Influencers of a different sort: Science and Technology YouTubers to gather in Rio


By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
October 2, 2025


Analysts at Emarketer say YouTube is on pace to have more paid subscribers that any cable television service in about two years - Copyright AFP Lionel BONAVENTURE

Social media’s influence extends far and wide. Sometimes it is a force for good and other times it is a force for misinformation or spreading malice. One area on the plus side of the equation is education and a specific area of education that receives considerable attention is science and technology.

To mark the contribution of educators to social media, the organisation World Congress of Science and Factual Producers (WCSFP) has announced an event titled Congress ’25, which is to take place this December 8-11 in Rio de Janeiro.

WCSFP is a not-for-profit, member-driven organisation where science, history and natural history content creators and executives can share, explore and reveal how advancements within these industries are communicated to the world. This includes using digital technology and forms of new media to communicate content designed to educate and to entertain.

Evolution of factual storytelling

Congress ’25 promises is a convention designed to provide opportunities for producers, broadcasters, and digital innovators to explore new markets, connect and collaborate, and experiment with fresh formats. This includes charting the evolution of factual storytelling as well as exploring the growing intersections between television, film, and digital platforms.

Included in the lineup is Dr. Derek Muller, creator of Veritasium, one of the world’s largest and most influential science YouTube channels. With almost 19 million subscribers and billions of views, Muller has transformed the way audiences worldwide engage with science. Muller’s keynote speech will set the stage for Congress ’25, spotlighting how creators are reshaping factual storytelling and audience engagement.

Muller is well-suited to the task; his doctoral thesis was titled Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics Education.

Another speaker, from Los Angeles, is Kevin Allocca, Global Director of Culture and Trends at YouTube, whose role places him at the heart of understanding what drives billions of video views daily. His perspective is important in the context of platforms and audience habits are shifting rapidly, creating new opportunities for factual producers worldwide.

Allocca’s TED Talk on “Why Videos Go Viral” has been watched over 3 million times

The third person to be announced is Mariana van Zeller – journalist, host, and executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning National Geographic series Trafficked. van Zeller will share first-hand insight into the risks and rewards of immersive investigative reporting.

Trafficked: Underworlds is a documentary television series about trafficking and black markets. The series covers topics like drugs, human organs, guns, surgery, and stolen cars, among others.

In a statement sent to Digital Journal, Paul Lewis, Conference Director of WCSFP says: “These extraordinary voices reflect the breadth of our programming this year – from digital innovation and global audience trends to bold, innovative storytelling. Their insights will help set the tone for a dynamic program that brings together the very best of our international community in Rio.”

Participants at the event include National Geographic, Warner Bros. Discovery, NHK, CBC/Radio-Canada, BBC Studios Science Unit, BBC History Unit, ITV Studios, ZDF/3sat, ORF, SVT, Autentic, WGBH NOVA, France Télévisions, WNET Nature, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, CuriosityStream, and, from Brazil, executives from Globo and TV Brazil.


Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

China trials ‘energy-saving’ underwater data centres


By AFP
October 2, 2025


With artificial intelligence use growing rapidly, demand for data centres -- which eat up vast amounts of energy -- is ballooning - Copyright AFP STR

Emily WANG, Jing Xuan TENG

Power-hungry data centres run hot, so one Chinese company is planning to submerge a pod of servers in the sea off Shanghai with hopes of solving computing’s energy woes.

On a wharf near the city, workers were finishing off the large yellow capsule — a foray into alternative tech infrastructure that faces questions over its ecological impact and commercial viability.

The world’s websites and apps rely on physical data centres to store information, with growing use of artificial intelligence contributing to skyrocketing demand for the facilities.

“Underwater operations have inherent advantages,” said Yang Ye of maritime equipment firm Highlander, which is developing the Shanghai pod with state-owned construction companies.

Undersea servers are kept at a low temperature by ocean currents, rather than the energy-intensive air cooling or water evaporation required by centres on land.

The technology was trialled by Microsoft off the coast of Scotland in 2018, but the Chinese project, to be sunk in mid-October, is one of the world’s first commercial services of its kind.

It will serve clients such as China Telecom and a state-owned AI computing company, and is part of a broader government push to lower data centres’ carbon footprint.

“Underwater facilities can save approximately 90 percent of energy consumption for cooling,” Yang, vice president of Highlander, told AFP.

Projects like this are currently focused on showing “technological feasibility”, said expert Shaolei Ren from the University of California, Riverside.

Microsoft never built commercially on its trial, saying after retrieving its pod in 2020 that the project had been successfully completed.

Significant construction challenges and environmental concerns have to be overcome before underwater data centres can be deployed on a mass scale, said Ren.

In China, government subsidies are helping — Highlander received 40 million yuan ($5.62 million) for a similar 2022 project in Hainan province that is still running.



– Technical challenges –



“The actual completion of the underwater data centre involved greater construction challenges than initially expected,” said Zhou Jun, an engineer for Highlander’s Shanghai project.

Built onshore in separate components before being installed in the sea, it will draw nearly all its power from nearby offshore wind farms.

Highlander says that more than 95 percent of the energy used will come from renewable sources.

The most obvious challenge in placing the structure under the waves is keeping its contents dry and safe from corrosion by salt water.

The Chinese project addresses this by using a protective coating containing glass flakes on the steel capsule that holds the servers.

To allow maintenance crews access, an elevator will connect the main pod structure to a segment that remains above the water.

Ren from UC Riverside said laying the internet connection between an offshore data centre and the mainland was a more complex process than with traditional land servers.

Researchers at the University of Florida and the University of Electro-Communications in Japan have also found that sub-marine data centres can be vulnerable to attacks using sound waves conducted through water.



– Ecological unknowns –



Technical hurdles aside, the warming effect of underwater data centres on the surrounding water has raised questions about the impact on marine ecosystems.

Andrew Want, a marine ecologist at the University of Hull, said the heat emitted could in some cases attract certain species while driving away others.

“These are unknowns at this point — there’s not sufficient research being conducted yet,” he said.

Highlander told AFP a 2020 independent assessment of the company’s test project near Zhuhai, in southern China, indicated that the surrounding water stayed well below acceptable temperature thresholds.

However, Ren warned that scaling up centres would also scale up the heat given off.

He stressed that “for megawatt-scale data centres underwater, the thermal pollution problem needs to be studied more carefully”.

Offshore facilities can complement standard data centres, Ren suggested.

“They’re probably not going to replace existing traditional data centres, but can provide service to some niche segments.”

Hong Kong to install surveillance cameras with AI facial recognition


By AFP
October 3, 2025


Hong Kong authorities already use artificial intelligence to monitor crowds and read license plates - Copyright AFP/File Peter PARKS

Hong Kong plans to install tens of thousands of surveillance cameras with AI-powered facial recognition, the city’s security chief said on Friday, bringing it closer to China where authorities often monitor public spaces with cutting-edge technology.

The Chinese finance hub has already installed just shy of 4,000 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras under a police crime fighting programme. That number will increase more than tenfold by 2028, up to a total of 60,000, according to documents submitted to the legislature.

Artificial intelligence is already being used to monitor crowds and read license plates, and that technology “will naturally be applied to people, such as tracking a criminal suspect”, Hong Kong’s security chief Chris Tang told lawmakers.

“That is something we must do,” he said, adding that authorities are still considering issues such as resource allocation and choice of technology, without specifying a timeline for the rollout.

Police say the SmartView programme is needed to safeguard national security and to prevent and detect crimes, crediting the use of CCTV cameras with solving more than 400 cases and scoring 787 arrests since the initiative was launched last year.

Officers will start using real-time facial recognition “as early as the end of this year”, the South China Morning Post reported in July.

Similar technology has also been adopted in Britain, though critics argue that it grants the government unchecked power to invade privacy on a massive scale.

Concerns have also been raised over false matches leading to wrongful arrests.

The European Union adopted an Artificial Intelligence Act last year that banned “the use of ‘real-time’ remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for the purposes of law enforcement”, with some exceptions.

Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog, an independent statutory body, on Friday declined to say whether it had been consulted in drawing up plans to expand the surveillance camera programme.

Trump jeopardising US role as scientific leader: Nobel officials

FORGET THE PEACE NOBEL

By AFP
October 1, 2025


Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the United States position as a scientific leader was under threat - Copyright AFP Jonathan NACKSTRAND

Pia OHLIN

Donald Trump’s assault on science could threaten the United States’ position as the world’s leading research nation and have knock-on effects worldwide, Nobel Prize officials in Sweden told AFP.

Since taking office in January, the US president has cut billions of dollars in funding, attacked universities’ academic freedoms and overseen mass layoffs of scientists across federal agencies.

Next week, the Nobel Prizes will be announced in Stockholm and Oslo, and chances are high that researchers working in the United States will take home some of the prestigious awards.

The United States is home to more Nobel science laureates than any other country, due largely to its longstanding investment in basic science and academic freedoms.

But that could change, said Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, and economics.

“In the post-war period, the US has taken over Germany’s role as the world’s leading scientific nation. When they now start cutting research funding, it threatens the country’s position,” he told AFP.

Since January, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have terminated 2,100 research grants totalling around $9.5 billion and $2.6 billion in contracts, according to an independent database called Grant Watch.

Affected projects include studies on gender, the health effects of global warming, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.

Efforts are under way to restore some of the funding but uncertainty looms.

Other fields in Trump’s line of fire include vaccines, climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Thomas Perlmann, secretary general of the committee that awards the Nobel Prize for Medicine, said it was “no coincidence that the US has by far the most Nobel laureates”.

“But there is now a creeping sense of uncertainty about the US’ willingness to maintain their leading position in research,” he said.

Perlmann called the United States “the very engine” of scientific research worldwide.

“There would be very serious consequences for research globally if it starts to falter,” he added.

“It doesn’t take very many years of large cutbacks to cause irreversible harm.”

– ‘China on the rise’ –

Trump’s cuts could lead to a brain drain and ripple effects on research in other countries, Ellegren and Perlmann said.

Scientists and researchers who have already lost their jobs or funding may not return to their fields even if budgets are restored, and younger would-be scientists may decide not to pursue a career in research, they said.

“There is a risk that a whole generation of young researchers will be lost,” Ellegren warned.

While Trump’s policies primarily affect US research, international cooperation is already suffering as a result, he said.

The NIH finance collaborations in other countries, “and that has become more difficult under the new administration”.

“Any nationalist or chauvinistically inclined regulation of academic activity hampers the global exchange of ideas and data,” Ellegren stressed.

“Research is by nature global. Researchers have always exchanged knowledge and experiences.”

Some countries have tried to attract US scientists, while non-American researchers may be tempted to leave the United States to pursue their work elsewhere.

A US retreat could therefore open the door for other nations to take big strides.

“Research is an important basis for innovation and entrepreneurship. That means it could become easier for other countries to compete with the US,” Ellegren suggested.

“The big global trend right now is that research in China is on the rise,” he said, adding: “They are investing unbelievable resources.”

Perlmann said Trump ought to protect the US legacy.

“You would hope that Trump doesn’t want to give a walkover to China and other countries keen to take over the leader’s jersey.”

If given a chance to talk directly to Trump, Ellegren said he would impress upon him that it was in America’s own interest to maintain academic freedoms and scientific funding.

“I would say that… one of the reasons your country has been so successful is that researchers have been able to seek new knowledge and have good resources.”

“The United States has invested a lot in research in the post-war period, both privately and federally. And that is what has helped your country build its prosperity,” he said.

Not all ‘A’s: Unconventional paths that led to Nobels


By AFP
October 3, 2025


Frances Arnold won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and told AFP she was 'disruptive' and 'bored' in the classroom - Copyright AFP Damien MEYER

Agnes Johanna WÄSTFELT

Some Nobel laureates were straight-A students from the get-go. But others AFP spoke to recounted how they cut class, got expelled, and had doubts about their future.

Perhaps the most illustrious Nobel Prize winner, Albert Einstein, was once a mediocre student at Zurich Polytechnic School, now ETH Zurich.

The young Einstein skipped classes, wanted to study physics exclusively, and finished second-last in his class in 1900.

After graduating, he was the only student not offered a research assistant position, according to the Swiss university’s website.

Einstein went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

Frances Arnold, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, also cut classes after a turbulent start to her education in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.

“I was disruptive. I was just bored and well beyond what the rest of the kids in the class were doing. And the teachers often gave me little projects decorating the classroom and things like that,” she recalled in an interview with AFP.

At the age of 10, she was allowed to take high school courses such as geometry — a challenge she appreciated at first.

But by the time she reached her teens, she wasn’t enjoying school anymore to the point that she stopped going and was expelled.

“I guess I wasn’t interested in what they had to teach us. Or if I was interested in it, I just learned it on my own from a textbook. So I managed to pass all my classes despite many absences, I would say.”

Now aged 69, she acknowledges that hers is not a model to follow, but believes schools should show more flexibility.

“They don’t have the wherewithal to do anything special for the kids who really would benefit,” she lamented.



– Overcoming challenges –



David Card, the 2021 Nobel economics laureate, also had unconventional educational beginnings.

“There’s almost nobody I’ve met… in an economics PhD programme that has a background like mine where they went to a rural school,” he told AFP.

Born on a farm in Canada in the 1950s, he was enrolled in a small one-room schoolhouse, where one teacher taught around 30 students at different grade levels.

“The way the teacher did it was she would spend some time with each row, which was one of the grades. I actually paid attention to a couple of grades beyond mine for most of the material,” he said.

“So you could kind of accelerate very quickly, very easily.”

The system was less ideal for students who needed more individualised support, he acknowledged.

According to the Nobel Foundation, other laureates had to overcome major academic challenges before going on to win the prestigious Nobel.

The first woman to win the economics prize, Elinor Ostrom, was turned down when she applied for a PhD in economics; 2009 medicine prize laureate Carol Greider struggled with dyslexia as a child; and 2015 chemistry prize winner Tomas Lindahl failed chemistry in high school.



– Humble beginnings –



Arnold and Card both started working at a young age, which the two consider an important life experience.

In her teens, Arnold held odd jobs as a waitress, receptionist and taxi driver.

“You appreciate more what the university education can give to you, in terms of getting a job you actually might want to have for the rest of your life.”

“It also teaches you how to organise your time.”

Similarly, Card juggled school and farm life very early on.

“I don’t think there was that much homework back then in my schools. So there was lots of time,” he recalled.

“I helped my father. I learned to drive a tractor when I was about 11. Every morning I got up at 5:00 am and helped him milk the cows and then I would have a shower and go to school.”

Both prizewinners also studied other subjects before discovering their respective passions.

Arnold pursued studies in mechanical engineering and aeronautics before turning to chemistry.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. I went into mechanical engineering because it had the fewest requirements for engineering,” she admitted.

And Card initially studied physics before switching to economics.

Despite their unconventional paths, both ultimately found their way to brilliance.

Taiwan says ‘will not agree’ to making 50% of its chips in US


By AFP
October 1, 2025

Taiwan produces more than half of the world's semiconductor chips and nearly all of the high-end ones

Taiwan “will not agree” to making 50 percent of its semiconductors in the United States, the island’s lead tariff negotiator said Wednesday, as Washington pressures Taipei to produce more chips on US soil.

Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said he had proposed to Taiwan a 50-50 split in chip production.

“I want to clarify that this is the US’s idea. Our negotiation team has never made a 50-50 commitment to a chip split,” Cheng told reporters in Taipei.

“Please be rest assured that we did not discuss this issue this time, and we will not agree to such a condition,” she said.

Cheng spoke after returning from Washington where she said negotiations over US tariffs on Taiwanese shipments “made some progress”.

Taiwan is struggling to finalise a tariff deal with Washington, after President Donald Trump’s administration imposed a temporary 20 percent levy that has alarmed the island’s manufacturers.

Trump has also threatened to put a “fairly substantial tariff” on semiconductors coming into the country.

Soaring demand for AI-related technology has fuelled Taiwan’s trade surplus with the United States — and put it in Trump’s crosshairs.

More than 70 percent of the island’s exports to the United States are information and communications technology, which includes chips, the cabinet said in a statement Wednesday.

In a bid to avoid the tariffs, Taipei has pledged to increase investment in the United States, buy more of its energy and increase its own defence spending to more than three percent of gross domestic product.

Taiwan produces more than half of the world’s semiconductors and nearly all of the high-end ones.

The concentration of chip manufacturing in Taiwan has long been seen as a “silicon shield” protecting it from an invasion or blockade by China, which claims it as part of its territory — and an incentive for the United States to defend it.

In an interview with NewsNation broadcast over the weekend, Lutnick said having 50 percent of Taiwan’s chip production in the United States would ensure “we have the capacity to do what we need to do if we need to do it”.

“That has been the conversation we’ve had with Taiwan, that you have to understand that it’s vital for you to have us produce 50 percent,” he said.

“Our goal is to get to 40 percent market share, and maybe 50 percent market share, of producing the chips and the wafers, you know the semiconductors we need for American consumption, that’s our objective.”

EU eyes higher steel tariffs, taking page from US


By AFP
October 1, 2025


The European Union will unveil new measures on Tuesday to protect the steel sector that will replace the current 'safeguard clause' - Copyright AFP/File JOSH EDELSON

Frédéric Pouchot and Raziye Akkoc

The EU will propose cutting steel import quotas and significantly increasing tariffs on the metal from abroad, the bloc’s industry chief Stephane Sejourne told the sector on Wednesday, mirroring US moves.

Brussels will unveil new measures next week to protect the steel sector that will replace a current “safeguard clause” expiring next year, Sejourne said during a meeting in Brussels, participants told AFP.

Protecting the steel industry is a priority for Brussels, especially after US President Donald Trump slapped 50 percent tariffs on the metal this year.

The European Commission will propose the changes to prevent a wave of cheap steel flooding the EU market following Washington’s new levies, as well as Canada’s higher tariffs on Chinese imports.

The EU agreed a tariff deal with the United States in July but failed to get Trump to lower duties on European steel, although European officials remain hopeful for future agreement on the issue.

The EU executive currently has safeguard measures — including import limits — that will continue until 2026 and seek to shield the industry from Asian overcapacity.

The EU’s current tariff rate on steel imports is 25 percent once the quota volume is exceeded.

Now Sejourne said Brussels wants to reduce its foreign steel quotas by almost half and raise duties to levels similar to the EU’s “American and Canadian partners”.

The proposals, once approved, will not be temporary, he said.



– EU-US cooperation hopes –



European manufacturers have seen their margins collapse, faced with the influx of large quantities of steel from China into Europe.

Industry data shows China was responsible for more than half of the world’s steel production last year.

Adding insult to injury, European steelmakers’ costs have also risen due to soaring energy prices on the continent.

The European steel industry currently employs around 300,000 people — but has lost almost 100,000 jobs in the past 15 years.

The EU has already taken extra measures to reinforce the current safeguards including cutting steel imports by a further 15 percent from April this year.

Although the EU-US tariff deal this summer did not include steel, Brussels hopes both sides can agree to jointly protect their markets, especially from China.

“We are discussing with our American partners a kind of ringfencing model where we would, between us, trade on the TRQ (tariff-rate quotas) with very low or zero tariffs,” EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said this week.

Brussels hopes its new measures will then lead to more fruitful talks with Washington on a “metals alliance” to counter China’s excess capacity.

Canada in July announced plans to slap an additional 25 percent tariff on steel imports that contain steel melted and poured in China.

Sejourne will present the commission’s proposal at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday.

GOOD NEWS

UK’s Labour govt plans permanent fracking ban


By AFP
October 1, 2025


This former fracking site in northwest Lancashire run by energy firm Cuadrilla Resources to extract shale gas from deep underground rock was pictured in 2018, but has been shut down since a moratorium in 2019 and is to be restored to farmland - Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB

Britain’s Labour government plans to permanently ban fracking, a highly controversial method of extracting fossil fuels, due its environmental impact, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said Wednesday.

Although there is a moratorium on fracking already in place due to concerns it could trigger earthquakes, fracking is not yet fully banned in law.

“Let’s ban fracking,” Miliband told the Labour party conference in Liverpool.

“It will trash our climate commitments, and it is dangerous and deeply harmful to our natural environment,” he said.

His comments came after hard-right party Reform UK, which has surged in the polls, pledged to bring back the practice if it came to power.

Miliband slammed Reform UK’s firebrand leader Nigel Farage in his address as “dangerous” and a “snake oil Tory city boy”.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is used to extract oil and gas from shale rock deep underground.

Environmentalists argue the process contaminates water supplies, hurts wildlife, causes earthquakes and contributes to global climate change.

It is banned in many countries, including France and Germany, but has boomed in the United States.

The Conservatives introduced a moratorium on the practice in England in 2019 after an Oil and Gas Authority report found it was not possible to accurately predict its potential for triggering earthquakes.

However, former prime minister Liz Truss briefly lifted the ban in 2022, sparking huge opposition from environmentalists and even some members of her own parliamentary party.

The practice was swiftly halted again by her successor Rishi Sunak.

Greenpeace UK welcomed Miliband’s speech on Wednesday, saying that fracking is “polluting, deeply unpopular, and…. it’ll do nothing to lower energy bills.”

Miliband also used his speech to accuse US billionaire Elon Musk of enabling disinformation on his X social media platform and “inciting violence on our streets”.

“We have a message for Elon Musk, get the hell out of our politics and our country,” Miliband said of the SpaceX and Tesla CEO who has repeatedly criticised Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government and spread dubious anti-immigration claims about Britain.

Musk remotely addressed a far-right protest in London last month, in which he called for the Labour government to be ousted.

Rising wildfires spur comeback for Canadian water bomber


By AFP
October 1, 2025


Canadair CL-415 planes, the workhorse of international aerial efforts to fight blazes, are making a comeback, like the one seen here over a 2025 wildfire in Albania

 - Copyright AFP/File Adnan Beci

Fouad DIAB with Marion THIBAUT in Montreal

The Canadair water bomber revolutionized the fight against wildfires after it debuted in the skies decades ago.

Then demand waned and production stopped, but with major blazes intensifying globally, the water-scooping marvel is making a comeback.

At a production site in Calgary, in western Canada, workers building a next-generation version of the aircraft are busy trying to keep up with orders, which have poured in from Europe, as well as across Canada.

The amphibious plane hit the market in the late 1960s. It was the first aircraft specifically designed to scoop up and dump water on flames — a departure from other planes that had been modified for that purpose.

Through the latter half of the 20th century, it was a pillar of firefighting efforts in many countries.

With about 160 of the aircraft in operation, governments began sharing them. That caused new sales to sag, which led aviation firm Bombardier to stop production in 2015.

The next year, Calgary-based De Havilland Canada acquired the rights to the water bomber program.

“The aircraft are getting older, the summers are getting hotter. There’s more demand. So that’s why we brought the aircraft back into production,” Neil Sweeney, De Havilland’s vice president for corporate affairs, told AFP.

France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Croatia and Portugal — all imperiled by growing wildfire seasons — ordered 22 next-generation Canadair planes at the Paris Air Show in June.

– Keeping what works –

De Havilland has estimated that global orders could rise to between 250 and 350 planes.

With most of the aircraft’s 50,000 parts assembled by hand, producing that number of planes could take up to 10 years.

To expedite production and meet rising demand, De Havilland decided to modernize the existing Canadair design, rather than develop a new model.

“Our strategy was to leave the elements that made the aircraft successful untouched,” said Jean-Philippe Cote, vice president of business improvement at De Havilland.

He said the bomber’s silhouette remains unchanged but the cockpit and electronic set-up has been completely redesigned.

John Gradek, a supply chain expert at McGill University, estimated that sustaining production to meet growing demand would likely require millions of dollars in investment.

– ‘Tractor of the sky’ –

Pierre Boulanger, a Canadair pilot from Quebec who travels to California to fight wildfires every summer, celebrated the resumption of production, calling the model the most “efficient” tanker aircraft on the market.

“It’s the tractor of the sky,” he said.

Two hydraulically-operated scoops under the fuselage allow the plane to pick up 6,000 liters of water in just 12 seconds without landing, which others must do.

“If the water source is very close, we can make a drop every two minutes,” said Boulanger, 35.

He explained that the planes are extremely precise, allowing the pilot to maintain control even at very low speeds.

After the devastating European wildfire season this year and the increasing area burned annually in North America, Boulanger said it seemed as though “we will never have enough Canadairs.”

Canada reports first death linked to measles epidemic

CAUSED BY RELIGIOUS ANTI VAXXERS

By AFP
October 2, 2025


A measles screening sign at Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario on July 9, 2025

 - Copyright AFP/File Geoff Robins

An infant born prematurely in the western Canadian province of Alberta died as a result of measles, officials said Thursday, the first fatality linked to the disease’s resurgence in the country in the past year.

“A child, born prematurely after the mother contracted measles during pregnancy, died shortly after birth,” Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said in a statement, adding that the death was “from measles.”

In June, another premature infant with measles died in Canada, but authorities said the child had other medical complications and did not confirm the exact cause of death.

LaGrange warned in her statement that “children under five, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems face the greatest risks from measles.”

Canada, which declared measles eradicated in 1998 thanks to vaccinations, has recorded 5,006 cases of the disease since the start of 2025, most of which have been in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario.

Among these cases, 88 percent have involved unvaccinated individuals.

The Canadian measles outbreak began in October 2024 in the eastern province of New Brunswick. It has disproportionately affected Mennonite, Amish and other Anabaptist communities, experts say, in part due to their lower vaccination rates.

The disease is a highly contagious respiratory virus spread through droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or simply breathes.

It causes fever, respiratory symptoms and a rash, but can also lead to serious complications, including pneumonia, brain inflammation and death.