Sharon Oosthoek » Online media

Strong salmon hearts may hedge against climate change

Sharon — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:38:05 +0000

CBC.CA

March 11, 2011

By Sharon Oosthoek

Sockeye salmon with the most arduous spawning journeys have the strongest hearts, an adaptation that may better their odds of surviving projected rises in water temperature, say B.C. researchers.

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Asian carp threat prompts crisis exercise

Sharon — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:35:31 +0000

CBC.CA

March 11, 2011

By Sharon Oosthoek

It’s not every day emergency response experts gather to test their readiness to deal with a fish.

But the Asian carp is no ordinary fish, and so on Friday, a boardroom in the Peterborough offices of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) is being turned into a temporary war room of sorts. It marks the first time government experts have come together to simulate an invasive-species emergency.

“We’ve run emergency-preparedness exercises before for influenza outbreaks,” said Eric Boysen, director of the MNR’s biodiversity branch. “We’ve done them for ice storms. We said we want to run one for Asian carp.”

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Great Lakes phosphorus levels rising, report warns

Sharon — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:05:36 +0000

CBC.CA

March 9, 2011

By Sharon Oosthoek

A mysterious resurgence of phosphorus in the Great Lakes is endangering the aquatic food chain and human health, says a binational agency that advises Canada and the U.S.

Fifteen years after the last programs to control phosphorus runoff ended, the International Joint Commission urged on Wednesday a renewed effort to get the oxygen-depleting chemical out of the water.

The call to action was one of 32 recommendations the commission made to both governments in its biennial report on the state of the Great Lakes at Detroit’s Wayne State University.

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Tiny water flea, many genes

Sharon — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 17:46:10 +0000

CBC.CA

February 3, 2011

By Sharon Oosthoek

A water flea about the size of the equal sign on a keyboard has more genes than any other creature analyzed so far, say scientists, who suggest its sophisticated genome could one day double as a highly sensitive and inexpensive environmental monitoring tool.

The tiny freshwater flea Daphnia pulex has nearly 31,000 genes, compared to our 23,000. The finding is part of a larger report published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Science by members of the Daphnia Genomics Consortium, an international network of 450 investigators who have been working on the project for nearly 10 years.

It turns out that while more than one-third of Daphnia ‘s genes have never been seen before, many of them hold the key to its uncanny ability to adapt to nasty changes in its freshwater habitats around the world, says project leader John Colbourne, director of Indiana University’s Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics.

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Arctic hybrids not a good sign, warn scientists

Sharon — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:18:35 +0000

CBC.CA

December 15, 2010

By Sharon Oosthoek

The two grizzly-polar bear hybrids discovered in Canada’s North in recent years may be the tip of the iceberg, warn a trio of U.S. scientists who say the bears are a sign that Arctic biodiversity is at risk.

Pointing to other Arctic hybrids – an apparent bowhead-right whale photographed in the Bering Sea in 2009, a suspected narwhal-beluga found west of Greenland in the late 1980s, as well as various confirmed hybrid porpoises and seals – they argue governments must manage hybrids before interbreeding leads to the extinction of rare species.

In a commentary published in Wednesday’s peer-reviewed journal Nature, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration marine biologist Brendan Kelly and his co-authors say rapidly disappearing sea ice means the barrier that once kept Arctic species apart is literally melting away.

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OLG facial scans to help gambling addicts

Sharon — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:01:59 +0000

CBC.CA

November 26, 2010

By Sharon Oosthoek

Ontario casinos and slots at racetracks are getting ready to introduce a facial recognition system for people who have identified themselves as gambling addicts, hoping to help them stay out of trouble.

In a project that has received the blessing of the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation will install facial biometric video cameras at the entrance of all 27 of its slots rooms and casinos in 2011.

Starting next spring with the slots at its Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, the OLG cameras will link to a system that alerts staff when someone registered with the service walks through the doors.

The system makes use of an emerging technology called biometric encryption that scans a person’s face. When it picks out someone who has registered with the OLG service, it alerts staff and “unlocks” information provided by the registrant.

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Rogers faces $10M fine over drop-call ad claim

Sharon — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 22:04:10 +0000

CBC.CA

November 19, 2010

Misleading ads alleged about Chatr competitors

By Sharon Oosthoek

The Competition Bureau is seeking a penalty of $10 million against Rogers Communications Inc. for ads claiming that its discount cellphone and text service, Chatr, has fewer dropped calls than its new competitors.

The bureau announced Friday that it has begun legal proceedings against Rogers in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice under the misleading advertising provisions of the Competition Act. In addition to the penalty, the bureau is asking the court to rule that Rogers must immediately stop its advertising campaign and pay restitution to affected customers.

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‘Fearsome’ ancient shrimp had no bite

Sharon — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 22:16:18 +0000

CBC.CA

November 2, 2010

by Sharon Oosthoek

Earth’s first great predator — dubbed a “carnivorous shrimp from hell” — probably wasn’t nearly as fearsome as scientists once thought.

In fact, Anomalocaris canadensis didn’t have teeth and couldn’t even close its jaws, according to new 3-D modelling of the giant shrimp’s mouth.

Thought to be one to two metres long, Anomalocaris canadensis roamed the seas about 500-million years ago. It is one of the more famed creatures to be discovered in British Columbia’s Burgess Shale fossil deposit.

Up until recently, it was thought that Anomalocaris feasted on trilobites, crunching through their hard shells and slurping up their soft bodies.

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Scientists create first synthetic cell

Sharon — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:54:27 +0000

CBC.CA

May 20, 2010

A computer-generated representation of a strand of DNA.

Scientists have created the first cell controlled by a human-made genome — a step closer to artificial life that is drawing both praise and warnings of potential dire consequences.

A team from the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md., announced on Thursday it had created a synthetic bacterial genome that is a copy of an existing genome. The scientists then transplanted the synthetic genome into a different bacterium cell to create what they call a synthetic cell, although technically only its genome is synthetic.

The new genome then “booted up” the recipient bacterium’s cell in much the same way that a computer’s operating system makes the computer work.

The scientists say the eventual goal is to build new organisms that act in ways that differ from what nature intended, such as custom-made bacteria designed for biofuel production or environmental cleanup.

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Eagles’ homecoming may harm fragile ecosystem

Sharon — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:42:12 +0000

CBC.CA

May 3, 2010

Restoring a species to its native habitat is usually considered a good thing, but an unusual study reconstructing historic bald eagle diets is raising flags over their reintroduction off the California coast.

Attempts to bring back the United States’ iconic bird to the Channel Islands could put at risk populations of recovering seabirds and the threatened island fox, according to research published in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A bald eagle nesting on California's Channel Islands in 2008. (Peter Sharpe/Institute for Wildlife Studies)

“When you reintroduce an animal to a place it used to occur, it’s important to understand what sort of interaction they had in the past,” said lead author and animal ecologist Seth Newsome, a post-doctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institution of Washington at the time of the study.

“A lot of the time we think they’re perfectly suitable, but it turns out the ecosystem has changed dramatically since they were last there.”

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