Are we what we eat? The link between gut microbiota, antibiotic use and health

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Overuse of antibiotics might be making us more vulnerable to disease Sunitha Chari, Biology and Life Sciences co-editor Our gastro-intestinal tract is home to about 100 trillion (1014)) micro-organisms – bacteria, viruses and fungi – that together are called the gut microbiota. If that seems like a mind boggling number consider this: the human body […]

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What’s in a message? Unpacking the do’s and don’ts of climate change communication

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Maria Giammarco, Communication, Education, and Outreach Editor   The New York Times – “Ignore Climate Change At Your Peril” CTV News – “Canada warming twice as fast as rest of the world: scientific report” iPolitics – “Morning Brief: The future looks grim”   Aside from the obvious climate theme, what do these headlines have in […]

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Citizen science dives into water quality

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Kirsten Grant, General Science co-editor With millions of lakes in Canada, monitoring water quality is no small feat. Canada’s vastness means it’s impossible to collect data everywhere. The situation is made ever more difficult by a lack of funding for long-term environmental monitoring. But Water Rangers Executive Director Kat Kavanagh says citizens can play a […]

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When mountains collapse: New-tech geodatabase helps geologists assess landslide hazard and risk

Jesse Mysiorek, New Science Communicator Early in the morning of August 2, 2014, part of a mountain collapsed in Jure, Nepal, about 70 kilometres northeast of Kathmandu. Some 5.5 million cubic metres of rock and debris – equal to the size of Grouse Mountain, north of Vancouver, BC – tumbled down into the Sunkoshi Valley, […]

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Going dry: How decreasing water levels put our food supply at risk

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Kelsey Voss, New Science Communicator Freshwater: The most important resource of our fast-growing world. We need it to drink and to grow food. We use water for drinking, washing, industrial processes, natural resources, and growing food, but our water supply is dwindling. In recent decades, we have seen increasing declines in freshwater levels across the […]

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