Each week, A\J staffers will be sharing our favourite facts & findings from whatever books, articles, documentaries, podcasts and other media we’ve been consuming. Here’s what we’ve learned this week.
Biology
The Best Things Ever of All Time, This Week!
Each week, A\J staffers will be sharing our favourite facts & findings from whatever books, articles, documentaries, podcasts and other media we’ve been consuming. Here’s what we’ve learned this week.
Restoring Forests
What do these forests make you feel? They are profoundly solemn yet upliftingly joyous… How absolutely full of truth they are, how full of reality. The juice and essence of life are in them; they teem with life, growth and expansion. They are a refuge for myriads of living things…– […]
New “Tipping Point” Model Could Help Predict Species Extinction
Environmental “tipping points” can provide researchers with valuable clues to detect when species are facing population collapse or extinction.
Giving Swifts a Lift
Have you ever noticed this twittering sound? I didn’t until a friend pointed it out a few years ago. I was amazed to learn it comes from tiny birds that spend their nights clinging to the walls of chimneys and their days aloft on long, sickle-shaped wings. I’ve heard it […]
Swimming Against the Odds
There was a general sense of anticipation when the Ministry of Natural Resources truck backed in next to the Port Credit Harbour marina in Mississauga, Ontario. Everyone there at the water’s edge knew how important the truck’s cargo was to the overall health of the silty Credit River flowing brown into […]
Making Contact
Christian McEachern recalls his time as a peacekeeper in the former Yugoslavia as working “22 or 23 hours a day on the front line, being shot at – or guys are getting killed or wounded with land mines.” During his 14 years in the Canadian Forces, including tours on United […]
Redefining Recovery: A New Model for Saving Species At Risk
Imagine you’ve just opened your eyes, and you’re in the hospital. You’ve had surgery after a catastrophic heart attack. You’re lucky to be alive. A nurse comes to check on you. “Oh, you’re awake,” he says, then promptly puts you in a wheelchair, pushes you beyond the sliding doors, and […]
The Nature of Things: The Nano Revolution
Around the year 2000, I attended a conference organized by the Council of Canadians about the risks associated with genetically modified organisms. At some point during the proceedings, an extraordinary thing happened. One of the speakers, professor Ann Clark (then of Guelph University) rose and said the following: the problem […]
Saving the Arctic: Why I Chased a Tent Across the Tundra
On my first day in the Arctic, I woke up and discovered I had murdered a loon.
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