Government Reports Say UFOs Broke Sound Barrier Without Sonic Boom

© Department of Defense Ex-Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe says the Pentagon has reports of UFOs breaking the sound barrier without producing a sonic boom. What else do they show?

VIDEOS AT THE END

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News the Pentagon has many reports about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), including UFO sightings that haven’t been made public.

Ratcliffe said the reports contain sightings of objects making movements that“are hard to replicate” and“traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.”

By law, the Pentagon must report more information on UFO sightings in June.

A former U.S. intelligence official recently revealed the Pentagon is sitting on“lots of reports” about what it officially calls unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), better known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

John Ratcliffe, who served as the Director of National Intelligence Community from May 2020 to January 2021, told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Friday the reports include sightings of objects that“frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain.” Ratcliffe said both U.S. Navy and Air Force pilots and satellite imagery have spotted the UAP.

The objects reportedly made“movements that are hard to replicate that we don’t have the technology for, or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom,” Ratcliffe said.“In short, things that we are observing that are difficult to explain.”

When an aircraft increases its speed, pressure waves build up on it and eventually coalesce into a single shockwave. When the plane outruns that shockwave and travels faster than the speed of sound in air, it causes a sudden change in pressure, which in turn creates the sonic boom. There’s no publicly available scientific data to suggest any aircraft can break the sound barrier without producing a sonic boom; while engineers can take steps to try to reduce sonic booms, physics says it’s impossible to outright eliminate it.

© Ensign John Gay, U.S. Navy U.S. Navy F/A-18 flying faster than the speed of sound. The white cloud is formed by decreased air pressure and temperature around the tail of the aircraft.

Ratcliffe admitted the Pentagon simply can’t rationalize some of the reported sightings:
“We always look for a plausible explanation. You know, weather can cause disturbances, visual disturbances, sometimes we wonder whether or not our adversaries have technologies that are a little bit further down the road than we thought or that we realized. But there are instances where we don’t have good explanations for some of the things that we’ve seen.”

Ratcliffe told Bartiromo he wanted to“get this information out and declassify it” before he left office in January, when Donald Trump’s presidential administration gave way to Joe Biden’s.“But we weren’t able to get it down into an unclassified format that we could talk about quickly enough,” Ratcliffe said.

It’s unclear why Ratcliffe has decided to speak out about UAP now, although the former Director of Intelligence’s remarks may foreshadow a major report the Pentagon is set to release in the coming months. Indeed, 2021 promises to be one of the most significant years ever for the advancement of UFO disclosure—and that follows a year in which the U.S. Navy officially released three videos that show UFOs are genuine.

In August 2020, the Department of Defense (DoD) officially approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). The task force will investigate the sightings of UAP.

The UAPTF is the first official government program affiliated with UFO research since a 2000s-era unit that analyzed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other UAP lost its funding in 2012, even though multiple sources confirmed with Popular Mechanics that the unit remained active in secrecy after its shuttering.

The DoD formed the UAPTF to“improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of [UAP],” Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough told Popular Mechanics at the time.“The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze, and catalog [UAP] that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.”





4/4 SLIDES © amazon.com


In June 2020’s Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) authorized appropriations for fiscal year 2021 for the UAPTF and supported its efforts to reveal any links that UAP“have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to U.S. military assets and installations.”

In the IAA, the Select Committee on Intelligence said it“remains concerned that there is no unified, comprehensive process within the federal government for collecting and analyzing intelligence on [UAP], despite the potential threat,” and so it directed the task force to report its findings on UAP,“including observed airborne objects that have not been identified,” within 180 days.Terms)

When Trump signed the coronavirus relief and government funding bill into law in December 2020, it contained the IAA for Fiscal Year 2021, which means the UAPTF must report its findings to Congress by June 25.

While we don’t know what the task force will reveal in its first report, Ratcliffe’s remarks could offer hints. It’s noteworthy, for example, that he mentioned both U.S. Navy and Air Force pilots’ encounters with UAP. The Navy, of course, has confirmed three videos taken by Navy pilots show UAP, but the service also said the footage should have never been released to the public in the first place.

The Air Force, on the other hand, has largely been quiet regarding UAP. A former Director of National Intelligence’s admission that the Air Force has also seen UAP is significant, and may suggest the service plays a larger role in the forthcoming UAPTF report.

Additionally, Ratcliffe emphasized the Pentagon’s documented UAP sightings go beyond“just a pilot or just a satellite, or some intelligence collection,” he said.“Usually, we have multiple sensors that are picking up on these things.”

That tracks with what government officials who have access to such documents revealed to The Debrief last year:“Some of the best evidence acquired has come from measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), rather than from videos or still images,” one source told The Debrief’s Tim McMillan, a contributor to Popular Mechanics.

While we wait to see what’s in the UAPTF’s report, Ratcliffe made it clear to Bartiromo that he’s just as eager for disclosure as the public is.

“I think it will be healthy for as much of this information to get out there as possible so that the American people can see some of the things that we’ve been dealing with,” he said.

Eruption in Iceland may mark the start of decades of volcanic activity

Robin George Andrews 

3/25/2021

After being shaken by 15 months of increasingly disruptive earthquakes, including about 50,000 in the past three weeks, Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula is finally experiencing the volcanic eruption that many geologists suspected was on its way. After nearly 800 years without an eruption, this southwestern strip of the country is experiencing lava flows that experts say have been a long time coming.

© Photograph by Jeremie Richard, AFP via Getty Images Lava flows from the erupting Fagradalsfjall volcano some 40 km west of the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, on March 21, 2021. - Weekend hikers took the opportunity Sunday to inspect the area where a volcano erupted in Iceland on March 19, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the capital Reykjavik, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said, as a red cloud lit up the night sky and a no-fly zone was established in the area.

On Friday, March 19, at around 8:45 p.m. local time, molten rock breached the surface in a valley near a flat-topped mountain named Fagradalsfjall, in the region of Geldingadalur, six miles from the nearest town. Incandescent spatter erupted along a crack in the earth, scorching the soil as small lava fountains illuminated the dark landscape.

The eruption involves a relatively small amount of lava confined to a series of valleys, making it unlikely that any population centers will be threatened. This type of molten rock is very fluid and trapped gasses easily escape, and it’s not erupting into water or ice, so it won’t become especially explosive, generate a sustained ash plume, or fling any sizable volcanic blocks across the region. Scientists believe the eruption will persist for a few more days or weeks before fizzling out.

But this modest eruption could mark the beginning of something bigger. Evidence from both historical accounts and ancient lava flows shows that whenever this region has experienced a major uptick in seismic activity, intermittent eruptions followed for around 100 years.

“The signs are that it’s reawakening,” says Dave McGarvie, a volcanologist at Lancaster University.

The Geldingadalur eruption therefore provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the long-term volcanic activity of southwest Iceland. Scientists are scrambling to monitor what may be the opening salvo in a series of volcanic volleys, which could provide clues about why the peninsula flares up just once every eight centuries.
The case of the missing magma

Sitting on a landward portion of the continuously spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the Reykjanes Peninsula, about 17 miles southwest of the capital city Reykjavík, is no stranger to earthquakes. But since late 2019, temblors have become more frequent and more energetic. Icelanders on the peninsula, particularly those in the coastal town of Grindavík, have had trouble sleeping lately due to the constant shaking.

This heightened seismic activity is thought to represent a transition from a gradual opening of the rift to a considerably more dramatic phase when both sides of the peninsula are rapidly pulled apart. When a geologic rift quickly pulls the land apart like this, it creates an empty space, and magma rushes up to fill it in.

On March 3, acoustic signals associated with the injection of magma into the shallow crust emanated from between the mountain Fagradalsfjall and a series of fissures that erupted long ago. A new eruption seemed extremely likely—but no lava followed, and the acoustic signals vanished, says Thorbjörg Ágústsdóttir, a seismologist at Iceland GeoSurvey.

Instead, the sheet of magma, known as a dyke, wandered about underground for the next few weeks. Seismic activity and the changing shape of the ground allowed scientists to roughly track its movements. They caught it oscillating between the northeast and southwest of the peninsula, causing cracks to appear in the earth above as it went.

“I called it the dithering dyke because it didn’t seem to know what to do,” McGarvie says. It appeared to be searching, to no avail, for a place it could breach the surface.

Over the past few weeks, the seismic activity in the region declined, and most dykes cool and solidify before getting a chance to erupt. This led some scientists to suspect an eruption would not occur after all.

Iceland’s uppermost crust is peculiar, however, acting somewhat elastically—meaning it’s a little closer to toffee than hard candy. The crust in this area can stretch a little to make room for magma, allowing the dyke to infiltrate the rock just below the surface without causing violent fractures and producing those telltale acoustic signals.

This stealth mode is typical for eruptions that happen along fissures, such as those along the peninsula. Scientists in Iceland had “just been in the field, and all of a sudden, the ground is opening,” Ágústsdóttir says. Apparently the waning seismic activity in this region, instead of being a sign of calmer days to come, could in fact be a precursor to an eruption.

A long-awaited eruption

On March 19, the Icelandic Meteorological Office picked up a few low-frequency earthquakes that may have come from magma moving toward the surface—but these were very subtle events, Ágústsdóttir says. With no way to know when and where an eruption would happen, local authorities continued to tell people to stay away from the fissure-riddled area.

That evening, lava began erupting close to Fagradalsfjall, inside Geldingadalur, a natural depression whose name means Eunuch Valley—possibly a reference to early settlers’ practice of castrating animals in the region. After failing to find an escape hatch to the northeast or southwest, the dyke apparently “broke through in the middle, because both directions were kind of jammed,” says Tobias Dürig, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland.

A webcam on a nearby ridge first caught sight of the lava. A Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched to the site, and the pilot quickly spotted the embers of lava spitting and hissing at the sky.

Lava first poured out of a meandering fissure 1,650 feet long, but over the weekend, the eruption focused its output on single spot, building a steep, towering cauldron of freshly cooled rock. Smooth rivers of lava crept around blockier, rubble-like lava. Lava flowing at a steady pace caused the cone to suffer a few partial collapses as it flung blobs of lava across the scorched earth.

The dyke of magma is small, just over four miles long, and the eruption is confined to a valley that is surrounded by more valleys, preventing lava from escaping the area and threatening any population centers. Sulfur dioxide, a common volcanic gas, is being emitted by the eruption, however, and even small quantities can irritate the lungs of those with respiratory conditions such as asthma. But so far, the wind is blowing the volcanic gas away from populated areas.

Scientists say one possible concern is that a new fissure could suddenly and unexpectedly open up near the current one, ambushing anyone in the area. “That could easily happen, and that could happen fast, and it would not be a good place to be,” Dürig says.

Studying the inferno

Overall, however, scientists believe this will be a largely unhazardous eruption. Thanks to easy access to the area, researchers are throwing their entire toolbox at the eruption, seeing it as the best chance they have ever had to understand the unusual tectonics and volcanism of the region.

Some have scooped up lava and rushed it to a lab, hoping to unravel the specific chemistry of the material. Dürig has flown back and forth over the eruption, using radar to determine how thick the lava flows are and estimate how much lava is erupting.

Evgenia Ilyinskaya, a volcanologist at the University of Leeds, went up to the eruption this weekend wearing a backpack full of instruments that analyzed the compounds gushing out of the fissure.

“It’s a very special thing to get close to an eruption site,” Ilyinskaya says. During the eruption’s beginning, she was greeted with a cacophony of booms and whooshes under her feet. “It shakes you to your core,” she says. “This is something that’s really, really powerful. You feel very small and very insignificant.”

Against official advice, thousands of people living in the peninsula have gathered around the eruption site, treating the ridges as an amphitheater. One group lingered for too long, then got lost looking for their cars in the dark. Someone was also caught trying to fry eggs and bacon atop the lava, predictably with little success.

While volcanologists are taking the opportunity to study this eruption, archaeologists are scrambling to figure out if the lava threatens any significant sites. Based on historical records, experts believe a burial site thought to date back more than 1,000 years, perhaps belonging to a notable figure, could be right in the path of the eruption. According to local news reports, archaeologist Oddgeir Isaksen of the Cultural Heritage Agency of Iceland sped to the scene in a helicopter shortly after the eruption began, but he was not able to find evidence of the burial site before lava overran the area.

A century of activity?

The eruption is probably going to peter out in the coming days or weeks, and the bigger earthquakes keeping people awake may also drop off for a bit. “A small eruption still releases some pressure,” Ágústsdóttir says.

But there are hints that the fireworks are far from over. “The amount of seismic energy release for this small eruption is disproportionately high,” McGarvie says. There could have been a significant amount of tectonic shifting across the peninsula, meaning additional pockets of magma could make their way to the surface.

Based on the geological history of the region and studies of somewhat similar eruptions elsewhere in Iceland, another eruption from a different fissure in Reykjanes Peninsula is a distinct possibility, Ilyinskaya says. But this could transpire in days, weeks, months, or even years. It may involve a similar amount of magma as the current eruption, or it could release significantly more.

The possibility of future eruptions is underscored by the fact that the type of seismic shaking leading up to last week’s eruption has happened before—three times before, in fact, in the past few thousand years. Historical accounts and layers of ancient volcanic rock suggest that each time this area experiences a significant increase in earthquakes, it culminates in several decades of eruptions, jumping from fissure to fissure all over the peninsula.

The small and relatively safe eruption occurring now therefore provides a stellar opportunity for scientists and emergency managers to prepare for possible bursts of lava to come. “If this is the start,” Ágústsdóttir says, “this is good training.”

Neanderthals used toothpicks and practiced good dental hygiene
Dan Avery For Dailymail.com 

3/23/2021

While the idea of prehistoric dentistry may not sound enticing, anthropologists have discovered evidence Neanderthals practiced an early form of dental hygiene.

© Provided by Daily Mail MailOnline 

Examining a wisdom tooth and premolar from the Late Pleistocene era, anthropologists in Poland found evidence their owners used a rudimentary toothpick.

It's not clear what the pick was made out of but it had to be hard enough to leave a mark, perhaps a twig or piece of bone.

Toothpick grooves in Neanderthal teeth have been discovered in other parts of Europe, but these findings suggest the practice was widespread, perhaps even learned.

© Provided by Daily Mail Examining a wisdom tooth and premolar (pictured) from the Late Pleistocene era, anthropologists in Poland found evidence their owners used a rudimentary toothpick

The chompers — a wisdom tooth and upper premolar — were found in the Pleistocene layers of the Stajnia Cave in Southern Poland's Częstochowa Upland.

Radiocarbon dating of animal remains where the teeth were discovered suggests they're around 46,000 years old.

'It appears that the owner of the teeth used oral hygiene,' said Wioletta Nowaczewska, a professor in the University of Wrocław's department of human biology, told Science in Poland.

'Probably …. there were food residues that had to be removed,' she said. 'We don't know what he made a toothpick from — a piece of a twig, a piece of bone or fish bone.'

© Provided by Daily Mail It appears that the owner of the tooth used oral hygiene. Probably between the last two teeth there were food residues that had to be removed, according to experts

© Provided by Daily Mail The teeth were initially discovered in 2010, but were only recently studied using mitochondrial DNA analysis to confirm they belonged to Neanderthals. Researchers also compared enamel thickness, crown structure and other features

The implement had to be stiff and cylindrical, she added, and 'used often enough to leave a clear trace.'

The upper premolar belonged to an adult over the age of 30, while the wisdom tooth belonged to a male in his 20s.

The teeth were initially discovered in 2010, but were only recently studied using mitochondrial DNA analysis to confirm they belonged to Neanderthals.

Researchers also compared enamel thickness, crown structure and other features to examples from other Neanderthals, fossil homo sapiens and contemporary representatives.

© Provided by Daily Mail It's not clear what the pick was made out of but it had to be hard enough to leave a mark, perhaps a twig or piece of bone

Toothpick grooves in Neanderthal teeth have been discovered in other parts of Europe, but Nowaczewska's research, published this month in the Journal of Human Evolution, suggests the practice was widespread.


In 2017, researchers at the University of Kansas reported on similar grooves found on four mandibular teeth from the left side of a Neanderthal's mouth.

Those teeth were found at the Krapina site in Croatia more than a century ago, but only reexamined more recently.

'Everybody has had dental pain, and they know what it's like to have a problem with an impacted tooth,' David Frayer, who led the University of Kansas study, told Daily Mail at the time.

'The scratches indicate this individual was pushing something into his or her mouth to get at that twisted premolar,' Frayer said.

'No one has ever found an actual toothpick at a Neanderthal site, even though many Neanderthals used them,' he added.

'I have looked for small pointed, nonhuman bones in the Krapina collection, but never found anything.'

Neanderthal bone remains are rare finds in Central and Eastern Europe.

In 2008, archaeologists from the University of Wrocław discovered three Neanderthal molars in the Stajnia Cave, the oldest hominid remains in Poland.

Other traces of Neanderthal settlements, including tools, have been discovered at the site since then.

'When I look at these areas as a palaeoanthropologist, I have the impression that time stands still there,' Nowaczewska said of the Częstochowa Upland.

She added the region had a much more inviting climate than northern Poland.

'If there are still any Neanderthal bone remains to be found, the search should focus on the Upland and other southern sites,' she said.

Made of fungi, mycelium hits market as green substitute for leather, plastic

Emily Chung 

CBC

3/22/2021

© Bolt Threads A model wears clothing unveiled by British designer Stella McCartney on March 18, 2021. It's made with Mylo, a leather substitute grown from fungi, which can be treated to have different leather-like colours and textures.

This past week, British fashion designer Stella McCartney unveiled a black "leather" bustier top and pants made not from cow hide, but mycelium — which is grown from fungi.

Up until now, if you wanted leather that wasn't made from animals, you've probably had to settle for plastic "pleather," which comes with a different set of environmental problems.

But a number of big brands, including Stella McCartney, Adidas, Lululemon and Hermes, in partnership with biotechnology startups Bolt Threads and MycoWorks, say later this year you'll be able to buy more products with leather made from another bio-based material that's grown by recycling waste.


Mycelium is already on the market in the form of styrofoam-like packaging, "un-leather" handbags, flooring and sound-proofing acoustic panels. It's also been experimentally used to build larger structures such as benches, coffins, composting toilets and even buildings.

But manufacturers are now aiming to scale up the products and applications made from mycelium, which they tout as a more sustainable substitute for petroleum-derived plastics such as styrofoam and vinyl, leather made with harsh chemicals from water-guzzling, methane-belching cows and even other bio-based materials such as cardboard and wood.

In the future, they say it could even be used to make advanced materials such as transparent "paper" or construct buildings that can be triggered to automatically biodegrade at the end of their useful life.
What is mycelium?

Mycelium is made of fungi. While you may think of them as plants, they technically aren't and are more closely related to animals. (Fungi and animals are in different "kingdoms" but the same "supra-kingdom," while plants are in a different supra-kingdom.)

You might associate fungi with mushrooms, but mycelium is a different part of the fungus — its fast-growing network of roots, rather than the compact fruits we know as mushrooms.
What makes mycelium more sustainable than the materials it replaces?

Those who use mycelium tout its low environmental footprint as its biggest advantage.

Dan Widmaier, CEO of California-based Bolt Threads, said that among the brands that work with his company, 70 per cent of their environmental impact comes from the materials they use.

"Broadly speaking, those materials have to change if there's going to be eight billion of us and counting on the planet," Widmaier said.

Bolt Threads says its mycelium-based leather, Mylo, emits fewer greenhouse gases and uses less water and resources than animal leather.

Alexander Bismarck, a professor of materials chemistry, and Mitchell Jones, a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Vienna, have studied the sustainability of fungi-derived leather substitutes.

They note that in nature, fungi help soils capture and store carbon through their symbiotic relationships with plants, making their growth "effectively carbon neutral." When grown to make mycelium-based materials, they can upcycle waste such as food and agricultural residues without the heating that's usually required for manufacturing processes.

That's in contrast to raising cattle, which is known to consume and pollute water, use lots of land and generate greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change at a higher rate than most other domestic animals. With leather, lots of potentially harmful chemicals and energy are also used to tan the hides.

Bismarck said compared to such animal-based materials — as well as plastics — mycelium-based products provide "a significant reduction in CO2 or greenhouse gas."

Mycelium has even been suggested as a replacement for other bio-based materials, such as cardboard, wood or bioplastics. Jones said even many of those have negative environmental impacts, such as the need to cut down trees or limited biodegradability. "The fungi doesn't really have that downside."

© Mushroom Packaging Mycelium packaging has been marketed as a green substitute for polystyrene.

What can you buy now that's made of mycelium?

Over the past decade or so, biotechnology companies have launched a small number of mycelium-based products such as:

which are sold by Italian interior design products firm Mogu.

Two U.S. competitors aim to make mycelium-based leather more widely available this year.

How is mycelium produced and turned into new materials and products?

Step one is obviously to grow it. That can be done either in a nutritious liquid or on a bed of solid materials. Either can include waste products ranging from blackstrap molasses to sawdust from furniture production.

What's suitable depends on the fungal species, which can be found in different habitats in the wild, said Joe Dahmen, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture, who has been working with mycelium-based materials for several years.

For example, oyster mushrooms, which he works with, grow on hardwood trees but not conifers. Some of the materials used commercially include cotton fibres or hemp hurds, the inner cores of the stems.

The fungi also need water and nutrients, and they're generally kept in humidity- and temperature-controlled environments to prevent them from producing mushrooms — a completely different material that can also generate potentially irritating spores. Fruiting typically happens when the fungi think it's autumn, Dahmen said.

Fungi are fast-growing — it takes just a week to grow mycelium for Mushroom Packaging and two weeks for Mylo, their manufacturers say. They're often grown with high levels of CO2 to encourage them to grow outward in search of oxygen.

Once ready, the mycelium is usually dehydrated and processed with machines and chemicals to improve the density, strength, elasticity and texture.

All that means mycelium-based materials generally aren't pure mycelium, but a "composite," Bismarck noted. They contain the material it was grown on along with anything added during processing.

Widmaier said that's part of the "secret sauce" for Mylo. "We start with the mycelium, and then we do everything from making sure it doesn't rot to making sure it's finished appropriately and it's got the right colour."
Is the fungus still alive and can it keep growing within products?

For most commercial products (except for coffins), the mycelium is heat treated long before it reaches the customer in order to kill it, maintain the product's intended form and eliminate the risk that it could form mushrooms and allergens such as spores.

That said, some designers, such as Dahmen and his wife, Amber Frid-Jimenez, Canada Research Chair in Design and Technology at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, have experimented with living fungi.

"As architects and designers, we were really interested in the idea of a material that might aggregate and continue to grow once it was in the shape or form of whatever it was we were designing to," said Dahmen, who has a design studio with Frid-Jimenez called AFJD.

They once built a wall at the Museum of Vancouver that consisted of individual mycelium bricks that were left alive and eventually fused together.

"So you could imagine a kind of building technology that can kind of evolve and continue to grow, you know — sort of magical, in a way," he said.

In 2016, they created benches made from mycelium that included a space in the middle for mushrooms to fruit. They remained in use on campus for several months.

Generally, in normal indoor or outdoor conditions, they dry out and become inert. "But that doesn't mean they can't reawaken later," he said.

That means it might be possible to engineer a building made with inert, mycelium-based materials that can be triggered to decompose or self-demolish at the end of the building's useful life. "In the right conditions, they might reawaken and start digesting the materials and finish the building."

What else could mycelium be used for in the future?

Both Dahmen and Bismarck say it has a lot of potential as a building material — to replace foam insulation, for example.

Its insulating abilities have prompted Dahmen to use mycelium to create a biodegradable composting toilet for refugee camps that traps heat to speed up decomposition by heat-loving bacteria. After use, it can simply be buried. Dahmen is even playing around with integrating seeds into it so "basically you're kind of converting the excrement into a flower bed at the end."

Bismarck and Jones have been experimenting with ways to make more advanced materials from mycelium. For example, they have found that by growing it in a mineral-rich environment, they can create mineralized, fire-resistant insulation panels.

While most current mycelium products are composites that include agricultural or wood fibres, the researchers are also trying to create "nanomaterials" with pure fungi selected for their extra-fine fibres.

Those can be processed in a blender with some chemicals into interesting materials such as transparent, paper-like sheets. The mycelium paper can be made 10 times stronger than regular paper or designed to filter viruses or heavy metals from water.

One of the applications they're testing right now is mycelium-based wound dressings, which can help reduce bleeding, keep bacteria out and accelerate healing.

"It's simply incredible what a fungus can do," Bismarck said, adding that there are an estimated 5.1 million types of fungi out there, many with untapped potential. "It's still a vast space of biology that can do something for you."

Suspending rhinos upside down may help improve their well-being: study

Cheryl Santa Maria 

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

3/25/2021

Look up on any given day in the savannahs of Namibia, Kenya, and South Africa, and you might see an upside-down, sedated and blindfolded black rhino flying across the sky, suspended from a helicopter.



While most black rhinos are transported out of poaching hot spots and brought to protected spaces by a van, conservationists starting airlifting some rhinos in hard-to-reach areas about a decade ago. To date, hundreds have been rescued in this manner, either placed in a stretcher on its side or suspended upside down.

The upside-down airlift is the preferred choice as it's faster and less expensive, CNN reports, and now, a study has confirmed it's also the safest one.

Researchers said the results were 'surprising': "We were anticipating that the rhinos would fare worse hanging upside down," Robin Radcliffe, a senior lecturer in wildlife and conservation medicine, told CNN.

Beginning in 2015, researchers suspended 12 black rhinos weighing between 870 and 1233 kg upside down from a crane, then placing them in a side-lying position. Biomarkers like respiration and ventilation were measured. It was found blood oxygen levels were higher when upside down because the position stretches the spine, opening up the airways.

While the difference between the two positions was small, researchers say even tiny improvements can positively impact the rhino's welfare

RHINO CONSERVATION

During the 1960s, more than 100,000 black rhinos lived in the African Savannah but decades of poaching nearly wiped out the species, with about 2,400 left in the wild by 1992.

Today, that number has rebounded to about 5,000, thanks to aggressive conservation efforts in Namibia, Kenya, and South Africa, three countries that hold roughly 87 per cent of the world's black rhino population, according to the WWF

Iran's economy is crumbling after years of U.S. sanctions — and Tehran insists Washington must suspend those restrictions before the two sides can return to nuclear talks.

Both sides have indicated interest in returning to the negotiating table, but neither the U.S. nor Iran wants to give in to the other.

CNBC takes a look at the state of Iran's economy through six charts.

Iran's economy is crumbling after years of U.S. sanctions — and Tehran insists Washington must suspend those restrictions before the two sides can return to nuclear talks.

Both countries have indicated interest in returning to the negotiating table, but neither the U.S. nor Iran wants to give in to the other.

Iran signed the nuclear deal — officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — with the U.S., China, France, Russia, the U.K. and Germany in 2015.

But former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and imposed sanctions under a "maximum pressure" policy to force the regime back to negotiations.

Here are six charts that show how Iran's economy is struggling.

Iran's economy shrinks© Provided by CNBC

Iran's economy contracted an estimated 4.99% in 2020, steadily shrinking since 2017.

In comparison, the Islamic Republic enjoyed a sharp economic growth of 12.5% in 2016 after the nuclear deal was signed. However, that reprieve was short-lived.

"It's impossible to know precisely what the numbers would be had there been no sanctions," said Abrams, former U.S. special representative for Iran during the Trump administration who is nowa senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). "But I think it's pretty clear that the sanctions have had an impact on the Iranian economy and on the government budget."

The International Monetary Fund sees Iran's gross domestic product growing 3% in 2021.

Oil production and exports hurt© Provided by CNBC

The sanctions lowered Iran's ability to sell oil and prevented them from repatriating money from energy sales, Abrams said.

"There are billions of dollars sitting in banks in Iraq and China and South Korea … that Iran cannot get its hands on due to the sanctions," he said.

According to IMF estimates, the Islamic Republic's oil exports are expected to continue falling in 2021.

World trade with Iran falls© Provided by CNBC

Exports and imports both fell sharply after the sanctions were reimposed. Besides oil, Iran's industrial metals, a large source of the country's export revenue, were also sanctioned.

IMF estimates suggest Iran fell into a trade deficit of $3.45 billion in 2020. The country had a trade surplus of $6.11 billion in 2019, according to the IMF.
Inflation spikes© Provided by CNBC

The Iranian currency has dropped steadily since early 2018, but Matthew Bey, a senior global analyst at Stratfor, said the rial has "somewhat stabilized."

Still, its value on the unofficial market stands at more than 250,000 rials per dollar — that's far from the central bank's official rate of 42,000 rials per dollar that's used for most imported goods.

A weaker currency makes imports more expensive for locals, and high inflation means the cost of living is rising at a time when the people are already struggling with a weak economy and job market.

Weak job market© Provided by CNBC

High unemployment rates are set to increase even further given Iran's economic struggles.

An estimated 12.4% of the population is expected to be out of work in 2021, according to IMF projections.

Widening fiscal deficit© Provided by CNBC

Iran's government is spending beyond its means, and has seen a widening fiscal deficit. While this is not always a bad thing, it could restrict the country's ability to improve economic activity and recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

"I'm sure that the national budget is of some interest (to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) because he would want money for the Revolutionary Guards, for Hezbollah, for the Shia militias in Iraq and for various other expenses that they have," said Abrams from CFR.

However, he pointed out that the usual concerns of a civil government — such as national income, average family income, rate of inflation, or jobless rate — may not be important to the religious leaders.

Road to a U.S.-Iran deal?

An agreement between the U.S. and Iran is not impossible — but only if each side softens its current stance, according to Bey.

The United States, Bey said, would have to accept that sanctions relief is a necessary step toward getting Iran to comply with the JCPOA. On the other hand, Iran has to recognize that if it doesn't take "substantial steps," the Biden administration cannot fully suspend sanctions.

Abrams, on the other hand, said there's a "very significant problem" in the Biden administration's Iran policy, which is to revive the nuclear deal before negotiating a broader agreement that includes Iran's missile program and its support for militias in the region.

"But once you've gone back to the JCPOA, you have lifted most of the significant economic sanctions," he said. "Therefore, you have eliminated most of your leverage to get Iran to agree to these additional things that it does not want … to agree to and I don't see why it would agree at that point," he added.

Stratfor's Bey pointed out that Tehran has insisted on sanctions being lifted before talks begin.

"Iran appears to have calculated that it can withstand the economic pressure that accumulates as it takes a harder position against the Biden administration," Bey said.

UPDATED

Freighter blocking Suez Canal could have ‘critical impact’ on global trade: experts

IT ALREADY IS, $400M AN HOUR

Twinkle Ghosh and David Lao

GLOBAL NEWS 

3/27/2021

© (Credit Image: © Ahmed Gomaa/Xinhua via ZUMA Press) CAIRO, March 26, 2021 Rescue vessels work at the site of a container ship trapped on the Suez Canal of Egypt on March 26, 2021.

Friday's maritime traffic on the Suez Canal has now grown to over 200 backlogged ships — 30 of which are oil tankers — ever since the major shipping passage was first blocked by a container vessel that ran aground earlier this week.

According to data firm Refinitiv, another 100 ships are still en route towards the waterway. The blockage, which could take weeks to clear up, is now concerning industry experts — with one saying the incident could have a 'critical impact' on global trade.

"Already, we have seen an increase in price of oil," and that's kind of a "critical impact," Opher Baron, an economist at the University of Toronto, told Global News on Friday.

Read more: Satellite images show how one ship stuck in Suez Canal is causing so much disruption

Perishable commodity trades could also suffer setbacks.

Food that's travelling in containers also presents a "concern," Baron said, since those could possibly rot and incur business losses.

The "secondary impact," as Baron said, is the backlog of ships and containers.

Video: Biden says U.S. has capacity, equipment to help with vessel stuck in Suez Canal

With so many vessels suddenly stuck, they "can't be used to ship anything else," he said.



Suez Canal blockage could drive up gas prices

The outfit most prone to suffer the impact of this jam are the manufacturers of toilet paper and similar house-bound products, like appliances, sofas, televisions and backyards.

"One of the issues with toilet paper" and other such consumer products is that they require stronger containers, according to Baron.

Read more: Massive ship stuck in Suez Canal continues to harm global shipping

"So, if these are stuck and cannot be offloaded, there can be a bottleneck in the supply chain," he noted.

The Ever Given first ran aground Tuesday about six kilometers north of its southern entrance. The ship measures nearly 400 metres and can carry more than 20,000 cargo containers.

The salvage company overseeing the rescue effort has warned it could take weeks to dislodge the beached Ever Given.

"Ships, containers and goods are all in the wrong places," Douglas Kent, an executive vice at the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM), told Reuters.

IKEA, one of the world's largest furniture sellers, and London-based electronics seller Dixons Carphone are among the retailers with goods on the stranded Ever Given, according to the news website.

Video: Massive cargo ship blocking Suez Canal continues to cause major disruptions

IKEA has nearly 110 containers on the ship wedged in the canal and is inspecting how many boxes of products are on other vessels waiting to enter the channel.

"Depending on how this work proceeds and how long it takes to finish the operation, it may create constraints on our supply chain," said Hannes Mård, spokesman for IKEA brand owner and franchiser Inter IKEA.

According to Lloyd's list, roughly US$9.6 billion in containerized goods — including exercise equipment, appliances, apparel and consumer electronics — pass through the Suez Canal each day.

Read more: Vessel blocking Suez Canal causes oil tanker shipping rates to nearly double

Analysts expect a larger upward impact on smaller tankers and oil products, like naphtha and fuel oil exports from Europe to Asia if the canal remains blocked for several weeks.

“Around 20 per cent of Asia’s naphtha is supplied by the Mediterranean and Black Sea via the Suez Canal,” said Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at FGE, noting that re-routing ships around the Cape of Good Hope could mean over 800 tonnes of fuel consumption for tankers.

The blockage could cost global trade US$6 billion to US$10 billion a week, a study by German insurer Allianz showed on Friday.

Video: Market and Business Report Mar 26 2021

Industry experts and shipping companies have since warned that the ship's grounding could potentially have implications for deliveries to Canadian ports in Montreal and Halifax.

"If it's a short shutdown, it wouldn't be that much different than a major weather event,'' Lane Farguson, a spokesman for the Port of Halifax, first told The Canadian Press on Wednesday.

According to Ferguson, Halifax's port is a major recipient of goods from Asia and the longer the delay is caused by the Ever Given, "the more things back up."

Read more: Hopes and memes rest on ‘tiny’ excavator digging out Suez Canal ship

Despite the majority of cargo from Asia travelling to Canada via the Pacific Ocean, a portion still comes through the Suez Canal according to Johanna Stroex, a spokesperson for container ship operator Hapag-Lloyd AG.

Stroex told The Canadian Press that goods en route to Canada via the canal were mainly retail and consumer goods.

Ferguson however said that it was too soon to tell if operations in Canada would be impacted by the canal’s shutdown, but that they would monitoring the situation there.

The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, which looks over the waterway between the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, also that they also expected minimal impact from the ship's grounding.

— With files from Global News' Eric Sorenson, Reuters, The Canadian Press and The Associated Press

No timeline given for extracting wedged ship from Suez Canal

SUEZ, Egypt — A giant container ship remained stuck sideways in Egypt’s Suez Canal for a fifth day Saturday, as authorities made new attempts to free the vessel and reopen a crucial waterway whose blockage is disrupting global shipping and trade.  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Meanwhile, the head of the Suez Canal Authority said strong winds were “not the only cause” for the Ever Given running aground on Tuesday, appearing to push back against conflicting assessments offered by others. Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei told a news conference Saturday that an investigation was ongoing but did not rule out human or technical error.

The massive Ever Given, a Panama-flagged ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, got stuck in a single-lane stretch of the canal, about six kilometres (3.7 miles) north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez.

Rabei said he could not predict when the ship might be dislodged. A Dutch salvage firm is attempting to refloat the vessel with tugboats and dredgers, taking advantage of high tides.

Rabei said he remained hopeful that dredging could free the ship without having to resort to removing its cargo, but added that “we are in a difficult situation, it’s a bad incident.”

Asked about when they expected to free the vessel and reopen the canal, he said: "I can’t say because I do not know.”

Shoei Kisen, the company that owns the vessel, said it was considering removing containers if other refloating efforts failed.

Two attempts to free the vessel failed Saturday, according to Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the ship's management company, and a canal services provider, Leth agencies, despite hopes that a high tide might give the vesslela boost.

Bernhard Schulte had said earlier that “significant progress” was made late Friday at the ship’s stern where its rudder was released from sediment.

It said around a dozen tugboats were working Saturday alongside dredging operations that were removing sand and mud from around the left side of the vessel’s bow.

Some 9,000 tons of ballast water had been already removed from the vessel, the canal chairman said.

Since the blockage began, a maritime traffic jam had grown to more than 320 vessels waiting on both ends of the Suez Canal and in the Great Bitter Lake in the middle of the waterway.

Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given said Friday said the company hoped to pull the container ship free within days using a combination of heavy tugboats, dredging and high tides.

He told the Dutch current affairs show Nieuwsuur on Friday night that the front of the ship is stuck in sandy clay, but the rear “has not been completely pushed into the clay and that is positive because you can use the rear end to pull it free.”

“The combination of the (tug) boats we will have there, more ground dredged away and the high tide, we hope that will be enough to get the ship free somewhere early next week,” he said.

If that doesn’t work, the company will remove hundreds of containers from the front of the ship to lighten it, effectively lifting the ship to make it easier to pull free, Berdowski said.

A crane was already on its way that can lift the containers off the ship, he said. Bernhard Schulte also confirmed that a Dutch and an Italian tugboat were scheduled to arrive in Egypt on Sunday.

Egypt Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly called the ship's predicament "a very extraordinary incident,” in his first public comments on the blockage.

The Suez Canal Authority organized the first media trip Saturday to the site where the vessel was stuck. From a distance, a flotilla of tugboats and other salvage equipment appeared minuscule compared to the vessel, a reminder of the scale of effort needed to reopen the canal.

Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement said Friday that its initial investigation showed the vessel ran aground due to strong winds and ruled out mechanical or engine failure. However, Rabei seemed to be pushing back against that assessment Saturday, saying that all possibilities, including human and technical errors, were being investigated.

A prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global shipment chain. Some 19,000 vessels passed through the canal last year, according to official figures. About 10% of world trade flows through the canal. The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East.

Some vessels began changing course and dozens of ships were still en route to the waterway, according to the data firm Refinitiv.

It remained unclear how long the blockage would last. Even after reopening the canal that links factories in Asia to consumers in Europe, the waiting containers are likely to arrive at busy ports, forcing them to face additional delays before offloading.

___

Associated Press writer Mike Corder at The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

Samy Magdy, The Associated Press

Trade union calls for Deliveroo UK riders strike to highlight IPO risks

© Reuters/YVES HERMAN FILE PHOTO

A courier for food delivery service Deliveroo rides a bike in central Brussels

LONDON (Reuters) - A trade union called for Deliveroo's UK riders to strike when the meal delivery service floats on the stock market next month, saying on Sunday the action would highlight dissatisfaction with the company's business model and approach to workers' rights.


Deliveroo, whose turquoise-uniformed couriers delivering chicken kormas and American hot pizzas are a common sight in many British suburbs, is set for Britain’s biggest stock market debut in nearly a decade after setting a share price range that values it at up to $12 billion.

But some investment firms have said they will not participate in the initial public offering (IPO). Insurer Aviva for instance highlighted a lack of rights for riders as an investment risk as the company might be forced to change its business model.

Deliveroo said investor demand had continued to build since its roadshow began on Monday, and said the views of the union which announced the strike, the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB), did not represent the vast majority of riders.

The IWGB previously lost a legal challenge to Deliveroo in 2018. The case sought to secure rights such as the UK minimum wage for riders, but the court ruled riders were self-employed.

"Investing in Deliveroo means associating yourself with the exploitative and unstable business model," IWGB President Alex Marshall said in a statement, adding the strike was planned for April 7, to coincide with the IPO.

The rights of people who work in the so-called "gig economy" have been an increasing focus in Britain. Ride-hailing app Uber gave its workers more entitlements earlier this month after losing a Supreme Court case.

Deliveroo said job satisfaction levels among its 50,000 self-employed riders in Britain was at an all-time high, and that the flexibility they had was a big attraction.

"Thousands apply to work with us every week, reflecting the strong demand for our on-demand model," a company spokeswoman said.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by David Holme

 British Columbia is the first province in Canada to set greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for major sectors of the provincial economy, including the oil and gas industry, says the environment and climate change minister

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

George Heyman said Friday that setting emission reduction targets are good for both the environment and the economy.

"We think they're achievable," said Heyman about the emissions targets in four sectors of the economy.

"We're going to partner with industry, with the oil and gas sector, with the transportation sector, with people in communities and people who build, own and maintain buildings to reach those targets," he said in an interview.

The emission reduction targets range from 33 per cent to 38 per cent in oil and gas, up to 32 per cent for transportation and from 38 per cent to 43 per cent for industry, Heyman said.

The reduction targets for communities and buildings go as high as 64 per cent, and would include making homes more energy efficient, retrofitting buildings and improving landfills, he said.

The targets are expected to be reached by 2030 and are based on pollution levels from 2007, the minister said.

A collection of environmental groups said Friday they supported setting reduction targets for industry, but some wanted tougher measures placed on the oil and gas sector.

"Setting the target, while important, is not enough," said Andrew Radzik, a spokesman for the Georgia Strait Alliance, in a statement that called for an end to subsidies for the oil and gas industry.

"Without ending subsidies to this climate destabilizing industry, B.C. will miss yet another in a long string of unmet climate targets," he said.

The Pembina Institute, a think tank that advocates for a clean-energy future, called the B.C. targets a model for Canada.

Michael McSweeney, Cement Association of Canada president, said in a statement the industry has been working with the government to transition to low-carbon fuels to produce cleaner cement.

No one from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers was immediately available to comment on the targets set for its industry.

Heyman said setting emission reduction targets for sectors of the economy helps to position B.C. in front of other jurisdictions.

"When companies get ahead of the game here, they attract investment," Heyman said. "I think here in B.C., we can demonstrate that we can fight climate change and it's a real economic opportunity. It positions us for low-carbon exports around the globe as well as on the continent."

He said B.C.'s carbon tax, which has been collected since 2008, also shows investors the province is committed to building a low-carbon economy, he said.

"If we want to leave a planet that's more sustainable, that's healthier for our children and grandchildren, we need to account for the costs of doing that," Heyman said. "Our plan is in place to move steadily toward our targets and to partner with individuals, families and businesses to do just that."

He said investments by the province and industry totalling $84 million will eliminate more than one million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next decade.

B.C.'s emission reduction targets were set in December to be 16 per cent below 2007 levels by 2025.

Heyman said B.C. applauded Thursday's Supreme Court of Canada ruling that the federal government has the authority to impose a minimum price on carbon across Canada.

"We clearly see climate change and carbon emissions not just as a provincial issue," he said. "It's a national issue."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2021.

Dirk Meissner, The Canadian Press

CANADA
Mapping project illuminates links between poor environment, historical racism


A new tool that measures the environmental quality of any urban street in Canada — and maps it out in colour — illustrates vividly the many neighbourhoods in the country that have poor environment scores, neighbourhoods that are often home to racialized communities.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

GoodScore assesses air quality, street greenness, amenities, transit and recreation on a scale of 1 to 100. The prototype tool was made for the public and policy-makers alike “so people can create evidence and stories that will illustrate inequity,” says Eleanor Setton, the Victoria-based managing director of the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium.

"Bad" neighbourhoods have hazards that are linked to poor mental health, cancer, asthma, diabetes, and low birth weights.

Homes in the Aamjiwnaang First Nation reserve, nestled in the midst of petrochemical plants in southwestern Ontario, most often record scores under 10 and appear in blazing red on the map. The neighbouring city of Sarnia shows scores of 50 and above and is presented in less alarming colours of tan and blue.

“This is systemic racism,” says Scott Grant, the air-quality expert at Aamjiwnaang First Nation, as he looks at the red-covered map of the community. “It’s a sensitive topic too, because the community doesn’t want to be seen as a horrible place, and it isn’t, it’s a wonderful community, friendly people. It’s just patently unfair what they’ve had to endure.”

Pollution has been harming people in the community for decades, “and people don’t even think about it. This would not be allowed in Oakville, Ont. It would not be allowed in Montreal. There’s no way, and yet it’s happening here,” says Grant.

Setton and her team have found that Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver all have more impoverished households in neighbourhoods with lower walkability, lower streetscape greenness and worse traffic-related air pollution. They note the health impacts of these features are linked to diabetes, lower physical activity and poorer birth outcomes.

Poor people living in poor-quality neighbourhoods experiencing poor health isn’t revelatory, but when it intersects with race, those impacts can be exacerbated, says Ingrid Waldron in her book "There’s Something in the Water." She explores the long history of environmental racism, such as Africville in Nova Scotia, a Black community that experienced years of industrialization and marginalization.

Waldron explains that socioeconomic status is a key driver for environmental racism: poverty stops people from being able to move out of poor-quality environments, but sociopolitical factors also contribute. These communities can have less political clout in anything from local city planning — such as where the new sports facility will be built — to decisions on large-scale projects.

Waldron points out examples where public hearings are held in places community members can’t easily get to and only in English, or require technology and internet access.

Actor Elliot Page eventually turned Waldron’s book into a documentary, which premièred at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and now is available on Netflix.

John Williams, a member of the WSÁNEĆ Nation on Vancouver Island, has lived both on reserve in Tsawout and within the nearby cities of Victoria and Sidney, and was curious how they would compare in GoodScore. His reserve address has a score of 49, while his current address in Sidney scores 55.

“That’s not a huge difference,” he says, but he and his family did decide to move out of Tsawout into the city. “Here in Sidney, I live in between two schools within walking distance, but in Tsawout there isn’t a school.” Says Williams, who has a school-aged daughter, “We spent a lot of time on the bus getting to places.”

Tsawout is an example of a relatively well-resourced First Nations community, though it wasn’t always that way. Williams says its health centre, recreation facility, and several playgrounds were all built within the past 10 years or so.

Lenore Zann, a Nova Scotia Liberal MP, has made it a goal to tackle environmental racism, introducing a private member’s bill that would require the environment minister to produce a plan to redress it.

With support from the Liberals and New Democrats, the bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday and is headed to a committee for close study.

“Like systemic racism, environmental racism has been ignored for far too many years. The time has come for us to redress the past and make sure they don’t continue,” Zann says.

Waldron and Zann worked together on Bill C-230, hoping an executive order from U.S. President Joe Biden that includes efforts to curb environmental racism south of the border will bolster support in Canada.

Canada needs a national strategy using “data that looks at the links among race, gender, education, employment, income, health and environmental harms, as well as other factors,” Zann says.

Setton and her team have been doing just that. GoodScore is a prototype they will continue to develop over the next three years with a grant from the federal government.

“What can public health people learn from using these data? Visualizing them, intersecting them with low socioeconomic indicators and seeing where we need to change, where we need to prioritize our efforts,” Setton says. “It's really about setting priorities using mapping.”

———

Paleah Moher is an environmental health scientist and journalist. She is currently a fellow in global journalism at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

Paleah Moher, The Canadian Press