Concerns about wildfire impact on Lake Winnipeg
A U of M researcher is raising concerns about the effects of wildfires on Lake Winnipeg. Joseph Bernacki reports.
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CBC
43 minutes ago
- CBC
3-year study to help First Nations in Ontario's far north adapt to climate change
Social Sharing Indigenous communities in Ontario's far north are participating in a three-year study to understand the impacts of climate change and how communities along the James Bay coast can better adapt to those changes. "What we want to do is prepare our communities," said Barb Duffin, director of Cree Geomatics with Mushkegowuk Council, which represents seven northern First Nations. "So they're seeing flooding in the spring, they're seeing dryness in the summer, shorter times for freezing up for road transportation, changing tides." Cree Geomatics is working with Mushkegowuk's lands and resources department, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and the Up North On Climate centre at Laurentian University for the study. One of the key components for the research will be the collection of aerial photos of the coastline in July, which can be compared with archival maps and photos to show recent erosion. "The biggest thing we want to do is compare now what we're taking to what's available, say back to 1960 or 1970," Duffin said. She said there's also a traditional knowledge component to the research project. "Traditional knowledge has been collected over the last decade and a half, two decades on different projects," Duffin said. "And that information that's given to us and documented by our elders and from our land users shows us where they've used the land." Duffin said some Cree communities, such as Kashechewan First Nation, are already prone to flooding in the spring. "Do we start building our homes on stilts?" she asked. Roxanne Metlin, the climate resiliency co-ordinator with Mushkegowuk Council, said climate change has also affected wildlife in Ontario's far north. "You have the elders going out with the young harvesters. What they know or what they can teach… about growing up on that land is changing," she said. Metlin said some animal species more common to the south, such as porcupines, are now migrating north due to the warming climate. That means locals need to learn about new plants and animals that were not typically found in the region.
CBC
43 minutes ago
- CBC
These Ontario kids had their computer code sent to space
Project took photos of Earth to track space station speed ⭐️HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW⭐️ Four kids from Ontario wrote computer code that was used on the International Space Station. They worked for months on a code that could calculate the speed of the space station during orbit. Part of their project involved taking photos of Earth from space. Read on to find out how you can get into coding yourself.⬇️⬇️⬇️ Four kids from Ontario are celebrating after the experiment they ran on the International Space Station (ISS) went off without a hitch. The group — who are all 11 and 12 years old — wrote computer code that allowed a special computer aboard the ISS to calculate the station's speed as it orbited the Earth. It was part of the 2024-25 Astro Pi challenge — an annual contest run by the European Space Agency (ESA) in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation. A 'new era' in space? SpaceX launches 4 astronauts to ISS The Astro Pi challenge The challenge asks kids from around the world to submit computer code to be used on the Astro Pi — a type of educational computer specifically made for space. Computer code is written using specific text-based languages — like Python or HTML, for example — that give instructions to a computer to get it to perform a specific task. Participants in the challenge are asked to write computer code to conduct one of two experiments: The Mission Zero challenge — a beginner-level task that asks kids to instruct the Astro Pi to take a specific measurement and draw a pixelated picture on the LED screen for the astronauts aboard the ISS to see. The Mission Space Lab challenge — a more advanced challenge where students use a more complicated coding language to calculate the speed of the ISS as it orbits the Earth, in whichever creative way they see fit. This year, 68 teams from Canada were accepted to run their code for the Mission Space Lab challenge and more than 300 were accepted for the Mission Zero challenge. Ontario kids get involved One of the teams to try out the Mission Space Lab challenge was a team named Astrovel from Scarborough, Ontario. The team was made up of Theshmika Kasthurisinghe Danawardanalage, 12, Krishna Waran, 11, Hana Mohideen, 12, and Abdhul Ghafar, 11. Krishna, who has been coding since he was four years old, said his team got to work back in January after finding out about the challenge from their teacher. 'My goal is to be a NASA engineer one day, so it seemed like a great opportunity,' he told CBC Kids News. The four team members are all part of Scratch Coding for Kids — an after-school program that teaches kids about coding and robotics — as well as the Kids for Kids Toronto Coding Club. Krishna said they've all learned to love coding over the years. 'When you get good enough at coding to be confident, it gets really fun. When I work hard to code something and it actually works, it makes me super happy.' From January to March, they met several times a week with a coding mentor, dedicating dozens of hours to learn, develop and test their code for the mission. How did their code work? After submitting their final code in March, the team soon found out a fe weeks later that it was given flight status, meaning it was accepted to be tested on the ISS in April. Scientists successfully test robot's surgery skills in space 'When I got home and my mom showed me the email, I was shocked. We were so happy and had a little party to celebrate,' said Krishna. To calculate the speed of the ISS, their code asked the computer's camera to take two different pictures of Earth at two different times. It then asked the computer to analyze Earth's geographical features in order to determine where exactly the ISS was located when each photo was taken. From there, they could determine how far the ISS had travelled between the time the first and second photos were taken. Based on how much time went by between the first and second photos and how much distance the ISS had travelled in that time, they were able to calculate its speed. The kids determined the ISS was travelling 10.5 kilometers per second. Although the actual speed the ISS was travelling was 7.7 kilometers per second, their calculation was still one of the closest of the many kids who entered. The ESA sent the team a certificate congratulating them for their successful code. 'We were so excited and it makes us want to do more of these challenges,' said Krishna. Want to get into coding? Layne Turner is one of the managers of Code Club, a Canadian non-profit organization that helps create free coding programs for kids in their communities, like the Kids for Kids Toronto Coding Club. 'I'm so proud that the team was successful in this,' she told CBC Kids News. 'I think it's so amazing that young people can get their coding run on the ISS.' She said kids in Canada can contact Code Club if they want to start their own coding club at their school, library or local community hub. Alana Bartolini, an education outreach co-ordinator with the ESA, said that the Mission Zero challenge is a great way for kids who want to get their hand at coding. 'If you can type on a keyboard, then you can probably do mission zero,' she told CBC Kids News. 'It's really a step-by-step program that can give you the very first initial knowledge in programming.' She said kids can get started by visiting the Astro Pi website and having a parent, teacher or mentor help them get started. 'Through our challenges, kids not only learn coding, but teamwork, data collection and the scientific method,' she said.
CTV News
9 hours ago
- CTV News
Modern day humans with neanderthal genes are suffering from rare but fatal condition: SFU study
Neanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago, about the same time that modern humans migrated out of Africa. (Getty Images via CNN) The last Neanderthals are believed to have lived around 40,000 years ago and yet there is an element of their DNA still lingering in some modern day humans, and it's causing a rare, but sometimes fatal, medical condition. According to a new study led by researchers at B.C.'s Simon Fraser University, interbreeding between humans and their ancient cousins is the reason behind a neurological condition believed to be affecting up to one per cent of the population, named Chiari Malformation Type 1. The study, published in June in the journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, describes how the rare condition occurs when the human skull is too small, and the cerebellum – a crucial part of the brain located at the back of the head responsible for co-ordination, balance and posture – is pushed through a small hole in the skull. 'Part of the brain herniates down into the spinal canal, and then that causes a pinching of the spinal cord, a pinching of the cerebellum,' says the study's co-author, and SFU postdoctoral fellow, Kimberly Plomp. The defect is so subtle that it is not something that can be seen by looking at somebody, but the consequences it produces can be devastating. 'It can cause headaches, dizziness and numbness if it's a small herniation,' says Plomp. 'If it's a large herniation, it can even be incompatible with life. It could cause death in juveniles.' Combining fossil data with information garnered from CT scans of people currently living with the condition, researchers were able to compare the shape of modern day skulls to those two million years old. 'Essentially, what we found was that humans with this malformation have more similarities and shapes in their skull, especially in the back bottom bit of their skull, with Neanderthals than they do the humans without the malformation,' says Plomp. 'This really highlights the fact that what we identified in humans with Chiari Malformation are traits that seem to be uniquely influenced by, what we think is, Neanderthal DNA.' According to Plomp, any modern humans with ancestry outside of Africa today has anywhere between two to five per cent of Neanderthal DNA in their genetic code, derived from the interbreeding that occurred thousands of years ago. Plomp says the research does little in the way of progressing treatment, which is already 'pretty simple' and sees a neurosurgeon open up the hole in the skull to enable more space, which results in less pinching. But it does lead to an overall better understanding, an evolutionary explanation, as to why humans bear this condition. While the knowledge that ancient human ancestors interbred with Neanderthals is not new, the impacts of such mating is only now being researched and understood. Plomp says she hopes the study's findings give way to further research in the future. For the next step, she hopes to conduct DNA analysis to identify the area of genetic code influencing the shape of the skull that leads to the Chiari Malformation, which could aid in potentially identifying people who might have the condition further down the road. 'If we get to the point that we can identify people at risk of these conditions beforehand, then doctors can start making plans ahead of time before it becomes a health issue,' she says.
