If just 24 children can help scientists discover that Caesarean sections and formula feeding may deprive babies of the protective gut bacteria needed for lifelong health, just imagine what will be discovered by collecting a wide range of health information from some 3,500 children. Scientists believe it will influence everything from health policy and building codes to parenting decisions for decades to come. Read more.

A Toronto start-up is helping automakers produce lighter vehicles that meet tougher emission standards in Canada and the U.S. Read more.

What started as a "logistical nightmare" – marking 5,000 exams with just 100 graders for the 2011 Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge (COMC) – has evolved into a rapidly growing start-up with global market potential. Read more.

First, Canada built the world’s most advanced subsea cabled observatories, resulting in an unprecedented flow of real-time data and images from the ocean floor. Then other coastal countries came calling to see how we did it. Ocean Networks Canada Innovation Centre (ONCIC) not only fields those calls, it is also assembling consortia of Canadian companies with the expertise and experience needed to build and maintain similar systems for a $3-billion global market projected to double in size in just a few years. Read more.

Canada’s arthritis community has borrowed a page from the private sector when it comes to success. Rule #1: Listen to the consumer. Read more.

The high risks and escalating costs of drug development have made it difficult for early-stage biotech companies to attract financing. Those that succeed often have to relinquish too much equity; those that don’t may move out of Canada or close up shop. These challenges, combined with imminent patent cliffs, have triggered a major restructuring of the global pharmaceutical industry as companies race to decrease risk and become more capital efficient. Read more.

Climate change is rapidly transforming the Arctic and drawing increasing attention to the region’s global and geopolitical importance. Local communities, policymakers, regulators and industry need a solid foundation of science and traditional knowledge to address these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities. Read more.

Promising green chemistry technologies are being developed in university labs across Canada, but few make it to market. That’s because industry wants technologies that are proven to be scalable, optimized for specific applications, produced in kilogram-scale batches and largely de-risked. Academics rarely have the resources to take those steps. Read more.

Canada has many local, provincial and national programs aimed at reducing bullying. Unfortunately, few are based on evidence and even fewer are scientifically evaluated to measure their effectiveness. As a result, Canada ranks in the bottom third internationally when it comes to bullying and victimization. At the same time, parents, teachers and those who work with children and youth must protect children from all forms of abuse, including bullying. Read more.

Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows often lack the opportunity to apply their research to real-world business challenges. Having this experience not only makes them more employable, it also helps Canadian companies become more innovative, productive and competitive. Read more.

The availability of safe drinking water, sustainable infrastructure and good public health practices are complex global issues that require multiple stakeholders and scientific disciplines to come up with solutions that are cost-effective and sustainable. Read more.

ICT has grown faster than the overall Canadian economy over the past five years, created 32,000 jobs between 2011 and 2012, and performed 33% of all private sector research and development in 2012. Yet to remain competitive, Canada needs to connect innovative firms to sales opportunities globally, promote linkages between firms to advance business-to-business market opportunities, and leverage government investments to benefit hundreds of small and medium sized firms. Read more.

Canada is recognized as a global leader in stem cell and bioengineering science, with over 400 stem cell scientists working in 68 research centres within, or affiliated with, 25 Canadian universities. Given its rich history of research excellence in the field, this country is uniquely placed to be one of the earliest beneficiaries of stem cell advances. Read more.

Canada is a global steward of the sea, with three world-class science clusters (British Columbia, Quebec and Atlantic Canada) and the longest coastline in the world. A recent Council of Canadian Academies report concluded that coordination across jurisdictions and disciplines is critical to maintaining this leadership position. The NCE has been doing exactly that since funding the first national network in this sector in 2003. Read more.

Developing new drugs is a long, complex and expensive process. The NCE supports several models that are helping reduce the risk and accelerate the commercialization of medical innovations that will improve health-care delivery and patient care in Canada and abroad. Read more.

Municipalities and regulators have not always seen eye to eye on the best way to ensure the safety of drinking water. Ontario’s regulations, for example, are among the most stringent in North America, yet ambiguities and scientific inconsistencies have resulted in some municipalities investing in expensive groundwater treatments when more affordable and equally effective options were available for protecting public health. Read more.

Oil and gas exploration companies and transport vessels now have access to a more affordable and efficient tool to guard against icebergs in harsh ocean environments. Developed through LOOKNorth (Leading Operational Observations and Knowledge for the North), the Altimeter Iceberg Detector (AID) has already been used to help with oil exploration and a round-the-world yacht race. Read more.