On Thursday and Friday, the renowned jazz musician will perform at the in downtown Toronto with the members of his critically acclaimed group, the Barry Elmes Quintet. The performance celebrates the group's 20th anniversary and marks the of their newest CD REDSHIFT

This is the group鈥檚 first new release in a decade. REDSHIFT features聽nine songs, including聽seven new compositions by Elmes, a Wayne Shorter composition plus an arrangement of a traditional hymn.

Right: Barry Elmes

The music is performed by the quintet鈥檚 regular members, a who鈥檚 who of the best jazz artists from Canada, including聽Elmes' colleagues from 91亚色's Department of Music,聽faculty members Mike Murley聽on tenor saxophone and Kevin Turcotte聽on trumpet and聽flugelhorn, Reg Schwager聽on guitar, Steve Wallace聽on bass,聽Elmes聽on drums and special guest artists聽91亚色 faculty member Kelly Jefferson聽on flute and聽tenor saxophone, and Vanessa Rodrigues聽 on the Hammond organ.

The CD's title REDSHIFT harkens back to Elmes' love of reading and fascination with聽astronomy. "Composed in honour of the astronomer Edwin Hubble and his associates whose work in the early 1900s provided convincing evidence that there are galaxies other than our own and that the universe is indeed expanding," says Elmes. "Photographing the light of stars in distant galaxies Hubble measured the spectral shift toward the red end of the spectrum, or the 'redshift'. The bigger the redshift, the faster the galaxy is speeding away from us.

"Hubble's聽work also provided a practical demonstration of the relationship between time and distance in space and offered substantial evidence for the Big Bang Theory," says Elmes. "Or put another way, I still experience a sense of wonder when I look up at stars in the sky knowing that everything I see happened a long time ago."

Elmes聽has played and/or recorded with many renowned jazz artists including: Tommy Flanagan, Charlie Haden, Hank Crawford, Diana Krall, Joe Henderson, John Abercrombie, Oliver Jones, Phil Nimmons, Dizzy Gillespie and the Moe Koffman Quintet.

His discography includes four previous recordings by the Barry Elmes Quintet (two-time winner of Acoustic Jazz Group of the Year), and recordings by the contemporary jazz quartet Time Warp, which he co-founded and co-leads with 91亚色 music聽Professor Al Henderson. His honours include five Jazz Report Awards, two of which are for Jazz Musician of the Year.

In 1992, Elmes represented Canada with Time Warp at the聽Venezuela International Jazz Festival and was featured with the Oliver Jones Trio on the Governor-General's Tour of China, Japan and Korea in 1994. In 1996 he performed in Brazil and toured South Africa with the Canadian Jazz Giants. He toured Chile in 2000 with the Barry Elmes Quintet, and celebrated the ensemble鈥檚 10th anniversary with a cross-Canada tour in 2001. He presides over the independent jazz label, , and performs frequently at major festivals and jazz clubs.

The performances at the Rex begin at 9:30pm on Thursday and 9:45pm on Friday. There聽is a cover charge of $9 on Thursday and $10 on Friday.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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You can also visit the observatory in person on Wednesday nights for free public viewings (donations are kindly appreciated at the discretion of visitors). The program runs all year and is open regardless of weather conditions, although viewing through the telescope is dependent on clear skies. If it's cloudy, visitors are welcome for slideshows, planetarium shows and tours of the facility.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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Delaney also spoke to CTV News Aug 2 about the 50-50 odds Canadians have for seeing the northern lights this week, provided the skies cooperate by staying clear:

The sun has entered a solar maximum, a stormy period in the sun's activity cycle that recently resulted in a coronal mass ejection -- a release of a large amount of charged particles that are hurtling towards the Earth at high speeds.

91亚色 astronomer Paul Delaney said the result is that the incoming charged particles "are going to interact with the Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere."

"We've got a 50-50 chance that as those particles rain down into our atmosphere, they will trigger extensive aurora borealis -- the northern lights -- all across the northern hemisphere from about Toronto's latitude and further north," Delaney told CTV News Channel during an interview in Toronto on Tuesday morning.

Delaney's interview is also available on .

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer

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The 91亚色 Circle is an ongoing program that offers curious people like Pitt an opportunity to experience university lectures first-hand. It was created for parents and聽family of 91亚色 students,聽alumni, neighbours and friends who want to hear leading 91亚色 faculty explore their ideas and research.

Right: The 91亚色 Circle offers an opportunity for聽non-students聽to hear lectures by 91亚色 faculty

Pitt is among more than聽500 people who have joined the 91亚色 Circle since it began last October and says that she appreciates the opportunity to experience University life聽because she was never able to realize her own dream of attending university. "When I was growing up in Britain, the country was just coming out of the Second World War," she says. "The soldiers lucky enough to survive were offered priority spots in university programs. There were聽very few spots left for everyone else.聽I was not able to attend university and instead studied聽to become a children's nurse. This program offers a great chance for me to experience university."

Coordinated by 91亚色 President Emerita Lorna聽Marsden and Cynthia Bettcher, special adviser to Jennifer Sloan, vice-president of university relations, with help from 91亚色's Alumni Office and print media sponsors and 91亚色 Region Media Group, the 91亚色 Circle embodies the spirit, energy and intellectual excellence of the University鈥檚 50th anniversary, which was celebrated in 2009.

Left: 91亚色 alumnus and 91亚色 Circle member Bart Zemanek聽(BA Spec. Hons. 鈥�07, MSc 鈥�10) with Lorna Marsden

For Marsden, the 91亚色 Circle offers a wonderful opportunity to transport the magic of 91亚色's talented faculty聽into聽the University's聽affiliated communities. 鈥淭he 91亚色 Circle comes from the goal of making our really marvelous faculty members better known through their ideas and work, and聽helps the community聽to better understand the University,鈥� says Marsden. 鈥淭he 91亚色 Circle offers serious talks for lay people who don鈥檛 have the opportunity to attend lectures.鈥�

The circle offers a cross-section of 91亚色鈥檚 leading professors and researchers presenting talks on topics that are current and engaging. Twice a year, the circle鈥檚 membership gathers on 91亚色鈥檚 Keele campus for a full day of lectures and a complimentary locally sourced (locavore) lunch. The inaugural event took place last fall. On May 1, the 91亚色 Circle returned, bringing more than 150 members back to the Keele campus.

Right: There is no generation gap here. 91亚色 Circle member Irina Shoikhedbrod brought her son, 91亚色 political science master's student Igor Shoikhedbrod,聽to the聽May 1 event

The October聽launch event featured lectures by Faculty of Health Dean Harvey Skinner, astronomy Professor Paul Delaney and theatre Professor Phillip Silver.

The May 1 event repeated the format established by the inaugural event and offered聽lectures by four 91亚色 faculty.聽The morning sessions featured presentations by聽film Professor Seth Feldman, director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, and psychology Professor Debra Pepler, member of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence & Conflict Resolution. Feldman talked聽about his experience working for a year on a documentary about Charles Darwin and about why聽Darwin matters and how the noted scientist means different things to different people. Pepler spoke about how the patterns of power and aggression established in playground bullying move on to become sexual harassment and dating violence in adolescence and workplace harassment in adulthood.

Left: Professor Seth Feldman talks about his聽research and experience making a documentary on Charles Darwin

Following lunch, the 91亚色 Circle members listened to talks by Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Allan Hutchinson and Schulich School of Business Professor Bernard Wolf. Hutchinson delivered an energetic lecture about some of the great cases that shaped the legal world. Wolf talked about the aftermath of the most recent economic crisis, the resulting ballooning national debts and the implications of the economic health of the United States, Greece and Spain on the global community.

Videos of each of the presentations are available on the 91亚色 Circle Web site.

The response to the 91亚色 Circle events have聽been heartwarming,聽says Bettcher. 鈥淪eventy-two per cent of those who attended the May 1 event completed a survey about their 91亚色 Circle experience," she says. "Of those, more than 99 per聽cent聽indicated聽that they were very satisfied with the day. What we found so significant about the responses was that everyone said they would attend another 91亚色 Circle event.

"One of the biggest requests we got following the first 91亚色 Circle event, which took place聽last October,聽was for the recipe for the spicy pumpkin soup that was served at the locavore lunch,鈥澛爈aughs Bettcher. She聽and Marsden immediately got to work聽tracking down the recipe (right) and arranged to have it modified for smaller, family-sized portions. The soup, says Bettcher, was created for the 91亚色 Circle lunch by the chefs working at the Underground restaurant on 91亚色鈥檚 Keele campus.

What's next on the agenda for this legacy jewel? Bettcher says the next event is聽Raise Your Space IQ, which will take place on Saturday, July 17, from 9 to 11pm. During this event, 91亚色 astronomy Professor Paul Delaney (who delivered a presentation at the inaugural 91亚色 Circle event) will lead participants through a tour of the night sky. The 50 91亚色 Circle members who were first to sign up for the event will have an opportunity to look through the University's telescopes and listen to Delaney and astronomy students talk about the wonders of the universe.

Coming this fall, 91亚色 Circle members聽will be able to to a new series of concerts and events brought to 91亚色聽from venues around the world through a new partnership between the 91亚色 Circle and DigiScreen. In a departure from other 91亚色 Circle events, the Prestigious Performances have been thrown open to聽everyone, including 91亚色聽students and faculty. The Prestigious Performances Series will be brought to the big screen in the Price Family Cinema by DigiScreen through聽the company's聽alliance with Opus Arte and the Royal Opera House of London.

The Prestigious Performance Series will offer world-class concerts, theatre, opera and ballet, presented in high definition format, from venues such as Covent Garden in London, the Palais Garnier in Paris, Teatro Real in Madrid, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London and the Lincoln Center in New 91亚色 City. 91亚色 professors will聽moderate聽each performance.

The series will be presented on Sunday afternoons starting at 2pm, with the first presentation on Sept. 26聽showcasing a performance of As You Like It by William Shakespeare, from the Globe Theatre with an enlivening commentary聽by theatre Professor Mark Wilson, associate dean in 91亚色's Faculty of Fine Arts.

Other performances include a concert featuring the music of the late jazz icon Ray Charles with commentary by 91亚色 music Professor Ronald Westray聽and a presentation of Puccini's opera La Boh猫me. For more on these performances, visit the 91亚色 Circle Web site.

Left: 91亚色 Circle member Elizabeth Pitt

The membership will also be returning to the Keele campus on Oct. 30 for another full-day lecture and lunch presentation. Details of this event will be made available early in June on the 91亚色 Circle Web site.

"I can hardly wait," says an enthused Pitt. "My calendar for the fall is聽looking wonderful."

By Jenny Pitt-Clark, YFile editor and eldest daughter of Elizabeth Pitt.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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These quasar winds can be quite influential in the creation of galaxies. They can turn on or shut down star formation. Between two and four billion years in the future, scientists expect the Milky Way and the Andromeda spiral galaxies to collide and become one elliptical galaxy. If this occurs, the two black holes at the centre of each will likely merge and the resulting quasar winds will shut down any future star formation in the new galaxy.

Right: An artist's conception of dust in a quasar's wind. Drawing courtesy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

鈥淲e think that this happened a lot more when the universe was younger,鈥� says Hall.

Little is really known about quasars, never mind their winds. 鈥淲e鈥檝e only started looking at quasars in the last 50 years,鈥� says Hall. 鈥淢ost of them are quite far away and rather faint. The first discovery of a quasar was in about 1963.鈥�

What is known is that quasars are glowing, flat discs of swirling, spiralling and colliding gas the size of the Earth鈥檚 solar system that surround a black hole, which has a mass聽of millions or billions times the sun's. They鈥檙e created, says Hall, when these black holes at the centre of every large galaxy draw in the surrounding gas clouds, which collide and聽flatten out like a giant disc. The closer the gas spirals to the mouth of the black hole, the faster it travels and the more heat it creates, which generates light and creates a quasar.

The question Hall wants answered is: what are the characteristics of the winds that can be generalized from one quasar to the next and how will that help determine how each quasar will develop and act over time?

Left: Patrick Hall

Quasar聽winds can reach speeds of several thousands of kilometres per second, whipping gas away from the black holes at the centre of galaxies. Studying these winds is similar to digging up an ancient ruin. The light from one of the quasars which Hall is studying, with the help of his 2009 Undergraduate summer research assistant Konstantin Anosov, took some seven billion years to reach Earth. A lot can happen in that time 鈥� such as the formation of Earth, which is four-and-a-half-billion years old. The quasar in question is no longer in existence.聽A new one may have formed around the same black hole long ago 鈥� maybe several. Anyone wanting to study the newest quasar will have to wait a few billion years.

When talking quasars, the winds are matter which flies off from the disc around the quasar. The wind can be vertical or horizontal, compact or loose. Think of a blender, says Hall. 鈥淣ot all the gas spirals into the black hole; like liquid in a blender, most of it spins around, but some is flung out at high velocity.鈥�

Right: An illustration of wind from an accretion disc around a black hole at the centre of a quasar. Illustration courtesy of NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

But seeing these winds can be tricky. Some of the gas in the wind absorbs light and can be seen, but some has been completely ionized and doesn鈥檛 absorb much light, becoming effectively invisible. The angle of viewing dictates how much or how little of the winds are visible.

One of the quasars Hall has been studying was first discovered in 1995. In 2007, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, of which Hall is a part, looked at that quasar again and noticed the wind showed a decrease in absorption. In 2009, Hall and Anosov booked time on a telescope in Texas to have another look. This time they noticed the quasar was coming out from behind clumps of gas, and the absorption had decreased even further. It is almost possible now to see the entire light source. 鈥淪o we can now get an estimate of how fast the gas clumps in the wind are moving,鈥� says Hall. 鈥淚t is an interesting enough observation鈥rom very heavy absorption to almost no absorption in such a short time.鈥� To see this much change in the span of 14 years is quite something.

鈥淲e know how 'big' the quasar is, so by observing how long it takes for the gas clumps to move out from in front of the quasar, we learn how fast the wind is moving across our line of sight,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 am currently working on combining that information with knowledge of how fast the wind is moving towards us to figure out how close to the black hole the wind originated.鈥�

This leads Hall to ask what can be learned from this quasar and from watching some of the 100,000 other quasars the Sloan survey has found. 鈥淚鈥檓 trying to get a bigger picture of how the winds work and to come up with computer models to show how they work in general for quasars.鈥澛燞e hopes his research will provide a useful framework to use when studying quasars, providing a baseline to work from.

In the fall, Hall will be on sabbatical researching these winds to see what he can discover about quasars that were created billions of years ago.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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buskers聽and researchers will share the wonder of science on the street and at booths Saturday at the聽season opening聽of the food, arts and crafts market in聽Markham's downtown from聽10am to 3pm.聽They will be making dry ice, testing for colour blindness,聽extracting DNA from fruit and demonstrating how bees help gardeners, displaying cow eyeballs and operating a mini Mars rover, among a host of fun demonstrations. There will also be聽science chats at聽The Antique Caf茅 and science art聽at the Tangerine Gecko Art Gallery near the .

Left: A wow moment at 91亚色 Science Rendezvous in 2009

In the evening, 91亚色's Science Rendezvous shifts聽to the Keele campus where聽stargazers can view the night sky through telescopes at the 91亚色 Observatory from 8 to 11pm.

The 91亚色-Markham event is part of a growing one-day festival held at schools, in malls and at cultural centres across Ontario to engage citizens in the discovery and wonder of science and research, and promote an understanding of how science affects daily lives.

91亚色's Faculty of Science & Engineering has participated in since the festival was launched in 2008. In the first year, 91亚色 focused on space science (see YFile, April 10, 2008). Last year, it focused on space, energy and stem cell research and incorporated Science Rendezvous into the 91亚色 Community Festival (see YFile, May 4, 2009) celebrating the University鈥檚 50th anniversary.

This year, 91亚色 takes science to Markham. It will feature:

Science busking

Hosts of and 91亚色 students will conduct icy experiments (making dry ice, ice cream and ice bubbles), test for colour blindness and perception, and make polymers and bouncy balls.

Right: Making dry ice in 2009

Science demos

See how crystals form and make a geodesic dome. Learn how bees help your garden. Find out about DNA in your fruit and how cells develop to become Sofie the bunny. Look down a microscope at urchin eggs being fertilized by sperm. Examine cow eyeballs, a brain, a heart and other animal organs.聽See how water is filtered and talk about clean air. Watch a Mars rover manoeuvre through the crowds. Visit the crater pool to see how craters are made. Pet a comet.

Math & Stats game show

Test your math IQ in this skill-testing game.

Sipping science

Ever wondered why鈥�? Now鈥檚 your chance to ask a 91亚色 scientist that burning question and engage in informal discussion on current scientific issues hosted by Let鈥檚 Talk Science at The Antique Caf茅, 138 Robinson St.

At the at 107 Main St. N. in Markham, see Garbage Kayak (above), a 15-foot Greenland kayak frame made from garbage and other found objects, and聽Mental Fabric, kaleidoscopic merging of anatomical and mathematical visual information.

To download a free mobile app and get a Science Rendezvous guide, visit the Web site and key in u6prgak.

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You can watch , which runs for approximately six minutes. Here's an excerpt:

The Hubble telescope marks two decades in space this month, where it has captured stunning images that have had a profound effect on our understanding of the universe.

And to celebrate, NASA has released a recent image that shows a star factory in action.

91亚色 Paul Delaney said the image of the Carina nebula, one of the largest star formation regions that exists, captures "the wonderful interplay between dust, gas and stellar embryos."

Although the way stars are formed has been known for some time, there was no way to get a front-row view of the action until Hubble.

"Hubble has been able to peel aside some of the veils which have always annoyed astronomers and gotten right into the deepest parts of star formation areas," Delaney told CTV News Channel this week.

"It's a vindication of the stellar evolutionary theories, and that's really what Hubble has been about," he said. "It has been able to confirm, deny and advance the theories of astrophysics in such a wonderfully pictorial way."

In another photo of deep space taken by Hubble with an exposure of one million seconds, or four and a half days, nearly 10,000 galaxies are visible, Delaney said. Some of the galaxies are younger than one billion years old, which means the image allows scientists to see back 12 million years in time.

Hubble looks through many different filters -- including ultraviolet and infrared ones -- to capture "the full breadth and beauty of the image," Delaney explained.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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Michael Bietenholz, a research associate in the 's, is part of the research team. Their findings were published in .

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