The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department announced a new policing initiative this week to combat illegal drone operation in metropolitan areas. The police drones will monitor no-fly zones, enforcing Japan’s drone legislation. Upon finding illegal activity, the drone squad will seek for the drone operator and order the drones to be grounded. If the squad is … Read more
On Monday, the XPrize Foundation announced its latest competition: the $7 Million Shell Ocean Discovery XPrize, which aims to map the ocean floor in high resolution, and find sources of pollution autonomously. Teams will test their technologies in two rounds at two separate undisclosed locations, mapping a 500 square kilometer area of ocean floor in … Read more
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who filmed the historical adventure picture ‘The Revenant’ in Alberta and British Columbia this year, recently commented on his northern experience at a Q&A, expressing grave concern over the weather phenomena known as the “Chinook.” “We were in Calgary,” said DiCaprio, “and the locals were saying, ‘This has never happened in our … Read more
CHILLIWACK, British Columbia — In the latest of the trials over Trinity Western University’s planned law school, a B.C. Supreme Court judge has found in favor of the school, rejecting the Law Society of BC’s rejection of TWU. The Law Society had not properly maintained its discretion when it went back on its initial approval of … Read more
Canada and Sweden have signed a new cooperative agreement based on science in the Arctic. The deal may have a special meaning for Canada, because the nation’s claims to a large tract of the Arctic is contested by other claimants Russia, Denmark, the U.S., and Norway. Canada’s claim depends upon proving that the boundaries of its … Read more
The active sand dunes of Mars were reached by NASA’s Curiosity rover last month, and Friday NASA released some of Curiosity’s latest photography. The Bagnold Dunes are as high as two stories, and compose the bottom portion of a layered mountain Curiosity is trekking up this month. Some of Curiosity’s latest photos show the bot’s view … Read more
The Geminids — “the King of Meteor Showers” — will rain down around 100 to 150 multi-colored slow-moving streaks per hour this weekend, visible from anywhere, but the best views will be for those in the Northern Hemisphere. The show will peak over the night of Sunday, December 13 — between midnight and morning with the highest activity … Read more
Alberta’s Premier said this week that she was not sure the provincial government would raise the minimum wage to $15 after all, citing the state of the Alberta economy and the possibility that raising the minimum wage might lead to job losses. The NDP came to power in May, the first non-Conservative party to govern … Read more
“Virgin soil” hypothesis of African tuberculosis burden now challenged by new “European wave” hypothesis Ethiopia is a hotspot for tuberculosis infection, ranking third among African countries and eighth in the world for TB burden according to the World Health Organization. But, say researchers who have analyzed the genomes of 66 TB strains and reported their … Read more
Many of the body’s processes follow a natural daily rhythm or so-called circadian clock, so there are certain times of the day when a person is most alert, when the heart is most efficient, and when the body prefers sleep. Even bacteria have a circadian clock, and in a December 10 Cell Reports study, researchers … Read more
ISIS will be eliminated in about six months, Assange predicted, who blamed both Russia and Turkey for the jet downing last month Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange spoke via live video stream on a panel on security and surveillance featuring terrorism expert Philip Giraldi, political activist Raymond McGovern, and strategic analyst Gregory Copley Thursday. At the end of the discussion, … Read more
The red planet’s future rings Mars will most likely develop rings similar to Saturn’s, when its largest moon, Phobos, gets close enough to break apart, according to a recently published study in Nature Geoscience. Mars would be the only inner planet with rings if this took place. Scientists predict it will happen in about 20 – 40 million … Read more