For its next trick, Ottawa must unload the $34B Trans Mountain pipeline. It won’t be easy

In her budget speech to the House of Commons on Tuesday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland took a moment to celebrate the finishing touch on expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline. The controversial project has been plagued by delays and massive cost overruns, but Freeland instead focused on its completion, highlighting the: “talented tradespeople and the brilliant … Read more

Mysterious writer behind ISIS-K propaganda calls himself ‘the Canadian’

A mysterious writer making propaganda for an Afghan branch of ISIS claimed to be based somewhere in Canada which, experts say, could be cause for concern for authorities.  Voice of Khurasan, an online publication used by the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K), which is suspected of being behind the Moscow attack that killed at least 140 … Read more

Scientists try to unravel the case of 1,300 mysteriously preserved human brains

6:39Scientists try to unravel the case of 1,300 mysteriously preserved human brains Oxford University’s Alexandra Morton-Hayward spends her days surrounded by brains — literally.  The undertaker-turned-scientist is trying to unravel why some human brains remain remarkably well-preserved after death, sometimes for thousands of years, even when all other soft tissue has long decayed. And anyone … Read more

Wildfires made Canada’s air quality worse than the U.S. for the first time

Canada’s record-setting wildfire season hiked the country up global pollution rankings — and for the first time made its air quality worse than the U.S., according to a new report by air quality technology company IQAir. “In previous years, Canada had the cleanest air quality in all of North America,” said Glory Dolphin Hammes, CEO of … Read more

Guelph students among Canadian kids learning math concepts through Métis beading practices

An elementary school initiative that explores math concepts while incorporating Indigenous practices is making its way into classrooms across Canada. The Métis-math collaboration is part of a larger collection spearheaded by mathematics education researcher Ruth Beatty of Lakehead University in 2012. It’s called First Nations and Métis Math Voices.  “One of the main reasons we started … Read more

Why Windsor-Essex is one of the last regions in Canada where you can see baby sturgeon

At up to two metres long and weighing 200 pounds, sturgeon are some of the Great Lakes’ most enchanting fish.  “I always think of them as lonely torpedoes cruising through the Great Lakes,” Trevor Pitcher, a University of Windsor (UWindsor) professor, told Windsor Morning. “It’s essentially a living fossil. It’s the closest anybody comes to seeing a dinosaur alive … Read more

These are the 1st images of humpbacks having sex, and they’re both males

As It Happens6:291st images humpback whale sex is between 2 males When biologist Stephanie Stack first saw the photographs of two humpback whales mating in the warm waters of Hawaii, she says her mind was “completely blown.” “When I realized that it was two males, it was not what I was expecting,” she told As … Read more

How artificial intelligence can help beavers fight floods, droughts and wildfires

A few years ago, a couple of Google employees reached out to a Minnesota scientist with an unusual proposal: What if they could teach computers to spot beaver habitats from space?  “They wanted to know if I thought it was possible to find beaver wetlands from aerial imagery myself, and then if that could be … Read more

Chimps and bonobos remember friendly faces even after decades apart, study finds

As It Happens6:18Chimps and bonobos remember friends and families’ faces, even after decades apart When Laura Simone Lewis visited Kendall the chimpanzee for the first time in six months, she wasn’t sure how he would react. The researcher had been working with the chimp at the North Carolina Zoo in 2015 as part of her … Read more

Expect some food prices to get cheaper next year — but typical grocery bills may still go up by $700

Savvy shoppers should be able to find a few bargains at the grocery store next year, but even with prices for some essentials falling the typical Canadian family’s overall grocery bill is set to increase by about $700 next year. That’s the main takeaway from a closely watched annual report on the food industry, the … Read more