Care for a cricket muffin with your coffee?

We’ve all eaten bugs – riding a bike on a summer evenng almost guarantees an unwanted meal of flies or mosquitoes. But are you ready to buy insects as a source of protein at the grocery store? Today in The Conversation Canada, Sylvain Charlebois of Dalhousie University writes about the significance of grocery giant Loblaw selling cricket flour under its President’s Choice label. It is, says Prof. Charlebois, “a sign that the protein wars in Canada are heating up.”

Patrick Greene of the University of Waterloo looks at advances in off-grid solar energy market and how it’s providing life-changing results in Sub-Saharan, where more than 600 million people are living without access to electricity.

The opioid crisis continues to kill thousands of people each year in North America. Usually, people become addicted when trying to manage chronic pain. Nancy Gyurcsik of the University of Saskatchewan has teamed up with Danielle Brittain of the University of Colorado to explain how research shows “exercise helps people better manage chronic pain and its impacts.

And finally…. Veronica Strong-Boag, Professor Emerita from the University of British Columbia, notes this may will mark the 100th anniversary of the right for women to vote in Canada. But it’s already a low-key celebration, says Prof. Strong-Boag, who notes “women’s roles in forging Canada’s democracy have gone largely missing in official accounts of Canadian history.”

Regards,

Scott White

Editor

Today's Top Stories

Looks …. tasty? Roasted crickets are shown at the Entomo Farms cricket processing facility in Norwood, Ont., in April 2016. Loblaw has added cricket powder to its lineup of President’s Choice products. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Thornhill

Jiminy Cricket! Why bugs may soon be on the menu

Sylvain Charlebois, Dalhousie University

Canada's biggest grocery chain is now selling cricket flour under its revered private label. Here's what that says about contemporary eating habits.

Solar panels sit on the roof of a home in Enkanini, on the outskirts of Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa. (Shutterstock)

How local business innovation equips off-grid households with electricity

Patrick Greene, University of Waterloo

Innovation in small-scale solar systems and mobile money systems is giving people in sub-Saharan Africa access to electricity at a lower cost than diesel or kerosene.

Exercise is recommended as an effective non-opioid strategy for non-cancer pain such as fibromyalgia and chronic low back pain. Yet most adults living with chronic pain do not exercise. Or they exercise very little. (Shutterstock)

Can exercise help tackle the opioid crisis?

Nancy Gyurcsik, University of Saskatchewan; Danielle Brittain, University of Colorado

Research shows that exercise offers promise -- as an alternative to prescription opioids -- for relieving chronic pain.

Nellie McClung, a prominent Canadian suffragist in the early 1900s, is now being maligned for her racism and support of eugenics. Should the deep flaws of some suffragists from 100 years ago mean Canadian historians must pay them short shrift? (National Archives)

Canada’s curiously cautious commemoration of women suffragists

Veronica Strong-Boag, University of British Columbia

Canada is strangely muted in celebrating women's suffrage. That's because the politics of remembrance has become a contemporary minefield.

Politics

Culture + Society

  • A history of loneliness

    Amelia S. Worsley, Amherst College

    Although loneliness may seem timeless and universal, the word seems to have originated in the 16th century,

Health + Medicine