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Visiting USask research team and Biogeoscience Institute educators deepen our understanding of water movement and flooding impacts in Sibbald Valley The beaver is a well-known symbol associated with Canada.

By decoding the DNA of the beaked hazelnut ( Corylus cornuta ), a native plant that thrives in British Columbia, a team of multidisciplinary scientists is providing new insight into how ancestral Indigenous peoples stewarded plants across the province. Led by Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, an assistant professor in Simon Fraser University's (SFU) Department of Indigenous Studies, the innovative study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), a major scientific journal.

A new study shows that artificial ponds created to restore peatlands exploited by humans achieve a balance similar to that of natural ponds, but it takes time. Ponds created to restore bogs degraded by peat extraction take over 17 years to develop ecosystems similar to natural ponds. That is the finding of a study by master's students Émilie Jolin and Mahmud Hassan and doctoral candidate Julien Arsenault, supervised by Julie Talbot of the Department of Geography at Université de Montréal and Line Rochefort at Université Laval.

Remarkable encounter during 2022 Niagara fireball event leads to discovery of tiniest asteroid known In an international study led by Western University and Lowell Observatory , scientists describe a pioneering, integrative approach for studying near-Earth asteroids based largely on a November 2022 fireball event that dropped meteorites in the Niagara region.

Temporary sound installations can be a low-cost way of dealing with noise pollution in areas of high urban density, McGill researchers have found. Dubbed the "new second hand smoke," noise pollution can have consequences ranging from simple annoyance to such serious health problems as hearing loss and high blood pressure and can exacerbate various mental health conditions.

Findings indicate PCBs, DDT continue to pose threats decades after they were banned, even as decline in contamination levels overall testifies to bans' positive impact, researcher said. Killer whales off Canada's Atlantic coast continue to be contaminated with dangerously high levels of toxic chemicals that put them at elevated risk of severe immune-system and reproductive problems, a recent McGill-led study has found.

What is the "most Canadian" animal' Spoiler: it's not the beaver, or the moose. Published today in the journal The Canadian Field-Naturalist , the study from a team of Simon Fraser researchers ranks, for the first time ever, species of terrestrial vertebrates in Canada by their level of Canadian evolutionary distinctness: the amount of time animals have evolved independently from other Canadian species.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have reimagined the construction of modular homes with the development and testing of an innovative new design that allows the structures to be more easily relocated, reassembled and reconfigured in either urban or remote areas. The design of the Structural Timber and Applied Research Team (START), located in Waterloo's Faculty of Engineering, uses cross-laminated timber (CLT) and a wall-to-floor connection with few bolts needed in each connection.

University of Waterloo researchers have developed an innovative double-skin building façade that contains microalgae and uses machine learning to generate energy. Operating a building is often costly given the price of heating and energy usage, accounting for 37 per cent of global CO2 emissions.

Led by a team at UdeM's IREx, scientists explore the exoplanet GJ 9827 d'and find a significant amount of water vapor in its atmosphere. A Canadian-led international study has revealed new insights into the atmosphere of GJ 9827 d - an exoplanet orbiting the star GJ 9827 in the constellation Pisces, about 98 light-years from Earth - using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Rain, freezing rain or snow? Study uses new data to identify factors that will help meteorologists A recent study at McGill University provides new insights into how winter storms develop in the St. Lawrence River Valley, findings that could potentially improve the accuracy of winter weather forecasts in the region.

Science Waterloo team is first to find an invasive plant in Canada. Hydrilla verticillate (hydrilla), one of North America's most invasive species , was found for the first time in Canada. Dr. Rebecca Rooney, a biology professor , and members of her Waterloo Wetland Laboratory were surveying a secluded section of the Hillman Marsh Conservation Area in Leamington, Ontario , when they found unexpected species.

Nestled in the Uinta Mountains of northern Utah, a series of pristine lakes are facing a new threat - humans. Geography professor and chair Katrina Moser led a team of researchers in the region this summer to better understand how human activity, like agriculture and warming temperatures because of climate change, is leading to dramatic changes in a water system far from populous areas.

McGill researchers have harnessed the power of sunlight to transform two of the most harmful greenhouse gases into valuable chemicals. The discovery could help combat climate change and provide a more sustainable way to produce certain industrial products. "Imagine a world where the exhaust from your car or emissions from a factory could be transformed, with the help of sunlight, into clean fuel for vehicles, the building blocks for everyday plastics, and energy stored in batteries," said co-first author Hui Su, a Postdoctoral Fellow in McGill's Department of Chemistry.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have designed an energy-efficient device that produces drinking water from seawater using an evaporation process driven largely by the sun. Desalination is critical for many coastal and island nations to provide access to fresh water, given water scarcity concerns due to rapid population growth and increasing global water consumption.

McGill University study suggests investing in herbaria and uploading records is an effective way to generate the biodiversity data needed to inform policy and action Digitally cataloguing the more than 300 million plant specimens preserved in museums worldwide could yield crucial insights into how to preserve biodiversity amid climate change, a study by McGill researchers has found.

In a global first, University of Waterloo researchers have used 3D imaging technology to understand the fine details of microplastics, paving the way for more effective methods of plastic waste recycling. Micro and nanoplastics, tiny particles of plastic that come from the breakdown of larger plastic items, have become an exponentially worsening environmental crisis.

While there is no denying 'survival of the fittest' still reigns supreme in the animal kingdom, a new study shows being smartest - or at least smarter - is pretty important, too. Western animal behaviour and cognition researcher Carrie Branch and her collaborators at University of Oklahoma and University of Nevada, Reno tracked the spatial cognition and lifespan of 227 mountain chickadees for more than a decade.

Massive volcanic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions contributing to an extreme global ocean deoxygenation event over 120 million years ago has modern day implications for understanding a climate warming "tipping point," according to new research published in Nature this week, led by a scientist at Ocean Networks Canada, a University of Victoria initiative.

University of Waterloo researchers have developed a new material that can absorb more than eight times its weight in oil, offering a new solution in preventing groundwater contamination from spills or accidents. "The current technology for oil capture is lagging," said Tizazu Mekonnen, a professor at Waterloo's Department of Chemical Engineering.