Latest news with #Spots

I'm a doctor and vaccines changed my childhood. Here's a lesson we all need to learn

Toronto Star

6 days ago

Health
Toronto Star

I'm a doctor and vaccines changed my childhood. Here's a lesson we all need to learn

By Nicholas Ruddock, Contributor is a writer and physician whose novels, short stories, and poetry for adults have won multiple prizes in Canada, the UK, and Ireland. "Planet Earth" is forthcoming in November 2025. To a medical student in the 1960s, the most amazing feature of measles was not the death rate (1 in 1,000) but the paradox of its diagnosis. The child's body would soon be fevered, miserable, covered head to foot in purple-red spots. But other viral illnesses could present like that too, so we were taught to examine, with wooden tongue depressor and penlight, the soft palate, at the back of the tongue. There were the lesions that dispelled all doubt, and they were not red at all, or inflamed. They were white, tiny, looking just like multiple grains of salt. Koplik Spots, they were called, after an observant American doctor. 'Go home,' was all we could say, 'there is nothing to be done, soon the full-blown rash will appear, and your brothers and sisters will catch it too.' Vaccination for measles in Ontario began in 1970. By 1998, all deaths and morbidity from it had vanished. But this year, south of London, Ontario, 2,500 cases burned through the community, fuelled by vaccine hesitancy. In the province, one death.

How Canada's oil sands transformed into one of North America's lowest-cost plays

CTV News

16-07-2025

Business
CTV News

How Canada's oil sands transformed into one of North America's lowest-cost plays

An oil sands facility seen from a helicopter near Fort McMurray, Alta., on July 10, 2012. (Jeff McIntosh / THE CANADIAN PRESS) Giant shovels, driverless trucks and a dog-like robot have all helped Canada's oil sands companies including Imperial Oil and Suncor become some of North America's lowest-cost oil producers, driving down overheads even as the worst inflation in a generation pushed U.S. shale costs up. As the global oil industry enters a downturn due to economic uncertainty related to U.S. tariffs policy and OPEC+ pumping more barrels, Canada's oil sands industry finds itself in a position of strength. In the years following the oil price crash of 2014-15, international oil majors including BP, Chevron and Total sold their interests in Canadian oil sands. At the time, they classified the Canadian operations as among their more expensive, and therefore less profitable, projects worldwide. They directed their capital to cheaper oil production, and favoured U.S. shale for its quicker drilling time and returns. Since then, new technology and cost-cutting efforts have driven meaningful improvement in the industry's competitiveness that make oil sands among the cheapest producers, according to a dozen industry insiders and a Reuters analysis of the latest U.S. and Canadian company earnings. While U.S. shale companies are responding to this year's oil price downturn by dropping rigs, slashing capital spending and laying off workers, the oil sands' position of strength means Canadian companies have made virtually no changes to their previously announced production or spending plans. Some Canadian politicians are now calling for a new crude pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast, as part of a broader effort to strengthen the country's economy in the face of U.S. tariff threats. The lower crude prices this year have little impact on the Canadian oil sector, Cenovus CEO Jon McKenzie said in an interview earlier this year. 'This is an industry that has become much more resilient through time,' he said. In one example, two four-legged robots— each nicknamed Spot because of their dog-like appearance — prowl Imperial's vast 45-year-old Cold Lake operation in Alberta, conducting routine equipment inspections and maintenance such as heat exchanger optimizations, and oil/water tank interface monitoring. The Spots free up human workers for other work and save Imperial $30 million (US$22 million) a year, the company said. Exxon-owned Imperial and its competitor Suncor have also switched to autonomous mining vehicles, eliminating the need to hire drivers to transport oil sands ore. The switch has improved oil output productivity at Imperial's Kearl oil sands mine by 20 per cent since 2023, the company said. Suncor operates a 900-tonne truck at its Fort Hills operation north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, which the company says is the world's largest hydraulic mining shovel. Suncor CEO Rich Kruger said the shovel's larger bucket and more powerful digging force deliver faster ore loading and less spillage. Oil sands producers have also made improvements in equipment reliability and performance. At Kearl, for example, Imperial has reduced expenses related to turnarounds — an industry term for the costly periods of required maintenance that often involve temporarily shutting down production — by $100 million annually since 2021. The company cut the time between turnarounds from 12 to 24 months in 2024, and aims to extend that interval to 48 months in future. Suncor credits efforts including standardizing maintenance practices across mines and improving management of site water to get more production out of existing assets for contributing to the company's US$7 per barrel reduction in its West Texas Intermediate (WTI) break-even price in 2024 to $42.90. This long-term focus on cost-cutting means Canada's five biggest oil sands companies can break even — and still maintain their dividends — at WTI prices between $43.10 and $40.85, according to a Bank of Montreal analysis for Reuters. That means oil sands producers have lowered their overall costs by approximately $10 a barrel in about seven years. Oil sands had an average break-even price of $51.80/bbl between 2017 and 2019, according to BMO. In contrast, a recent Dallas Federal Reserve survey of over 100 oil and gas companies in Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana found that shale oil producers need a WTI oil price of $65 per barrel on average to profitably drill. Back in 2017-2019, U.S. shale producers had a break-even price of between $50 and $52 per barrel. High startup costs, but long lifespans Part of the reason that the oil sands industry has become so cost competitive is the nature of the extraction process. Producing the thick, sticky oil that is found in the sands of Alberta is in some locations more akin to mining than oil drilling. Where the oil is very close to the surface, companies operate massive mines, scraping up huge volumes of sand and clay and then filtering out the oil. When the oil is deeper, companies inject steam underground to loosen the deposits and then use a drilling process. An oil sands mine has big initial start-up costs but once it is operational, it can run for decades with very low production decline rates. Canadian Natural Resources, for example, at the end of 2024 had proved and probable reserves amounting to 20.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent in its portfolio, giving its oil sands mining and upgrading assets a remaining reserve lifespan of 43 years. The company's Horizon oil sands mine has been producing since 2009. Shale oil wells, by contrast, have low start up costs. Oil output from the wells, however, begins to decline within months. Prices have begun to climb because after years of heavy drilling in the top shale fields, the most productive areas have been exhausted. Drillers are moving onto secondary areas, so they have to drill more wells to achieve the same output and that has driven up costs. Canadian oil sands companies have also paid down debt in the past five years, allowing them to reallocate profits away from shoring up their balance sheets and towards rewarding shareholders with dividends and buybacks. According to the Bank of Montreal, oil sands producers Canadian Natural Resources, Suncor, Cenovus, Imperial Oil and MEG Energy currently have combined net debt, excluding lease liabilities, of $33.9 billion after paying down a combined total of almost $22 billion in debt between 2021 and 2024. As returns grow, Canadian oil sands producers are an increasingly attractive investment for those looking to make money from the energy industry, said Kevin Burkett, portfolio manager with Vancouver-based Burkett Asset Management. '(Canada's oil sands) are not geopolitically risky, and they have some very appealing characteristics around productivity and costs,' said Burkett, who has shares of Canadian Natural Resources and Cenovus in his portfolio. (Reporting by Amanda Stephenson; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Anna Driver)

Korea Herald

12-06-2025

Entertainment
Korea Herald

[Photo News] Dancing robots

Boston Dynamics' four-legged industrial surveillance robot Spot dazzled the audience and judges at this year's America's Got Talent by performing a group dancing act. Five Spots carried out synchronized choreography as they moved their legs and bodies to the tune of "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen while using their robot arms to lip-sync the lyrics of the song. The robots, which are developed by Hyundai Motor-backed Boston Dynamics, received unanimous "yes" votes from the four judges to advance to the next stage. (Screen capture from America's Got Talent YouTube channel)

'Ignorance' Is Most Pressing Issue Facing Ocean Conservation, Says Sylvia Earle

Yahoo

05-06-2025

Science
Yahoo

'Ignorance' Is Most Pressing Issue Facing Ocean Conservation, Says Sylvia Earle

Credit - Erika Larsen Marine biologist Sylvia Earle could easily rest on her laurels. In a career that began in the 1950s, she has become a pioneer in ocean exploration and conservation. She holds the record for the deepest walk under the sea and was the first female chief scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But on the cusp of her 90th birthday this August, she has no plans to slow down—and believes that the problems currently facing our oceans now have never been more urgent. Her most recent venture, Mission Blue, aims to create a worldwide network of marine protected areas known as 'Hope Spots.' As of June 2, this includes the Chesapeake Bay. TIME spoke to Earle in May after a dive she made in the country's largest estuary. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Read more: Fishing Communities in the Philippines Are Fighting for their Future as Waters Rise TIME: You have been involved in ocean conservation work for decades. What changes have you noticed since you first started this work? EARLE: We have learned more about the nature of the ocean, of the planet as a whole, and even about ourselves. When I was a child, no one had been to the moon, no one had been to the deepest part of the sea. The internet did not exist. Think about the things we did not know, even about the microbial world, and how influential that is on everything and every one. That was just missing in our understanding of how the world functions. [We've learned more about] the magnitude of our climate and what our role has been in bringing about change. In many cases, we've lost more than during all preceding history. What do you feel is the most pressing issue facing our oceans now? Ignorance, complacency, lack of awareness that the ocean is essential to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Every breath we take, every drop of water we drink, we are connected to the ocean. Our very existence depends not just on the existence of rocks and water. 97% of Earth's water is ocean, and ocean is essential to life, but what really matters is that the ocean has populated with creatures who preceded us, not just by centuries or millennia, but hundreds of billions of years, fine tuning rocks and water into a habitable planet. It just seems perverse that we take so much for granted and are so casual about consuming nature [when] you realize how long it has taken for the natural systems to come to a state where we actually can not just survive here, but thrive here. We know what to do. We just need, in this really critical crossroads in time, to use the knowledge we have and to come together. Everybody is, without exception, vulnerable to the state of the planet, the habitability of Earth. If you can't breathe, nothing else quite matters. Or if you don't have water, if you don't have food. All of the basics anchor back to [the idea that] we've got to take care of what keeps Earth, our home, safe in a universe that is really inhospitable. For those who want to go to Mars and set up housekeeping, I say, good luck. It's a great vision. I think we'll get there for a small number of people, for small periods of time, but it's not an alternative to Earth. We are of the Earth. Actually, we are of the ocean, because it's the ocean that makes our existence possible. As someone who has led more than 100 expeditions and logged more than 7,000 hours underwater, what's one thing you wished more people knew about our oceans? I wish people could understand [that the ocean] is not just a massive amount of salt water, but rather it's a living system. What we put into the ocean changes the chemistry of not just the ocean, but of the planetary functions as a whole. The consequences to planetary chemistry, to planetary security, are right now facing us with the prospect of the sharp changes that we won't be able to control if they get to that tipping point. The good news through all of this, I think, is that the world has not tipped yet into a state from which we cannot recover. We've got all the warning signs, the rapid increase temperature, the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the rapid loss of forests on the land, and the consequences of clear cutting forests, disrupting the carbon cycle, clear cutting the ocean of fish, of squid, of krill from Antarctica, all of this. We know what we need to do. A big part of Mission Blue's work is identifying 'Hope Spots' in the ocean. When much of our ecosystems are under threat, why is it important to you to highlight these areas? The real purpose underlying the Hope Spot concept is to ignite public awareness and support for protecting nature. The Hope Spot is a means to a broader end, to get people to be aware of why the ocean in particular matters. Land and sea together, the whole world is one big, mostly blue hope spot, but [we want to] energize individual champions, communities, institutions, to come together with a common purpose of protecting a place that they know and love. And this is meant to highlight and enforce and support everybody else who's trying to do something to turn from declined to recovery, one hope spot, one community, one champion at a time. And it is contagious. People want to know, what can I do to make a difference? You are almost 90 years old—what keeps you diving? Why not? I think it's important to keep doing the things you love as long as you can. How can I resist when most of the areas on Earth where life exists have yet to be explored. I want to keep doing it as long as I can breathe. Don't you want to do the same thing? Read more from TIME's Ocean Issue The World Isn't Valuing Oceans Properly Meet the Marine Biologist Working to Protect Our Oceans from Deep-Sea Mining Geopolitical Tensions are Shaping the Future of our Oceans Write to Simmone Shah at

'Take it to the next level': Oil and gas industry players embrace AI and other tech

National Observer

12-05-2025

Business
National Observer

'Take it to the next level': Oil and gas industry players embrace AI and other tech

Haul trucks, shovels, pumps and pipes are common sights at Imperial Oil 's vast oilsands operations in northeastern Alberta, but so too are robots and drones, with generative artificial intelligence a newer addition to the technological mix. "We've been laser-focused on this digital journey since 2018," Cheryl Gomez-Smith, the senior executive in charge of Imperial's production, told a recent investor conference. Gomez-Smith said as of last year, Imperial's bottom line has seen a $700-million boost from high-tech initiatives — and that's on track to rise to $1.2 billion by 2027. The company has an in-house team dedicated to ramping up new technologies, and also draws on expertise from its US majority owner ExxonMobil Corp. For the past few years, Imperial has been using self-driving haul trucks at its Kearl oilsands mine. It has also enlisted Spot, a four-legged robot developed by Boston Dynamics that bears an eerie resemblance to a dog, for routine inspections and maintenance at Cold Lake, an oilsands site in eastern Alberta that uses steam wells to extract bitumen. "We estimate Spot can conduct almost 70 per cent of some operator rounds, allowing us to reallocate operator and maintenance resources to higher value work," said Gomez-Smith. "We currently have two Spots at site. We have two more inbound for delivery at this quarter, so we're well on our way to having a litter." Imperial is building on those advancements by expanding into generative AI, Gomez-Smith said. "This is where we're chatting with our own data to allow operations to gain real-time insights to drive better and faster decisions." At Cold Lake, remote piloted drones are helping save money on maintenance and they're on the brink of being AI-enabled. Sensors with AI capabilities are also helping automate pumpjack speed at the site in order to boost efficiency. Shannon Wilson, who leads the energy division at IBM Canada, said the oil and gas industry has been using automation for a long time and it's beginning to "take it to the next level" by incorporating AI. In addition to bolstering automation already on site, Wilson said AI is being used to improve productivity by quickly sifting through or compiling reams of information — tasks that would have otherwise been time consuming for workers. It's also been helpful in monitoring operations and better planning maintenance activities, reducing downtime. Larger companies have the scale to invest in their own in-house technology, while smaller ones are taking advantage of commercial offerings, Wilson said. "There's creativity happening in the marketplace and they're buying the embedded solutions from some of their existing service providers." Wilson called AI a tool to "augment" human intelligence. "Ultimately, humans are the decision-makers," she said. "The more repeatable a process is, the more AI can lend itself." Another one of the country's energy majors, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., says in a 2022 report that in its international operations, which include offshore platforms in the U.K. and Cote d'Ivoire, it has used "a suite of artificial intelligence tools" to track its greenhouse gas emissions data. "This data allows us to identify production anomalies in real-time that could be causing emissions fluctuations," it said. Fellow oilsands giant Suncor Energy Inc. also has a fleet of autonomous trucks, and said in a 2023 website post that it had begun incorporating AI into the dispatching system at its Mildred Lake mine. It said human dispatchers still work around the clock, but AI handles straightforward tasks like assigning trucks to dump stations and directing them to refuelling stations. While many information technology pros are looking for ways that AI can be a benefit to businesses, others are focused on the darker side — helping companies protect themselves from cyberattacks. The 2025 IBM X-Force Threat Index released last month said the global energy sector accounted for 10 per cent of the attacks its cybersecurity teams responded to in 2024. "The critical importance of energy infrastructure to global operations and its susceptibility to disruption makes it a persistent focus for attackers," the report said. Tyler Williams, EY Canada's cybersecurity leader for industrials and energy, said the threat landscape is evolving quickly and the industry is doing its best to keep up. Attacks have become so advanced that they can be launched autonomously via AI in seconds, wreaking the kind of havoc that a few years ago would have taken millions of dollars and specialized expertise to pull off, he said. "It's a bit of a scary environment," Williams said. Companies need to counter AI threats with their own technology that's as advanced or better, he said. "I think everyone is attentive to it. They're not unaware of the problem. There's not really a lack of ambition or investment that I've seen in the sector, particularly in oil and gas," Williams said. Standards bodies are working to come up with guidance, Williams said, "but I think most companies would consider themselves quite on their own to come up with frameworks and controls to make sure that technology gets deployed securely." This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2025.