Latest news with #UniversityofTorontoScarborough
Toronto Star
21-05-2025
- Toronto Star
I love visiting the U.S. — from the San Diego tacos, to the black sand beaches in Hawaii — but I'm sure as heck not going there in the next four years
Last year, this time, I was in sunny San Diego. It was a golf trip for my husband and a few days of relaxing for me. We went to Balboa Park, Old Town, Coronado and the Gaslamp District. I can say we ate entirely too many tacos and burritos. The Mexican food scene is great. In February 2024, I was in Washington, D.C. on an experiential learning trip with Black students from the University of Toronto Scarborough. We visited Howard University, a historically Black institution and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
CBC
14-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Indigenous people face 'internal dilemma' when deciding whether or not to vote, says expert
Social Sharing For many Indigenous people, deciding whether to cast a ballot in the upcoming federal election is a complicated choice. "We can impact the vote, it's whether or not we choose to," said Chadwick Cowie, who is Ojibway from Hiawatha First Nation in southern Ontario, and an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough. "The internal dilemma is very understandable, and I don't hold it against anyone who chooses not to vote based on treaty rights." He said some First Nations people must take the time to reflect on whether or not voting makes sense to them. "The idea of citizenship in the Canadian state hasn't been one to necessarily treat us as equals, but rather to be utilized as a way of furthering settler colonialism," said Cowie. Inuit were granted the right to vote in 1950, but many of them didn't see a ballot box in their home community that decade. Elections Canada says all Arctic communities got voting services by 1962. First Nations people wouldn't be granted the right to vote federally until 1960. 2015 voting surge The 2015 election was on the heels of Idle No More, a protest movement that grew to encompass everything from Indigenous sovereignty and protecting the treaties to addressing social and economic inequalities. "Indigenous people were deciding to vote, not because of having a sense of duty to being a Canadian citizen, but a sense of duty to their own nations and wanting to see a government in place that would actually listen to them," said Cowie. "For First Nations people, it was more that they had enough of a government that consistently steamrolled them." The overall Indigenous voter turnout is not recorded by Elections Canada, but they do track the turnout on reserves. In 2015, Elections Canada reported 61.5 per cent of First Nations voters living on reserve cast a ballot, an increase of 14 percentage points from the 2011 election. The turnout for the general population was 66 per cent. In the 2021 election, 62.6 per cent of Canadians voted, and 44.5 per cent of people living on reserve voted. "The lack of conversation on reconciliation and treaty rights and all these other things that had been dominant in 2015 … it's not at the forefront," said Cowie. In this election, Cowie said, the political climate is much different from 2015. "We've always dealt with an onslaught of people trying to assimilate or take us over or control us, and we're now dealing with that … not just from Canada, but also now we're seeing it from the United States," said Cowie. "I think it's causing confusion over what to do and how to go about doing it." WATCH | How to vote, with or without ID: How Indigenous voters can cast their ballot 4 days ago Duration 1:26 There are groups still trying to empower Indigenous voters, including the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC), whose campaign focuses on informing First Nations voters on where the parties stand on Indigenous issues, and reminding the federal parties the Indigenous vote matters. "We are focused on ensuring that all parties understand our position and how First Nations people, First Nations communities … need to be involved in the discussions surrounding any votes," said AMC Grand Chief Kyra Wilson. Issues left unaddressed Wilson said many of the promises made in 2015 by the Liberal Party still remain unresolved. "There are so many very important areas that continually go unaddressed … housing infrastructure, clean drinking water, child welfare – the issues still remain," said Wilson. "First Nations people need to be part of these discussions, they need to participate in the election." For Wilson, upholding the treaties is her top priority. "[We] need to be able to figure this out together, First Nations and government and the Crown, how are we going to uphold the treaties that were promised, and signed onto … with all our ancestors," said Wilson.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
First-Ever Detailed Footage Shows Polar Bear Cubs Emerging From Dens
Remote cameras in Norway have given us the first detailed look at polar bear cubs emerging from their dens, in videos more than 10 years in the making. The first months of a polar bear (Ursus maritimus) cub's life are spent in a den of ice, where the warm bodies of their mother and siblings protect its initially hairless body from the lethal Arctic winter. From a tiny half-kilogram (1 pound) at birth, the cubs grow quickly off their mother's milk and, as the season shifts, a supplement of seal blubber. This approach helps the cubs to reach about 10 kilograms by the time they leave the den in the spring of their first year. The family will often den again the following winter, seeing the cubs through to weaning. Shelter, in these vulnerable winter months, is crucial for cub survival in the first two years. Even then, less than half of the cubs that are born make it to adulthood. Concealed within the remote, blinding-white landscapes of the Arctic, mothers give their cubs the best chance by digging dens under snow up to a few meters deep. These have just two openings: one scraped in the ceiling for ventilation, the other a doorway that the cubs will cross only once the weather warms. You can see a mother digging a system of dens at around 2:16 in this video. This strategy is so effective, it's made observation difficult for scientists hoping to map out the best protections for polar bear dens. An international team of researchers fitted female polar bears with GPS satellite collars, enabling them to track mother bears to their dens in Svalbard's remote mountains. Even with time-lapse cameras set up at 13 dens across six years (2016–2020 and 2023), footage of mothers with cubs is scant. "As the data from satellite radio collars were available for all the mothers, the observational data made it possible to tell how changes in activity and temperature recorded correspond with behavior," says polar bear ecologist Jon Aars from the Norwegian Polar Institute. The Svalbard polar bear families emerged from their dens around March 9th, and abandoned them earlier than has been previously recorded for this population. Further monitoring will reveal if this is a trend. Shorter den time could be detrimental to cubs, who, without the chance to develop fully, may struggle to cope with the harsh environment they face outside. Collar and camera data showed that after emerging from their dens, polar bears continued to live in and around it for an average of 12 days before setting off for the spring sea ice, though the duration varied greatly between families. Some mothers were also recorded moving their family to a different den. "Every den we monitored had its own story; every data point adds to our understanding of this crucial time and supports more effective conservation strategies," says lead author Louise Archer, an ecologist from the University of Toronto Scarborough. The team also found cubs rely on their mothers heavily in these early years: they rarely ventured out of the den alone, and were seen without their mothers only 5 percent of the time. Here, we see a mother bear guide three cubs out of their cozy den. "Polar bear mothers are having increasing difficulties reproducing due to climate-driven changes, and are likely to face further challenges with the expansion of the human footprint in the Arctic," Archer says. In an era of climate change and industrial expansion in the Arctic, the team hopes video studies like this one can help us to better understand how to protect this elusive species. "Protecting denning habitats is essential for population health, and this study provides invaluable insights that will help guide protective management," conservation biologist Megan Owen from San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance adds. The research is published in the Journal of Wildlife Management. Destructive Forces of Ancient Glaciers May Have Given Complex Life a Boost Your Dog's Blinking Could Be an Attempt to Tell You Something Important Incredible Discovery Shows Mice Trying to Revive Fallen Companions
CBC
14-02-2025
- Science
- CBC
How do male chimps ask for sex? It depends on their local dialect
When a male chimpanzee wants to hit on a female without causing a scene, he sometimes has to get a little creative. "The alpha male, he can mate with whoever he wants, whenever he wants, and he gets at least half of the offspring," Catherine Crockford of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "The subordinate males, they want to have their go. But, you know, they can't if the alpha male spots them." To avoid the alpha's wrath, Crockford says males use covert physical gestures — which she calls "the sneakies" — to solicit sex. These mating moves, which she and her colleagues documented for a new study, vary between chimpanzee communities, suggesting chimp populations have their own distinct dialects. Crockford says the findings, published in the journal Current Biology, show that chimpanzee conservation is about more than protecting animals; it's about safeguarding entire cultures. Northern knuckle-knockers Crockford and her colleagues looked at the use of mating signals over the course of 45 years among chimpanzees at the Taï National Park in Ivory Coast. Four groups of chimps call the park home, identified by which area of the park they inhabit: north, south, east and northeast. The researchers observed four distinct ways males signalled a desire for sex: knocking their knuckles on a hard surface, kicking their heels, tearing strips from a leaf and waving a branch. While all four groups perform the branch and heel gestures, only the chimps in the northeastern part of the park knuckle-knock and only the southeastern chimps use the leaves. It's a surprising difference for two populations who have a shared gene pool and live just 500 kilometres apart in the same habitat, Crawford said. "The only way that this can come about is that the young males must learn from watching the older males," she said. Julie Teichroeb, who studies primate behaviour at the University of Toronto Scarborough, says she's not surprised by the findings. After all, she says, differences in vocal communications have been well-documented in many different types of animals. Different populations of whales and songbirds, for example, are known to have unique regional dialects. Recent research suggests elephants may even have their own distinct names for each other. Chimpanzees, too, have been shown to have geographic differences in their "pant hoots" which are loud, long-distance calls. In that case, Teichroeb notes, it's unclear whether the differences are cultural or genetic. Culture is fragile In the case of the Taï National Park study, Crockford says there's clearly a cultural factor at play. And cultures, she says, can be lost. In fact, the scientists have already seen this play out. One of Crockford's colleagues, field assistant Honora Néné Kpazahi, first noticed decades ago that males in the park's northern population were knocking their knuckles to get females' attention. But over time, the gesture's prevalence declined as several disease outbreaks, some spilled over from humans, ravaged the population until only two males were left. Illegal poachers killed one of those males, Marius, in 2004. With only one male left standing, the gesture was no longer needed, and it's been lost to that group ever since. Now, only the northeastern chimpanzees do it. The same thing, she says, can happen to other learned behaviours, like the use of tools, which also varies between populations. "The sad thing is that we now know that not only does [poaching] kill chimpanzees, but it kills the cultures," she said. "These cultures can take generations to emerge, we think. And, you know, if you lose those skills, then it might actually impact your survival." Teichroeb said in an email the loss of that knuckle-knocking gesture among Ivory Coast chimps shows "how fragile animal culture is, just like human culture."
