Air quality is a major challenge globally and is the single greatest environmental risk to human health. More than 90 per cent of the world’s population lives in areas that exceed the World Health Organization guideline for healthy air. In North America, Canada and the United States of America have …
Canadian researchers have identified the first species of toilet-trained fish - pikes select secluded areas to deposit their faeces to safeguard against being detected by their prey (New Scientist, Vol 146, No 1976). When pikes attack fat-head minnows, the victims release an alarm pheromone that alerts other minnows to keep …
A storm is brewing again in the international waters off Canada. Just 2 weeks after burying the hatchet with Canada (Down To Earth, Vol 4, No 1), Spanish authorities have ordered one of their vessels back to port for using illegal nets. According to an agriculture ministry spokesman, the Spanish …
HIGHBROW colleges can seek to catalyse changes in the communities they are rooted in. The Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) is a national voluntary membership organisation based at Ontario in Canada. The accc acts as an interface between colleges and institutes to the government and industry. The accc is …
THE bridge over troubled Atlantic waters that Canada and the European Union (EU) are trying to build may yet turn out to be little more than a shaky pontoon. The 2 belligerents finally came to an agreement on the pesky issue of Greenland halibut (turbot) catches off the Canadian coast. …
CANADIAN and US newsprint producers are increasingly evading their governments' environmental regulations which require a recycled content of 4060 per cent in newsprint. "But when there is a shortage of newsprint, nobody worries about how much recycled content you have in it," said a senior executive in a Canadian firm. …
It is a sad commentary on ate of the world's cnous peoples that about in northern Canada, are to turn their sacred nto a nuclear dump - hange for jobs. The ps that make up the ow Lake Tribal 11 are convinced that atc-owned Atomic of Canada Limited ka)file LIP …
Huge forest fires played havoc in Australia at the beginning of this year. This time they have struck again -- in western Canada. About 2,430 ha of the fruit-growing belt of British Columbia has turned into a gigantic inferno and thousands of people living in the surrounding countryside are abandoning …
KEEP the Great Lakes surrounding the US-Canada border clean or fall prey to cancer and impotency, warns the International Joint Commission, the watchdog for the five lakes -- Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. A recent report of the organisation expresses concern about the apparent nonchalance of the US and …
SMUGGLERS haunting the US-Canada border have scuttled the Canadian government's policy of levying high taxes on tobacco products. Responding to the protests of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council, which claims that the flood of cheap, contraband cigarettes from the US has ruined businesses, Canada's federal government and that of Quebec …
NORMAL life came to a grinding halt in Canada when a geomagnetic disturbance hit two of its communications satellites -- Anik E1 and Anik E2. Television and radio transmissions were disrupted across the nation. Canadian Press, the country's biggest news service that feeds information to more than 100 newspapers and …
CANADA'S Royal Commission on Reproductive Technology has recommended a ban on sex determination tests. It has been stated that Indian Canadians and other South Asians visit ultrasound clinics for prenatal testing to have only male children. According to the Commission's report, sex selection "reinforces the idea of a child's sex …
ADDING the genes of broccoli, cabbage or cauliflower to those of rapeseed could yield an oil that can be used to make superstrong plastics. Presently, rape-seed oil yields only 66 per cent erucic acid and is expensive to purify. Researchers at the National Research Council of Canada's Plant Biotechnology Institute …
AFTER much dithering, Russia has joined Europe, Canada and Japan in the US-led international space station project. Russia will merge its Mir programme with the US Freedom programme for the project, the first of its kind. Orbiting where Russia's Mir 1 is currently deployed, the project will consist of the …
RECENT Canadian studies suggest that hydroelectric power generation may, in some cases, be a major source of greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, and so be as polluting as thermal power generation (Ambio, Vol 22, No 4). The gases are produced, explain John W M Rudd of the …
THE WORLD'S first certification system for "sustainably produced timber" has been set up. At an early October meeting in Toronto, environmentalists, businesspersons and human rights groups launched the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which will verify claims that wood products and wood pulp come from sustainable forests. Producer countries have treated …
THE UPHEAVAL in Canada's forestry sector is shaking many of the biggest companies to their roots. Parent companies, strapped for cash, have stopped supporting subsidiaries that are making losses because of the low newsprint and pulp prices -- the mainstay of Canada's forestry industry. The giant CP Forest joined a …
CULTS are dangerous and the world has never been free of them. But they are not all necessarily religious in nature. The latest in the bandwagon is the herbal cult The herbal cult was born in America -- aren't they all? -- out of a call to return to one's …
IN A BID to protect its forests from a voracious, microscopic pest called the pinewood nematode, the European Community (EC) has banned imports of untreated softwood lumber from Canada. The ban affects the bulk of Canada's $388.50 million yearly export of untreated lumber to EC states. Now all Canadian lumber …
LINKING together individual molecules to make complicated structures, much in the same way as children playing with Lego, chemists are now trying to construct materials whose properties they can fix beforehand. At least half a dozen groups in USA, Canada, Europe and Australia are assembling large arrays of molecules to …
WHILE CHOOSING a fabric, fingers may be the best judge of a cloth's quality, but they are not reliable in predicting the cloth's behaviour after it is tailored. Now, a mathematical technique called fuzzy-set theory, may enable textiles to be designed according to predetermined attributes related to comfort and performance …
