar.

Team led by ��οresearchers discovers energy source sustaining microbial life deep beneath Earth’s surface

ullahnor — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:49:09 +0000

Team led by ��οresearchers discovers energy source sustaining microbial life deep beneath Earth’s surface

ullahnor Thu, 10/27/2016 - 11:49

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Sulfide minerals in the host rock, including pyrite, are oxidized by products of radiolysis to produce the source of sulfate found in the fracture waters (photos by K. Gorra)

Patchen Barss

Author legacy

Patchen Barss

Topic

Global Lens

Faculty of Arts & Science

Earth Sciences

Barbara Sherwood Lollar

Research

Collaboration

In Northern Ontario, a team led by ��οresearchers has found the “geochemical fingerprints of life” and the energy sustaining this life in waters more than two kilometres below the surface of the Earth. The discovery demonstrates how life can be sustained even in the seemingly inhospitable environments of the deep Earth crust.

Most life on Earth gets its energy – directly or indirectly – from the sun. But there are other options.

“Microbial subsurface communities are often chemosynthetic, not photosynthetic,” says University Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar in the department of earth sciences at the Faculty of Arts & Science. “In chemosynthesis, a molecule like hydrogen ‘donates’ electrons, and sulfate ‘accepts’ them. Basically, all metabolism works through this kind of exchange of electrons. That’s how energy works. That’s how life works.”

The chemical reactions producing the electron donor in these deep waters had been identified several years ago, but the source of sulfate – the electron acceptor – had been elusive.

Co-authors Barbara Sherwood Lollar and Georges Lacrampe-Couloume, holding pyrite rich rocks from the field site ( photo by K. Gorra)

In a paper published this week in Nature Communications, Sherwood Lollar and her colleagues report that sulfate dissolved in these waters 2.4 km below the surface comes from oxidation of the sulfide minerals in the ancient rocks via chemicals produced when radiation breaks the water down into its constituent parts.

First author Long Li, now the Canada Research Chair in stable isotope geochemistry at the University of Alberta, worked with Sherwood Lollar at ��οas a postdoctoral fellow. Along with researchers from McGill University, they studied the distribution pattern of multiple sulfur isotopes – that is, sulfur atoms that differ by the number of neutrons – in the dissolved sulfate in ancient subterranean waters near Timmins, Ont.

Read about the latest findings in Deep Carbon Observatory

Their earlier work had revealed that these waters contain hydrogen and sulfate – key components that make life possible without sunlight. The multiple sulfur isotope compositions in the sulfate show a unique pattern, only seen in rocks formed before oxygen appeared in Earth’s atmosphere about 2.4 billion years ago.

By matching this isotopic feature in the dissolved sulfate with that of pyrite in the 2.7-billion-year-old rocks hosting the waters, the researchers demonstrated that the same pyrite and other sulfide ores that make these rocks ideal for economic mining of metals, produce the “fuel” for microbial metabolisms.

But there were other surprises in store.

“When we looked at the sulfate dissolved in these waters, we found it was more enriched in an isotope called sulphur 34 than expected,” Sherwood Lollar says.

Read about Barbara Sherwood Lollar being honoured by the Royal Society of Canada

Two of U of T's University Professors honoured by Royal Society for exceptional contributions

ullahnor — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 16:01:48 +0000

Two of U of T's University Professors honoured by Royal Society for exceptional contributions

ullahnor Thu, 09/29/2016 - 12:01

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Barbara Sherwood Lollar, left, and Linda Hutcheon, right, have been awarded medals by the Royal Society of Canada (photo composite by Diana Tyszko)

Kim Luke

Author legacy

Kim Luke

Topic

Barbara Sherwood Lollar

The Royal Society of Canada is honouring two ��οscholars, Linda Hutcheon and Barbara Sherwood Lollar, both holders of the prestigious distinction of University Professor, a title held by only two per cent of the tenured faculty.

Hutcheon, University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, will receive the 2016 Lorne Pierce Medal for achievements in critical literature which have transformed understanding of “Canadian identity.”

Sherwood Lollar, University Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, has been selected to receive the Bancroft Medal, a prize for work that contributes enormously to public understanding and appreciation of the earth sciences.

“Both Linda Hutcheon and Barbara Sherwood Lollar are enormously respected in the international community as influential leaders in their fields,” said David Cameron, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science. “This latest accolade reminds us how highly they are both valued by their home country as well.”

Hutcheon became a scholar of Canadian literature following her training in comparative European literature, a step she describes as “natural for a Canadian watching the exhilarating post-Massey Report flowering of our literary culture. In the '70s, the excitement was palpable, and continues to be so.”

The 1951 Massey Report had warned that Canadian culture was becoming invisible in the shadow of the American invasion of film, radio and periodicals, leading the government to require Canada’s mass media to encourage Canadian content.

"Being awarded the Lorne Pierce Medal, with its emphasis on the study of the literature of Canada, is an immense honour for me, and not only because of the many brilliant Canadianists who have won it before,” said Hutcheon. Previous medallists include Alice Munro, Rudy Wiebe and Rosemary Sullivan.

Hutcheon has achieved broad international recognition as a literary theorist, a major critical voice on Canadian writing and culture, and as an interdisciplinary collaborative scholar. The author of nine books and co-author of four in collaboration with physician Michael Hutcheon, she has also edited 16 books or special issues of journals and published 300 articles and book chapters.

A translator of Québec writers, Hutcheon also co-edited a book of interviews and fiction on what was for her a defining part of Canadian culture: its multicultural as well as bicultural/bilingual identity. Her Other Solitudes (1990) grew out of what she calls her “crypto-ethnic” experience: her married name conceals her cultural identity as an Italian Canadian.

“I was driven by a desire to understand why culture matters, how Canadian culture helps shape individual, regional and national senses of self, and how cultural and linguistic diversity can and should be seen and practiced as forms of enrichment and invigoration rather than abrasion and instability,” she said.

For Sherwood Lollar, being selected as the recipient of the Bancroft Award marks an important tribute to the depth and breadth of the earth sciences.

Sherwood Lollar’s research ranges from projects that inform public policy and improve remediation of groundwater resources globally, to spearheading international research collaborations to uncover the most ancient water on earth, a discovery with potential implications for life on other planets.

These deep waters, found three kilometres beneath the Canadian Shield, were reported in the prestigious journal Nature and has captured both the scientific community’s attention and the public’s imagination with several news outlets noting the discovery as one of the top 10 science stories of 2013.

A second paper, also published in Nature on the hydrogen and methane-rich waters of the deep crust sparked similar attention for its implications not only for expanding our understanding of Earth’s subsurface life and habitability but for insights to the origin of methane – and possibly life – on Mars.

Sherwood Lollar’s research in groundwater quality and remediation – investigations of bioremediation of toxic organic compounds using compound specific stable isotope analysis (CSIA) – revolutionized approaches to remedy environmental contamination.

While the scientific community was aware that certain organic contaminants – particularly petroleum and chlorinated hydrocarbons – could be remediated by naturally occurring microbial communities, there was no solid “in situ” evidence of the effectiveness of the process and this, understandably stood in the way of regulatory approval and support.

Sherwood Lollar provided the necessary proof. In the words of research microbiologist John Wilson of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CSIA was like “turning the lights on” by providing one of the few convincing means of demonstrating the effectiveness of natural microbial alternatives. The scientific approaches and research field Sherwood Lollar pioneered are now in widespread use throughout the world.

In 2000, Sherwood Lollar was selected by Time as one of 25 “Leaders for the 21st Century,” and in 2013 Canadian Geographic named her one of the “Top Canadians Changing the World.” In 2012, she received the Eni Award in Protection of the Environment, a prestigious international prize for outstanding research in fields of energy and the environment.

Most recently, she entered the Order of Canada at its highest level: Companion of the Order of Canada, was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and won the NSERC John C. Polanyi Award, one of Canada’s highest honours in science and engineering.

Hutcheon and Sherwood Lollar will receive their awards at a ceremony at the Royal Society of Canada’s Annual General Meeting on Nov. 18, 2016.

Barbara Sherwood Lollar

Nobel Laureate John Polanyi: 'What can we do to prevent nuclear war?'

Renowned ��οgeoscientist presented with the Geological Association of Canada’s highest honour

Read more about Barbara Sherwood Lollar

Team led by ��οresearchers discovers energy source sustaining microbial life deep beneath Earth’s surface

Read about the latest findings in Deep Carbon Observatory

Read more about Barbara Sherwood Lollar's research

Read about Barbara Sherwood Lollar being honoured by the Royal Society of Canada

Two of U of T's University Professors honoured by Royal Society for exceptional contributions

Barbara Sherwood Lollar

Nobel Laureate John Polanyi: 'What can we do to prevent nuclear war?'

Renowned ��������οgeoscientist presented with the Geological Association of Canada’s highest honour

Read more about Barbara Sherwood Lollar

Team led by ��������οresearchers discovers energy source sustaining microbial life deep beneath Earth’s surface

Read about the latest findings in Deep Carbon Observatory

Read more about Barbara Sherwood Lollar's research

Read about Barbara Sherwood Lollar being honoured by the Royal Society of Canada

Two of U of T's University Professors honoured by Royal Society for exceptional contributions

Renowned ��οgeoscientist presented with the Geological Association of Canada’s highest honour

Team led by ��οresearchers discovers energy source sustaining microbial life deep beneath Earth’s surface