New Butterfly Named After Lord of the Rings Villain 

One butterfly to rule them all? 

Scientists introduce the world to Saurona

Story by Washington Post • Wednesday

The discovery is part of a 10-year study of the Euptychiina group of butterflies.

Scientists have named a new group of butterflies with dark eye-shaped patterns on their orange wings after Sauron, the omnipresent evil lord in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novels – what the Natural History Museum in London called an “homage to an eye-conic villain.”

An international research group has identified two species of butterflies in the newly named Saurona genus – Saurona triangula and Saurona aurigera – and believe that more exist. The discovery is part of a 10-year study of the Euptychiina group of butterflies. The findings were published in the journal Systematic Entomology.

Researchers hope the eye-catching name conjuring the supreme persecutor of Middle-earth will generate more interest in butterfly conservation.

Blanca Huertas, a researcher involved in the project, named the butterflies. Huertas, a senior curator of butterflies at the Natural History Museum in London, said she was inspired by the eye-like patterns on their wings. But she also drew parallels between the battle to preserve species on the verge of extinction and the story of Lord of the Rings – one of good defeating evil against every odd. The world, she said, needs an “army” of people to “get involved in getting worried about nature.”

The Saurona group of butterflies comes from the Amazon rainforest, a refuge for an incredible diversity of natural species that is under pressure from deforestation, drought and fires tied to climate change and human activity, including cattle ranching.

They are part of the Euptychiina, a sub-tribe found largely in Central and South America and is “widely regarded as one of the most taxonomically challenging groups among all butterflies” because their small, brown appearance makes them difficult to distinguish from one another, according to the researchers. Some of the Euptychiina species are threatened with extinction.

But the researchers were able to use DNA sequencing technology to identify and classify species within the Euptychiina by their genetics and not just their appearance, according to the Natural History Museum in London.

“Even then, studying the whole of the Euptychiina took over a decade as the team assessed more than 400 different species” as part of the museum’s collections of over 5.5 million butterfly specimens, the museum said.

The scale and scope of the research has at times felt to Huertas like her very own Eye of Sauron. She began studying the butterflies 15 years ago for her doctoral thesis and “knew there was a different group,” but she didn’t have the time to complete the research and publish it until recently, she said. “Ten years dealing with this study is a lot of strain looking at me like Sauron.”

Some butterfly species are “threatened with extinction,” she said. If butterflies disappear, birds will no longer be able to feed on caterpillars, and so on, affecting entire food chains, “so, missing those tiny species that nobody cares about can cause actually a really big impact.” A stronger response from governments and international organizations is needed, she said.

“Ultimately, a bunch of scientists . . . can’t change the world,” she said. “If you put an attractive name, you get the attention of people and someone might read it and say, ‘Okay, well, this is an interesting story, tell me more.'”

Naming animal species after pop-culture characters is not unusual. In fact, a dung beetle, a frog and a dinosaur have already been named after Sauron, according to the Natural History Museum in London.

Astronomers at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have also named a galaxy – NGC 4151, which is made up of a supermassive black hole and surrounded by gas – the “Eye of Sauron.”

Scientists Discovered a 7,000-Year-Old Road Buried Under the Sea

Story by Tim Newcomb • Wednesday

Researchers from the University of Zadar discovered an ancient stone road buried under sea mud off the coast of Croatia.© HowardOates - Getty Images

Researchers from the University of Zadar discovered an ancient stone road buried under sea mud off the coast of Croatia.

Radiocarbon dating of some of the wood used in the road construction pegs its date of creation to 4,900 B.C.

Additional archeological inspection unearthed axes and Neolithic artifacts.

When researchers started investigating a sunken settlement off the coast of Korčula Island near mainland Croatia, little did they know that they would soon unearth a surprise ancient stone road buried under a layer of sea mud.

Researchers from the University of Zadar in Croatia discovered the road—roughly 13 feet wide and made of stone plates—after scraping mud off the underwater find, according to a translated Facebook post from the university.

The team says the road once connected Korčula Island to an artificially made island settlement called Soline, which is now nearly 16 feet below the water’s level. Researchers believe this was all an active site roughly 7,000 years ago.

Using radiocarbon dating, the team tested wood preserved in the road, and were able to date the thoroughfare and connected settlement to 4,900 BC. Researchers describe the structure of the road as “carefully stacked stone plates” that run about 13 feet in width.

As a team—which includes researchers from local museums and diving centers—continues to investigate the area, members are unearthing evidence of more than just the one Neolithic settlement off the popular Korčula Island.

Along with the road, researchers have started noticing “strange structures” in the area, and have discovered another settlement nearly identical to Soline in Gradina Bay. Further digging unearthed various artifacts, including blades and a stone axe.

The Miami Herald reports that the Hvar people, one of the original groups of inhabitants of the island, were living in the area during the creation of earthenware, and showed additional ingenuity by crafting a stone road to an artificial island.

Korčula Island has long been known to house settlements dating back to the Neolithic period. The continued investigation of the waters off the island, however, opens a new understanding of how settlements on and near the island may have connected differing groups of people.

Aliens may be listening in on our cellphone calls, new research finds

Story by Chris Knight • Thursday

An artist's impression of a planet orbiting Barnard's Star, six light years from Earth.

© Provided by National Post

It’s not quite “E.T. phone home,” but aliens in nearby star systems might be listening in on our cellphone calls, according to new research from the University of Manchester.

Scientists have long hypothesized that radio signals from Earth might be detectable as they spread out through the galaxy at the speed of light. In fact, SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) turns that idea around, scanning the cosmos for radio waves that might be generated by aliens.

To date, SETI has produced no conclusive findings. The flip side was considered in a 1978 study that looked at radio signal leakage from TV broadcast towers. But in the decades since, the rise of cable and internet has reduced the strength of through-the-air TV signals, while cellphone towers have sprouted up like steel mushrooms across the planet.

Michael Garrett is the inaugural Sir Bernard Lovell chair of Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, and the director of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics. His new study , published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, creates a model of radio leakage from cellphone towers, using crowd-sourced data and other publicly available information.

His research concludes that radio signal leakage from Earth’s cellphone networks is in the neighbourhood of 3.5 GW. A GigaWatt is a billion Watts, so picture the power output of 350 million LED bulbs, or about 1,000 industrial wind turbines.

Garrett notes that what cellphone towers lack in broadcast strength, they make up for in their ubiquity.

“I’ve heard many colleagues suggest that the Earth has become increasingly radio quiet in recent years — a claim that I always contested,” he said in a statement . “Although it’s true we have fewer powerful TV and radio transmitters today, the proliferation of mobile communication systems around the world is profound. While each system represents relatively low radio powers individually, the integrated spectrum of billions of these devices is substantial.”
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Reached in a taxi — and of course on a cellphone — Garrett told the National Post that there exists a small but definite threat of discovery by a hostile alien race, but also that there isn’t much to be done to mitigate that risk.

“You might hope that they are sufficiently developed not only in technology but in ethics and morals that they wouldn’t represent a threat, but you never know,” he said. “We should try to appreciate what that means. There is a certain risk, although I think it’s probably a small risk.”

As to putting a damper on our signals: “You could stop using radio waves as a form of communication, and try to have everything going via fibre and underground cables,” he said. “But that’s not very useful.” The benefit of cellphone technology is “you can use it no matter where you are.”

While the study notes that even the next generation of radio telescopes on Earth are not quite sensitive enough to detect a signal of this strength, our own technology continues to improve – as does the strength of our radio signal leakage.

“Current estimates suggest we will have more than one hundred thousand satellites in low Earth orbit and beyond before the end of the decade,” it says. “The Earth is already anomalously bright in the radio part of the spectrum; if the trend continues, we could become readily detectable by any advanced civilization with the right technology.”

Garrett said his paper didn’t even begin to consider the influence of wifi. “You can get your wifi in your garden,” he noted, which means its signal is out of your house and into the cosmos. “And once we have these constellations of satellites providing wifi from low-Earth orbit, we’ll be surrounded, smothered by that radio leakage, or you could call it radio pollution.”

The research looked at the signal that might be picked up by an alien civilization around one of several nearby stars, including Alpha Centauri, HD95735, and Barnard’s Star, the latter of significance because it is known to have a potentially habitable planet.

Not only could a signal be detected from there, the report says. “We note that by analyzing the flux variation of our planet as a function of time, it should be possible for an extraterrestrial civilization to generate a simple model of our planet that reproduces regions that are dominated by land, vegetation, and oceans/ice.”

And, in a kind of cosmic coincidence, the paper notes that “mobile towers transmit at frequencies within or close to L-band, a major band for radio astronomy that includes the ‘water hole.’” This term was coined in 1971 by scientist Barney Oliver, who noted that certain radio frequencies are relatively quiet and thus might be used by extraterrestrials for communications.

SETI researchers already scan the water hole frequency for signals. Any aliens doing likewise, with sensitive enough detectors, are likely to pick up our own signals in that band. Whether they call back remains to be seen.

Meteorite that struck New Jersey home may be a fragment of Halley's Comet

Story by Chris Knight • Thursday

Damage to the floor of a New Jersey home can be seen behind the meteorite that caused it.© Provided by National Post

A house in New Jersey has been struck by a meteorite that might have come from Halley’s Comet, according to scientists who investigated the incident.

No one was hurt when the space rock crashed through the roof of a home in Hopewell Township, N.J., on Monday. Homeowner Suzy Kop told CBS News that she found a hole in the ceiling of her father’s bedroom, and explained that the meteorite then ricocheted off the floor and took a divot out of the ceiling before coming to rest.

“I did touch the thing because I just thought it was a random rock,” she told CBS News. “And it was warm!”

Meteorite strikes causing property damage are extremely rare. In October of 2021 a woman in Golden, B.C., was woken up when a meteorite crashed through her roof directly over where she was sleeping. The Peekskill meteorite of 1992 took out a 1980 Chevy Malibu, and in 1938 a meteorite struck a Pontiac in rural Illinois.

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, said the metallic black rock, measuring about 10 by 15 cm and weighing about 1.8 kg, could be four to five billion years old.

Speculation is that the meteorite may have been part of the Eta Aquariids meteor shower, visible from about April 19 to May 28 each year, with peak activity around May 5. The annual event comprises particles that were ejected from Halley’s Comet in 390 BC.

The comet itself is now about as far from us as it gets, and will reach apehelion – its farthest distance from the sun – on Dec. 9, before starting its long trek back to the inner solar system. Halley was last visible to the naked eye in 1986, and its next close pass will be in 2061. Until then, one New Jersey family has a possible memento.

'Nothing girls can't do:' Ontario's 1st female licensed plumber marks 50 years in the trade

Story by Rebecca Zandbergen • Thursday

Debbie Johnston, Ontario's first licensed female plumber, kept this cutout of a local newspaper article that was written about her in 1974.© Submitted by Debbie Johnston

Deborah Johnston — or Debbie as she prefers to be called — remembers the day in the early 1970s when she was working in the office of her dad's plumbing business in Ingersoll, Ont., and a provincial official walked in.

He wanted to know if anyone was interested in becoming a plumbing apprentice.

"I told him there was nobody there except my dad and me," recalled Johnston, 69. "And he said, 'Well, how about you?'"

When he returned a couple of days later, Johnston signed up to become an apprentice, and by 1977 had become Ontario's first female licensed plumber.

Now retired, Johnston remembers her early days on the job and is encouraging other women to consider a career in the skilled trades.

"I was a good service plumber," said Johnston, who used her maiden name, Davies, on her plumbing licence.

Although she was the only woman in her courses at Fanshawe College, Johnston said she was always treated with respect.

"The guys were very helpful. I was terrible at welding, so they helped me, and when they needed help with writing or spelling, then I'd help them with that, or their math. So it was like a two-way street."

She got the same support out in the community.

"A lot of them knew me because of my dad. Everybody that I talked to in Ingersoll during those years said nothing but good things.

"The only time I ran into any kind of a negative comment was when I got to London for my first course at Fanshawe," said Johnston. "The London Free Press came and did a story on me when I was in Fanshawe in 1974, and they asked other people in the industry their opinion. There was one person who said, 'Oh, that'll be the girl who thinks she can be a plumber.'"

Labour shortage

With Ontario facing a generational labour shortage as many skilled tradespeople approach retirement age, there's a push to get more young people and women to enter the trades.

According to its April report, Build Force Canada projects Ontario will lose 18 per cent of its 2022 construction workforce in the next decade and will need to find 119,000 new workers during that time.

Later this month, Fanshawe College, in partnership with CWB Welding Foundation, will be offering a fully funded welding program for women and women-identifying individuals. Thirteen other institutions across Canada also offer the program.

Last month, the Ford government unveiled a mandatory technological education credit for high school students and is allowing young people to begin apprenticeships full time starting in Grade 11.

Encouraging women's interest in the trades has to begin in high school, said Johnston.

"It needs to start early so that they can know that this type of work is available to them," she said. "There is absolutely nothing out there in any kind of trade, not just plumbing, that girls can't do."

Getting women to join the trades is a longstanding conversation, said Katherine Jacobs, director of research at the Ontario Construction Secretariat (OCS).

"I feel a little more optimistic these days that it's a little more realistic," said Jacobs. "There's been a bit of a changeover in the industry. All the baby boomers are starting to retire and I'm hopeful that this new generation of workers, they've been raised differently, they perceive things differently — it'll be more of a welcoming environment."

According to the OCS, just two per cent of unionized tradespeople are women.

Despite Johnston's positive experience, women face a lot of challenges on the job, and as a result many leave the field even if they were brave enough to get into it, Jacobs said.

For starters, women tradespeople wanting to start a family may have concerns about getting paid maternity leave. But a number of trades unions are now offering leave programs for both men and women.

"I see some of the industry talking about some of these broader challenges that has impacted women staying in the trades," said Jacobs.

Johnston has her own advice for women wanting to enter the field. "Do your work, Do it as well as you can. Keep going, and try your best."

2 more gray whales have washed ashore near San Francisco, raising concerns over strandings

Story by Laura Studley • CNN - Yesterday 

A gray whale that set a record for time spent in San Francisco Bay has died after being found at Point Reyes National Seashore, according to a news release from the Marine Mammal Center.

The whale, who had been spotted in the bay for at least 75 days, a record for its species, died as did another whale that washed ashore last weekend at Agate Beach, about 13 miles from Point Reyes, the release said.

“To respond to two known gray whales on consecutive days, including one that our team has been actively monitoring for months in San Francisco Bay, is challenging and concerning to say the least,” Pádraig Duignan, director of pathology at The Marine Mammal Center, said in a release. “As sentinels for ocean health, gray whales face several human-caused threats including vessel strikes.”

A team of 11 scientists conducted a necropsy on the 39-foot record-breaking whale and determined it died from malnutrition and multiple suspected vessel strikes, according to the center.

The whale had a scar in the middle of its back that occurred in February, the same month it was first observed. The necropsy found multiple rib and spinal fractures with attempted healing beneath the scar. The whale also had skull fractures, muscle damage and a hemorrhage, all injuries consistent with a severe injury caused by whiplash from a motor vehicle, according to the release.

The second whale’s cause of death is unknown. Measured at 37 feet and deemed healthy, the whale had no signs of trauma, according to the release.

This year, four gray whales have been found dead in the bay, the first occurring in March, according to data collected by the Marine Mammal Center.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared an Unusual Mortality Event as a result of increased gray whale strandings and deaths since January 2019.

There have been an estimated 314 whale strandings from 2019 to 2023 in the US so far, according to data from the NOAA. Data from 2022 also shows that gray whale migration has dropped 38%, which includes approximately 16,650 whales. The last population assessment in 2015 and 2016 estimated 26,960 whales, according to the NOAA.

Nursing agencies are staffing hospitals at 'huge cost' to health-care system, experts say

Story by Bethany Lindsay •  CBC - Yesterday

Burned-out nurses who've left Canada's health-care industry in droves are now returning to the job through private agencies, and that transition is costing the public system millions of dollars every year.

Nurses working for these temp agencies can earn more than double the wages of staff nurses doing the same jobs in the same hospitals, with full control over their work schedules, according to those in the industry.

Terri Stuart-McEwan, vice president of clinical programs and chief nursing executive at Oak Valley Health, which operates Markham Stouffville Hospital in Ontario, said she's watched as a steady stream of nurses have quit their jobs out of fatigue and frustration.

"Last year we spent, in this organization, over $4 million [on agency nurses], and we are a medium-size organization," she said. "That's a huge cost to our health-care system."

Long-time nurses say those costs are just going to keep rising unless something is done to address systemic issues in the Canadian health-care system that are driving workers to leave their jobs.

In the meantime, the agency industry is flourishing. Stuart-McEwan said she now has contracts with 13 nursing agencies, compared to just one or two before the pandemic.

She describes these agencies as the Ubers of nursing, and just like ride-hailing companies, some agencies have implemented surge pricing that see costs spike during certain times.

"It would be a Saturday night, we're down by a couple of nurses, it's in the critical care area — we know we cannot survive without another nurse," Stuart-McEwan said.

"As an organization, you're saying I could either put my patients at risk, my staff at risk, or I pay $300 an hour."

In response to CBC's reporting on this issue, NDP MP Jenny Kwan asked the Liberal government during question period on Friday what it planned to do to ensure nurses have the support they need to remain employed in the public system.

Adam van Koeverden, parliamentary secretary to the health minister, responded by touting Ottawa's recent budget commitment of $198.6 billion over 10 years to improve health-care delivery, which he said will improve pay for nurses.

"Nurses deserve fair wages, they deserve a safe environment for work, they deserve better work conditions," he said.

High costs of agencies 'doesn't make sense'

High hourly rates for nursing agencies can add up quickly.

In Toronto, University Health Network's nursing agency expenditures totalled $6.74 million in the fiscal year ending in 2022, a sharp increase from the $775,926 it spent in 2021.

Manitoba spent $3.9 million in one year to fill shortages in Winnipeg alone, according to the provincial NDP, and Global News has reported that the cost provincewide was more than $40 million in 2021/2022.

And in Nova Scotia, the Department of Seniors and Long-term Care allocated $3.1 million in December 2021 for agency nurses, but later had to increase the budgeted amount for that year by $18.4 million.

Related video: Private agency nurses cost much more. Hospitals need them anyway (cbc.ca)  Duration 5:33 View on Watch

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In Quebec, private health-care staffing agencies cost taxpayers $960 million last year, and the province has spent about $3 billion on these agencies since 2016.

Earlier this year, the provincial government passed a bill that will limit the use of health-care staffing agencies, with a goal of banning hospitals from using them by the end of 2025.

"You've seen the cost of that, it doesn't make sense," Health Minister Christian Dubé said.

Robert Handelman, the CEO of Toronto-based Staff Relief Healthcare Services, told CBC News that companies like his play an important role in providing workers when hospital resources are stretched thin.

His business has been around for 25 years and has long-standing relationships with a number of hospitals, Handelman said. But he noted that there are few barriers to entering the industry and no regulation of the sector, which has allowed a number of "predatory" agencies to pop up in recent years, charging high rates and taking a large cut of workers' wages.

'A meat grinder for nurses'

According to Natalie Stake-Doucet, the growing use of agency nurses is a symptom of a much larger problem. She recently quit nursing after a decade working in Québec, and currently teaches at McGill University.

"The private agencies are taking advantage of the fact that our health-care system is a meat grinder for nurses," she said.

She argues that private nursing agencies in Quebec are simply taking advantage of the high turnover within the province's health-care system, caused by poor working conditions, low wages, forced overtime and high patient-to-nurse ratios.

"This has been a crisis that nurses have been warning about for 20 years now, at the very least," Stake-Doucet said.



Emergency room nurse Basil Byfield says it can be disheartening for staff at Markham Stouffville Hospital to work alongside agency nurses who are being paid twice as much.© CBC News

At Markham Stouffville Hospital, emergency room nurse Basil Byfield acknowledges it's been tough to retain staff in recent years.

"Emergency is really — I shouldn't say a beast, but it can be a tough place," he said.

During his 35-year career, he's spent time working for agencies as well, and says there are downsides, like having to quickly learn new procedures and technologies after being placed at a new facility.

But for many, the extra pay is worth it, and that's not easy to swallow for those working regular jobs at the hospital.

"It can be demoralizing for the regular staff having to do the same job but getting less pay," Byfield said.

Ontario nurse Kian Johnson said she originally began picking up shifts with an agency seven years ago to supplement the pay from her full-time hospital job.

"Just the full time employment income would not suffice to take care of the necessities in my life," she said.

Now she's studying to become a nurse practitioner and has left her staff position to exclusively work for the agency, where she can choose her own hours.


Ontario nurse Kian Johnson says she works for a nursing agency because of the higher pay and the ability to plan her shifts around her studies.© CBC News

Johnson says that in her experience, there's always a shortage of staff nurses in Ontario hospitals.

"I've been on shifts where eight agency nurses are working within the facility on the unit and there's perhaps 10 or 12 nurses overall," Johnson said.

"It's necessary to have … adequate staffing, and the actual hospital does not provide it."

She believes the only way to reduce the dependency on agency nurses is to increase the pay in the public system, and allow more flexibility in those jobs.

"We try our very best to care for people," Johnson said. "I feel like we're not respected in the sense that our needs are not being met."

London's 1st magic mushroom store, the latest in Ontario, could test limits of authorities' tolerance

Story by Alessio Donnini • CBC - Yesterday 

Achain of illegal magic mushroom dispensaries is expanding to London, Ont., in a move that is expected to test the limits of what law enforcement in the city will tolerate.

FunGuyz, one of several stores selling psilocybin products in Ontario, will be the first of its kind in London and harkens back to the days when illegal pot shops first opened.

The franchise, which will be located on Richmond Street, describes itself as a "medical mushroom dispensary." The company has nine other locations, in Toronto, Barrie, Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Wasaga Beach.

"Everyone loves it. Everyone loves us," said Edgar Gurben, a spokesperson for FunGuyz.

He said to buy a bag of magic mushrooms, psilocybin-infused edibles or capsules filled with hallucinogenic mushroom powder, customers need to sign a waiver and show valid photo ID. Psilocybin is a drug that turns into psilocin, a highly hallucinogenic compound known for its euphoric effects, when ingested.


Shroomyz is another example of a chain of illegal mushroom dispensaries. The chain started in Ottawa before eventually expanding to Toronto and beyond.© Sara Jabakhanji/CBC

Psilocybin and psilocin are both classified as Schedule III substances and are illegal to sell or possess in Canada under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The owners of FunGuyz say they aren't particularly concerned about the law.

"When the police do come and raid us, they take the product, and whoever is working there will get a charge. We open back up, we have a good lawyer, and we get our [court] cases dropped," said Gurben.

Other dispensaries, including in Toronto and Hamilton, were raided almost immediately after opening in late 2022 and charges were laid against the sellers.

London police stopped short of saying they would raid the FunGuyz dispensary when it opens. Spokersperson Sandasha Bough said in a statement that law enforcement resources are prioritized within the context of community safety and harm.

"In London, individuals who illegally possess or traffic in substances that are scheduled in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act are dealt with by the London Police Service," Bough said.

According to the City of London, there is no recourse that can be taken against illegal dispensaries within the confines of bylaw enforcement.

"Business licences must comply with municipal, provincial and federal laws," said Orest Katolyk, the director of municipal compliance.


Large signage plastered across the side of the building at 256 Richmond advertises the online store that FunGuyz offers.© Alessio Donnini/CBC News

It's clear that despite the law, the company aims to continue operating in all 10 of its locations, with the stated purpose of providing psilocybin for medical use.

"What we're doing here is we're giving people access to psilocybin in a clean, safe manner," said Gurben. "We have clients who use it to overcome addictions or other mental health problems."

The drug is currently showing promising results in clinical trials and being used to treat mental health disorders such as anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, and substance abuse issues, according to Health Canada.

Still, the regulatory body says evidence is limited, as few trials have been completed.

Doctors frustrated

The continued trend of mushroom dispensaries operating in defiance of the law has left some doctors seeking to prescribe psilocybin frustrated.

"Why do we live in a country right now where the government is only allowing access to this substance in a less safe manner. How does that all line up with the objectives of the substances act, which are health and public safety?" said Nicholas Pope, an Ottawa-based lawyer who is currently part of a large charter challenge to strike down the law that prohibits psilocybin for medical purposes.

Pope also represents doctors seeking Section 56 exemption requests, which would allow them to use psilocybin for patient care.

Pope said he has personally witnessed people walking out of mushroom dispensaries with police officers in sight and no enforcement action taken, which adds insult to injury.

"I don't have anything against these dispensaries operating. We're in this situation where it's de facto allowed for recreation," said Pope. "It's technically illegal, but the chances are extraordinarily low that you would get prosecuted."

He calls it an "absurd and wrong" situation, where patients who could benefit from the drug are unable to while some enjoy it recreationally. Medicinal use of psilocybin involves a number of highly trained specialists from physicians to psychotherapists, which cannot be achieved by personal use, he added.

Regardless of how judges and lawmakers decide to handle the future of psilocybin in Canada, more regulatory attention and care will be necessary, says Jacob Shelley, an associate professor in the Faculty of Law and School of Health Studies at Western University.

"We see the playbook has already been kind of played out with cannabis, right? We saw how [illegal cannabis] dispensaries evolved and kind of pushed the government to address and deal with them existing in kind of the space before legalization," said Shelley.

"We need to invest more regulatory attention to how we're going to ensure that these products are not being sold to consumers in a way that's harmful without the proper regulatory kind of oversight."

Canadian Armed  Forces Military police have referred nearly 100 sex offence cases to civilian forces
Story by Sean Boynton • Yesterday 

Canadian Forces personnel stand at CFB Kingston in Kingston, Ont., Tuesday, March 7, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick© GAC

Anand unveils military sexual misconduct reforms

The Canadian Armed Forces says military police have referred 93 cases of criminal sexual offences to civilian police forces since December 2021, 64 of which are under investigation.

Friday's update came as the government works to implement an independent recommendation to remove jurisdiction over such cases from military police after a series of sexual misconduct scandals involving high-ranking officers.

Brig.-Gen. Simon Trudeau, the Canadian Forces provost marshal, said the other 29 cases referred to federal, provincial and municipal police had been declined.

He did not give a reason for those cases being dismissed, but some provinces including Ontario and British Columbia have called on Ottawa to fund the additional police resources needed to take on such investigations.

Trudeau said another 97 cases were not referred to civilian police, and cited "various reasons" as to why.

The victims in 20 of those cases, he said, preferred a military police investigation, while others chose not to proceed with a criminal investigation at all.

Defence Minister Anita Anand first directed military police and prosecutors to start handing cases to civilian authorities in November 2021, following a recommendation to that effect from retired Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour.

Arbour made the recommendation while conducting a yearlong review into the Canadian Forces’ handling of sexual misconduct allegations. She said the move was necessary to address widespread mistrust and doubt in the military justice system.

The recommendation was included in her final report, released in May 2022, that described the military as a "broken system" out of sync with the values of Canadian society, and which poses a “liability” to the country.

The review was formally launched a year before that — in May 2021 — in response to exclusive reporting by Global News into allegations of sexual misconduct among the highest ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Global News first brought to light allegations in February 2021 of sexual misconduct against senior leaders in the Armed Forces — the first of dozens of exclusive reports into such allegations and the military’s handling of them over the past 18 months.

Video: Ottawa releases ‘ambitious’ roadmap to reform military culture

On Thursday, officials from the Defence Department and the Canadian Forces provided an update on their efforts to implement the 48 recommendations made in Arbour's report.

Speaking to reporters, Minister Anand said a federal-provincial-territorial committee has been set up to facilitate conversations between deputy ministers about the transfer of cases of criminal sexual offences.

In the meantime, the Armed Forces have agreements in place with the RCMP, Surete du Quebec and now the Ontario Provincial Police to refer cases to police for investigation, officials said.

In her report, Arbour warned that Ottawa and the provinces could end up engaged in "interminable discussions" about the matter if the federal government did not formally make the change.

The NDP has called on the Liberals to introduce legislation to permanently remove such cases from the military's jurisdiction.

Anand also said Thursday that the military's independent sexual misconduct support and resource centre is creating a new fund to help victims pay for legal services.

— with files from Global's Saba Aziz and The Canadian Press

Mysterious rumblings were recorded in Earth’s stratosphere

Story by Ashley Strickland • CNN -Yesterday

Giant solar balloons were sent 70,000 feet up in the air to record sounds of Earth’s stratosphere — and the microphones picked up some unexpected sounds.

The stratosphere is the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere, and its lower level contains the ozone layer that absorbs and scatters the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, according to NASA. The thin, dry air of the stratosphere is where jet aircraft and weather balloons reach their maximum altitude, and the relatively calm atmospheric layer is rarely disturbed by turbulence.

Daniel Bowman, principal scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, was inspired in graduate school to explore the soundscape of the stratosphere after being introduced to the low-frequency sounds that are generated by volcanoes. Known as infrasound, the phenomenon is inaudible to the human ear.

Bowman and his friends had previously flown cameras on weather balloons “to take pictures of the black sky above and the Earth far below” and successfully built their own solar balloon.

He proposed attaching infrasound recorders to balloons to record the sounds of volcanoes. But then he and his adviser Jonathan Lees of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “realized that no one had tried to put microphones on stratospheric balloons for half a century, so we pivoted to exploring what this new platform could do,” Bowman said. Lees is a professor of Earth, marine and environmental sciences who researches seismology and volcanology.

The balloons can take sensors twice as high as commercial jets can fly.

“On our solar balloons, we have recorded surface and buried chemical explosions, thunder, ocean waves colliding, propeller aircraft, city sounds, suborbital rocket launches, earthquakes, and maybe even freight trains and jet aircraft,” Bowman said via email. “We’ve also recorded sounds whose origin is unclear.”

The findings were shared Thursday at the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Chicago.

A recording shared by Bowman from a NASA balloon that circled Antarctica contains infrasound of colliding ocean waves, which sounds like continual sighing. But other crackles and rustling have unknown origins.

In the stratosphere, “there are mysterious infrasound signals that occur a few times per hour on some flights, but the source of these is completely unknown,” Bowman said.

Building solar balloons

Bowman and his collaborators have conducted research using NASA balloons and other flight providers, but they decided to build their own balloons, each spanning about 19.7 to 23 feet (6 to 7 meters) across.

The supplies can be found at hardware and pyrotechnic supply stores, and the balloons can be assembled on a basketball court.

“Each balloon is made of painter’s plastic, shipping tape, and charcoal dust,” Bowman said via email. “They cost about $50 to make and a team of two can build one in about 3.5 hours. One simply brings it out to a field on a sunny day and fills it up with air, and it will carry a pound of payload to about 70,000 ft.”

The charcoal dust is used inside the balloons to darken them, and when the sun shines on the dark balloons, the air inside them warms up and becomes buoyant. The inexpensive and easy DIY design means the researchers can release multiple balloons to collect as much data as possible.



This view from one of Sandia National Laboratories' solar-powered hot air balloons was taken at a height of about 13 miles (21 kilometers) above Earth's surface. - Guide Star Engineering LLC/Sandia National Laboratories

“Really, a group of high schoolers with access to the school gym could build a solar balloon, and there’s even a cellphone app called RedVox that can record infrasound,” Bowman said.

Bowman estimated that he launched several dozen solar balloons to collect infrasound recordings between 2016 and April of this year. Microbarometers, originally designed to monitor volcanoes, were attached to the balloons to record low-frequency sounds.

The researchers tracked their balloons using GPS, since they can travel for hundreds of miles and land in inconvenient locations.

The longest flight so far was 44 days aboard a NASA helium balloon, which recorded 19 days worth of data before the batteries on the microphone died. Meanwhile, solar balloon flights tend to last about 14 hours during the summer and land once the sun sets.

Unraveling mysterious sounds

The advantage of the high altitude reached by the balloons means that noise levels are lower and the detection range is increased — and the whole Earth is accessible. But the balloons also present challenges for researchers. The stratosphere is a harsh environment with wild temperature fluctuations between heat and cold.

“Solar balloons are a bit sluggish, and we’ve wrecked a few on bushes when trying to launch them,” Bowman said. “We’ve had to hike down into canyons and across mountains to get our payloads. Once, our Oklahoma State colleagues actually had a balloon land in a field, spend the night, and launch itself back in the air to fly another whole day!”

Lessons learned from multiple balloon flights have somewhat eased the process, but now the greatest challenge for researchers is identifying the signals recorded during the flights.

“There are many flights with signals whose origin we do not understand,” Bowman said. “They are almost certainly mundane, maybe a patch of turbulence, a distant severe storm, or some sort of human object like a freight train — but it’s hard to tell what is going on sometimes due to the lack of data up there.”

Sarah Albert, a geophysicist at Sandia National Laboratories, has investigated a “sound channel” — a conduit that carries sounds across great distances through the atmosphere — located at the altitudes Bowman studies. Her recordings have captured rocket launches and other unidentified rumblings.


Sandia National Laboratories geophysicists (from left) Daniel Bowman and Sarah Albert display an infrasound sensor and the box used to protect the sensors from extreme temperatures. - Randy Montoya/Sandia National Laboratories

“It may be that sound gets trapped in the channel and echoes around until it’s completely garbled,” Bowman said. “But whether it is near and fairly quiet (like a patch of turbulence) or distant and loud (like a faraway storm) is not clear yet.”

Bowman and Albert will continue to investigate the aerial sound channel and try to determine where the stratosphere’s rumbles are originating — and why some flights record them while others don’t.

Bowman is eager to understand the soundscape of the stratosphere and unlock key features, like variability across seasons and locations.

It’s possible that helium-filled versions of these balloons could one day be used to explore other planets like Venus, carrying scientific instruments above or within the planet’s clouds for a few days as a test flight for larger, more complex missions.