2026 Art Awards | The Canadian Pain Society Created to better understand pain through an artistic lens. With a new theme each year, we showcase submitted artwork from a variety of mediums to promote scientific curiosity and build a gallery of ...

Are you a member of the @canadianpain.bsky.social Society?🍁
Do something FUN today✨️
View the 2026 CPS Art Awards entries, then VOTE for your ONE favourite artwork! 🗳
This year's theme is: "How we feel pain"💥
Last day to vote: May 1, 2026 📅
#ChronicPain
www.canadianpainsociety.ca/artawards

Hey @canadianpain.bsky.social members, don't forget to vote for your fave entry in the 2026 CPS Art Awards! 🗳
Pick an artwork that speaks to YOU, from entries by colleagues, patients, and trainees from across the country! 🍁
Winning artwork to be announced at the ASM, for theme "How we feel pain"

Today's #bioethics & #healthcare post is a 60-second clip...
www.instagram.com/reel/DXCt93F...

If Your Heart Stopped Right Now, Would a Stranger Save You? It Depends on Your Sex. Why women are less likely to receive CPR—and less likely to survive

Worried about doing bystander CPR?
"You can’t get more injured than dead - which is what a cardiac arrest is.
Broken ribs are common in CPR (for both male & female patients), but people can heal from those."
~ Dr. @kmpanthagani.bsky.social
yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/if-your-he...

Six uncomfortable truths about women’s health | UN Women – Headquarters From misdiagnosis to medical bias, women are still less likely to be taken seriously, diagnosed or treated – here’s why.

"across the world, women are more likely to have their #pain dismissed, their symptoms misread, and their conditions diagnosed too late.
This is the result of a medical system that was not designed with women in mind." ~ United Nations
#bioethics #medicine
www.unwomen.org/en/articles/...

World Art Day 15 April

A reminder, on @unesco.bsky.social World Art Day:
"Art nurtures creativity, innovation and cultural diversity for all peoples across the globe and plays an important role in sharing knowledge and encouraging curiosity and dialogue."
#art
www.unesco.org/en/days/worl...

Visit federationgallery.com, scroll down to “Virtual Galleries”, then click the triangle-button to open the virtual exhibition experience.
You can wander the exhibition in different ways by clicking on the white circles on the ‘floor’ or on any wall or artwork that you want to see up-close.

These screenshots feature just a few of the works in this exhibition, so I encourage you to visit virtually if you can’t get to the Gallery! 🖼
One of my watercolour paintings, “Near Loch Coruisk, Scotland”, was juried into this exhibition - so keep an eye out for it (top right, 3rd image) 🎨
2/3

The national “2026 Landscapes” exhibition of the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) is on now, at their gallery in Vancouver 🍁
They've also created a ‘virtual viewing’ option for this juried exhibition, for anyone who can’t make it to Vancouver before it ends April 19, 2026! 🖼
1/3

According to the study, carried out by a team from the University of São Paulo in Brazil and the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the lateral parafacial (pFL) brain region can trigger biological changes that raise blood pressure."
2/2

Scientists May Have Found a New Cause of High Blood Pressure, And a Way to Treat It A new study has found evidence that a specific brain region could be contributing to some cases of high blood pressure.

"A new study has found evidence that a specific brain region could be contributing to some cases of high blood pressure.
And importantly, there may also be a way to reverse it...
1/2
#cardiology #hypertension
www.sciencealert.com/scientists-m...

Lost abstract artist Edna Taçon rediscovered at Art Gallery of Ontario AGO curator discovered Taçon’s art and the sad story of family estrangement that helps explain why she disappeared from view

"In her day, abstract artist Edna Taçon was so well regarded she showed at the... museum that later became the Guggenheim and mounted exhibitions in Toronto with Lawren Harris.
Today, she is all but forgotten."
#art #abstractpainting @agotoronto.bsky.social
www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/arti...

Understanding how these substances affect the brain “will inform future drug design for this potentially very important category of drugs for the future of #mentalhealth”, says Bzdok."
#bioethics #medicine

McGill University @mcgillumedia.bsky.social in Montreal, Canada.
“This puts a question mark on how we’re even categorizing them.”...
"Dozens of clinical trials have supported the idea that psychedelics could help to treat conditions such as #depression, #anxiety & #addiction...

“The most surprising finding is that, despite the discrepancies in the pharmacology and the pharmaco-physiological properties of these drugs, there is a common denominator of how they affect the human brain,” says study co-author @danilobzdok.bsky.social a neuroscientist and AI researcher at
2/

"Different psychedelic drugs have a strikingly similar effect on networks in the brain, finds the most comprehensive analysis so far of the mind-altering substances"
= New hope for #ChronicPain via #neuroscience?
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

3 of my #watercolour paintings will be in "2026 Abstracted" exhibition of the Federation of Canadian Artists in May, at the Federation Gallery in Vancouver & online 🖼
Details to follow 🎨
In the meantime, they are:
. Reflections (Treefrog)🐸
. Tulip or Wine Glass🌷/🍷
. Sheltered Sands🌊
#ArtDespitePain

Yes, Therapy Sessions Are Being Used to Train AI There's a political fight over the practice of therapy, spurred by AI. As Wall Street driven health platforms try to reorder mental health care, therapists are pushing for regulation of insurance.

"In terms of psychotherapy, chatbots cannot replace humans, though they can supplement existing care...
when used for therapeutic purposes, just don’t do the job.
Occasionally they even tell their users to kill themselves."
#bioethics
www.thebignewsletter.com/p/yes-therap...

Happy to see my #library highlighting @unesco #WorldArtDay, coming up on April 15, as someone who began painting specifically because of adult-onset Disability - a Mild Cognitive Impairment (and #chronicpain) from one of my two rare diseases 🩺 www.unesco.org/en/days/worl...

These Women Had Their Breasts Removed To Thwart Cancer. Then Came the Pain. - KFF Health News Post-mastectomy pain syndrome, or PMPS, is estimated to afflict tens of thousands of U.S. women each year. And yet it is not well understood and is inconsistently treated.

“I’ve known women who’ve had #chronicpain — itching, burning, stabbing pain — for years after mastectomies...
Of all the problems, that is probably the one least talked about by surgeons.”
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Joyeuses Pâques ! 🐇
Happy Easter! 🐰

Thrilled that my watercolours were juried into 3 Federation of Canadian Artists exhibitions this month! 🖼
. Annual Int'l Representational Exhib
federationgallery.com/exhibit/2026...
. Open Ntl Juried Exhib
federationgallery.com/exhibit/fca_...
. Landscapes
federationgallery.com/exhibit/2026...

Who Gets to Do Science? Who Gets to Do Science?: A neuroscientist who spent the last decade tearing down the class, race, and language barriers that keep people like him out of research

"I became very aware that it isn’t that people from underrepresented backgrounds don’t want to get Ph.D.s.
It’s just that they don’t know how or they can’t afford to." ~ @fleabrained.bsky.social
#bioethics #science
nautil.us/who-gets-to-...

🙄

In @statnews.com
#bioethics #ChronicPain

Medical marijuana should not be recommended for PTSD, anxiety, or depression “Rigorously derived evidence for the medical efficacy of marijuana is thin,” writes Kevin Sabet.

"Marijuana is far more dangerous than commonly understood, especially today’s ultra-high-potency products"
While many prescribers seek to helps, "the increasing normalization of marijuana use over the past three decades has been a public health disaster."
www.statnews.com/2026/04/01/s...

Wikipedia Bans AI-Generated Content “In recent months, more and more administrative reports centered on LLM-related issues, and editors were being overwhelmed.”

after much deliberation and giving AI the benefit of the doubt, Wikipedia editors have had enough of AI slop. New policy bans LLM generated content, periodt www.404media.co/wikipedia-ba...

Happy Spring!  🐇
Stay tuned for upcoming news about the 2nd edition of the West Island Art Studio Circuit (WIASC), which will take place the weekend of August 15 & 16 from 10 AM to 4 PM 🎨

#artscircuit #montreal

5m tonnes of CO2 emitted in just 14 days of US war on Iran, analysis finds Exclusive: War in the Middle East is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined

"the first 2 weeks of the conflict led to emissions of 5,055,016 tCO2e... – roughly the same as a medium-size, fossil fuel-intensive economy such as Kuwait.
But it is also the same as the 84 lowest emitting countries combined."
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...