Bob picks 10 significant science stories for 2023

2023 was a busy year in science. Here are 10 stories worth revisiting as we wind up the year. 1. Canadian Jeremy Hansen chosen to fly to the moon A Canadian astronaut was selected as part of the crew for NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon. Jeremy Hansen and three crew mates will fly … Read more

Bid to attract more overnight visitors to Hong Kong and develop high-quality tourism proposed by Chief Executive John Lee in Beijing

He told Sun Yeli, party secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism during a closed-doors meeting that Hong Kong’s tourism industry had made a fast recovery after the last Covid-related travel restrictions were lifted earlier this year. Lee added that the number of visitors to the city in the third quarter of the year … Read more

Colonialism contributed to extinction of woolly dogs valued by Indigenous people, study suggests

For thousands of years, a breed of white, woolly dog played an important and cultural role for Coast Salish people in Western Canada but when colonists moved in the animal quickly became extinct, a new study says. It started with a dog named Mutton that died in 1859. Its pelt had been in a collection at the … Read more

Techno-optimists, doomsdayers and Silicon Valley’s riskiest AI debate

WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 13: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks with reporters on his arrival to the Senate bipartisan Artificial Intelligence (AI) Insight Forum on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 13, 2023. (Photo by Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post via Getty Images) The Washington Post | The Washington Post | Getty Images … Read more

Bill Gates warns the world is likely to overshoot 2 degrees of warming

Bill Gates arrives for a press conference to launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative at the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels on October 11, 2023. Simon Wohlfahrt | Afp | Getty Images Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Friday said the world is likely to overshoot a critical temperature threshold … Read more

Asteroid Will Pass in Front of Bright Star, Produce Rare Eclipse

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —  One of the biggest and brightest stars in the night sky will momentarily vanish as an asteroid passes in front of it to produce a one-of-a-kind eclipse. The rare and fleeting spectacle, late Monday into early Tuesday, should be visible to millions of people along a narrow path stretching from central … Read more

World’s largest iceberg A23a is on the move, stoking climate concerns

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Thousands of miles from the U.N.’s climate summit in the Middle East, the world’s largest iceberg is on the move for the first time in more than 35 years. Scientists believe the juggernaut’s breakaway from Antarctica was a natural occurrence, but say it provides a stark reminder of the potentially … Read more

Glacier melt opens up new territory for salmon — and mining

A new paper published in Science says that as glacier ice melts, new land and rivers are being revealed in the ice-covered transboundary region shared by northern B.C., Alaska, and the Yukon.  The peer-reviewed paper was a collaboration among researchers from Simon Fraser University, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs’ Office, the University of Montana Flathead Lake … Read more

5 feline facts to help see your cat in a new light

Quirks and Quarks54:01Cat facts — the latest science on our feline companions Cats have lived alongside humans for millennia, but there’s still much we don’t know about our companions. How do cats purr? Why do they look so annoyed all the time? And when and where did cats begin sharing homes with humans?  Part of … Read more

Long-term plan in the works for baby mammoth found last year in Yukon

Nun cho ga, the baby wooly mammoth whose extraordinarily preserved remains caused a sensation after they were dug up by a miner near Dawson City, Yukon, last year, could soon be heading to Ottawa — at least for a period. The rare specimen — believed to be about 30,000 to 35,000 years old — has been stored in a … Read more