news 2023

The thick layer of sediment accumulated at the bottom of this lake could be used to study climate change, environmental changes and earthquakes that have occurred over hundreds of thousands of years .

McGill researchers challenge current understanding of dinosaur extinction by unearthing link between volcanic eruptions and climate change What wiped out the dinosaurs? A meteorite plummeting to Earth is only part of the story, a new study suggests. Climate change triggered by massive volcanic eruptions may have ultimately set the stage for the dinosaur extinction, challenging the traditional narrative that a meteorite alone delivered the final blow to the ancient giants.

UdeM biologists produce a first-ever social and ecological profile - in multicoloured map form - of over 600 of the country's lakes, identifying which need to be better preserved. Canada has more lakes than any country in the world - more than 900,000 - and its population depends on them for drinking water, water to irrigate crops, and water in which to fish, swim, and boat on.

Science, Health & Technology Alex Walls DNA sequencing technique can also help source minerals that are key to the green-energy transition Researchers have identified buried kimberlite, the rocky home of diamonds, by testing the DNA of microbes in the surface soil. These 'biological fingerprints' can reveal what minerals are buried tens of metres below the earth's surface without having to drill.

Both elegant and fierce, killer whales are some of the oceans' top predators, but even they can be exposed to environmental pollution. Now, in the largest study to date on North Atlantic killer whales, researchers in the American Chemical Society' Environmental Science & Technology report the levels of legacy and emerging pollutants in 162 individuals' blubber.

Complex interplay between stellar activity and exoplanet characteristics revealed in study co-authored by McGill Professor Nicolas Cowan A team of astronomers has made a leap forward in our understanding of the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 exoplanetary system. Not only has their research shed light on the nature of TRAPPIST-1 b, the exoplanet orbiting closest to the system's star, but it has also shown the importance of parent stars when studying exoplanets.

New research co-led by Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia shows that amplified global warming in the Canadian High Arctic drove a profound shift in the structure of a river network carved into a permafrost landscape in only 60 years. Documenting a powerful interplay among climate change, the freeze-thaw dynamics of polygonal ground and the delivery of surface water by floods as well as snow and ice melting, the team developed a new view of the physical controls governing the speed and pattern of river channel development in these fragile landscapes.

Forest fires make the water in lakes whose catchment areas have been burnt murkier and also richer in nutrients, a Canada-U.S. research team has found. More than two million hectares of Quebec forest reduced to ashes. Yellowknife evacuated. New York City under a thick blanket of orange smoke. Greek islands ravaged.

News Release - Scientists crack the code of what causes diamonds to erupt: New research could spark future diamond discoveries A recent discovery by a team of international researchers has identified the breakup of tectonic plates as the main driving force behind the generation and eruption of diamond-rich magmas from deep inside the Earth.

Injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into ocean basalt has almost no risk of triggering any seismic activity such as earthquakes or fault slip according to new research from Solid Carbon , a promising climate change mitigation project for reducing the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere. Advanced computer modelling by scientists with the Solid Carbon team shows injecting CO2 under the Cascadia Basin has less than 1 percent chance of causing fault slip.

Stronger winds shift water from the Labrador Current eastward, with dire consequences for marine ecosystems Changes to the flow of the Labrador Current along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador to Nova Scotia are leading to sudden warmings or drops in the oxygen levels of the waters in several regions including the St. Lawrence Gulf and Estuary.

First study to incorporate genealogical records to provide an accurate map of genetic relatedness Though we all share common ancestors ranging from a few generations to hundreds of thousands of years, genealogies that relate all of us are often forgotten over time. A new McGill University-led study is now providing insight into the complex relationship between human migration and genetic variation, using a unique genealogical dataset of over five million records spanning 400 years to unravel the genetic structure of French Canadian populations.

Astronomers from Université de Montréal have discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet around a nearby small red dwarf star that appears to be carpeted with volcanoes. Björn Benneke, a Professor at the Université de Montréal and member of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets, whose team led this discovery.

Science, Health & Technology Erik Rolfsen For decades, scientists have looked to seaweed as an indicator of the health of coral reefs lying underneath. But what if the seaweed was misleading them? New UBC research reveals it was, and scientists need new ways to determine whether human activity is harming a particular reef.

Wetlands are among the most threatened ecosystems in the world. A new study, published in Nature , has found that the loss of wetland areas around the globe since 1700 has likely been overestimated. This is good news overall, however, the global picture hides significant variations, with several regions and distinct wetland types under significant levels of pressure.

New research has uncovered a change in behaviour of deep-sea fragile pink sea urchins off the south coast of Vancouver Island that is linked to climate change impacts including the " Blob ," a marine heatwave that persisted in the Pacific Ocean off North America between 2013 to 2016. Researchers from the Memorial University, Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) and the University of Victoria (UVic) found pink sea urchins  ( Strongylocentrotus fragilis ) have been moving up into shallower waters as food sources and oxygen levels at lower depths decline due to a warming ocean.

Better fisheries management and conservation is effective at turning the tide on the shark and ray declines, according to a study from Simon Fraser researchers. The fact sharks and rays are increasingly threatened by overfishing has made global headlines in recent years. Oceanic populations have plummeted by as much as 71 per cent in the last 50 years and one third of all sharks and rays are threatened with extinction.

An international research team including UdeM professor James King has shown that dust from southern Africa made its way to Antarctica within the last few thousand years. CONTENU - Until recently, the southern part of South America was believed to be the main source of the dust that lands in Antarctica.

New research from SFU-s Jeremy Venditti dives into the science of going with the flow predicting the evolution of the Earth's surface. Researchers at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have devised a better way to measure how fast sediment flows in rivers.