October 23, 2014

Canada’s Parliament met this morning, one day after a gunman, later discovered to be a convert to radical Islam, rampaged through its halls before being shot dead by the sergeant at arms. The body opened with applause for the sergeant and a moment of silence for the soldier shot and killed yesterday by the gunman. Noting that the objective of the attacks was to instill fear and panic in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared, “We will be vigilant, but we will not run scared. We will be prudent, but we will not panic. And as for the business of government, well here we are, in our seats, in our chamber, in the very heart of our democracy and our work goes on.”

Yesterday, a gunman armed with a rifle fired dozens of rounds inside the Parliament building in Ottawa, sending MP’s (members of Parliament) to the floor and the entire area, known as Parliament Hill, into lockdown. In an exchange of gunfire with the Parliamentary sergeant at arms, Kevin Vickers, the gunman was shot and killed. Before running into the building, the gunman shot at soldiers standing guard at the National War Memorial, killing one and wounding another. Security officials have confirmed that terrorism was the objective of the attack.

Canada’s Parliament buildings stand on Parliament Hill in the country’s capital, Ottawa. The Ottawa River flows nearby. (© Will & Deni McIntyre, Photo Researchers)

On October 20, another Canadian soldier was killed and a second soldier injured when a radical Muslim convert deliberately ran them down with his car in a Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, parking lot in what in what government officials described as “the violent expression of an extremist ideology.” The attacker was subsequently shot and killed by police. Security officials connected both attacks to the fact that the Canadian Parliament voted on October 8 to authorize air strikes against ISIS in Iraq, joining the U.S.-led bombing campaign.

Additional World Book articles:

• Canada, Government of
• Syria: The Roots of a Rebellion (a Special Report)
• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a Special Report)

September 2, 2014

Present-day Inuit people have virtually no genetic relationship with the earliest populations to inhabit the region, a surprising study of genetic material from prehistoric and modern Arctic peoples have shown. The analysis was conducted by scientists at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Archaeologists use the term Paleo-Eskimo to describe the earliest Arctic peoples who migrated into Arctic North America about 4,000 years ago. Many scientists assumed that these Paleo-Eskimos contributed to the ancestry of modern Inuit people as they were assimilated into Inuit society through intermarriage. However, genetic and archaeological evidence now strongly indicates that although Inuit ancestors and Pale-Eskimos shared the territory for a time, intermarriage and interbreeding was rare if it occurred at all.

The earliest Paleo-Eskimo people are called the Saqqaqs by archaeologists. They lived in small bands that hunted seal and caribou in the region beginning more than 4,000 years ago. The Tuniit people followed the Saqqaqs into Arctic North America in a series of migrations from across the Bering Strait. The Inuit refer to  the people who inhabited the Arctic before they arrived as the Tunitt. Archaeologists refer to the Tuniit as the Dorset culture. The Tuniit/Dorset people hunted seals, walruses, and narwhals. They spread across Canada to Greenland by about 500 B.C. But the Tuniit/Dorset people disappeared soon after another new culture called the Thule spread across the region about 1,000 years ago. The Thule people lived in villages. Whaling was the cornerstone of their culture. They also hunted on land with dog sleds and bow and arrow. By about 1700, the Thule culture had become the modern Inuit culture.

An Inuk fisher uses a pronged spear called a leister to catch his fish. Recent studies have revealed that modern Inuit are not related to the earliest inhabitants of Arctic North America. © Bryan & Cherry Alexander, Photo Researchers

In their study, the University of Copenhagen scientists collected bone, teeth, and hair samples from the preserved bodies of 169 ancient Paleo-Eskimo bodies from North America. The scientists isolated DNA from these samples and compared it to genomes sequenced from living Inuit and other Native American peoples. Native American groups are often reluctant to provide biological samples for genetic studies, but special tribal permission was given for this study.

The scientists found that the Paleo-Eskimo DNA samples were remarkably similar to each other yet genetically distinct from modern Inuit. The high degree of similarity in Paleo-Eskimo DNA suggests their populations were quite small. Over thousands of years, Paleo-Eskimo groups, each perhaps no more than 50 related individuals, spread out across the vast Arctic expanse. However, they apparently did not  interact with the Thule once they migrated into the region. The Paleo-Eskimos disappear from the archaeological record within a period of perhaps decades after the first Thule arrival. The abrupt disappearance of the Tuniit/Dorset people soon after this event remains mysterious. Archaeologists have not found any evidence of violent conflicts between Tuniit and the newly-arrived Thule. Some researchers suspect that the technologically advanced Thule may simply have out-competed the Paleo-Eskimo cultures in the rugged environment and pushed them towards extinction.

July 23, 2014

Wildfires fueled by higher-than-normal temperatures and lower-than-normal rainfall are burning an unusually large swathe of Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT) this summer. At least 235 fires have consumed nearly 2.2 million acres (900,000 hectares), an area six times as great as the area normally affected each year during the past 25 years. Although the fires have swept across less than 1 percent of the vast NWT, the area burned equals more than the area of the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. More than half of the fires are burning out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center. The fires have forced hundreds of people from their home. Huge clouds of smoke and ash from the fires have also led Environment Canada, the government’s environmental protection agency, to issue poor-air-quality warnings for parts of the NWT as well as for the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The smoke plume from the fires has spread thousands of miles (kilometers) south to North Dakota and South Dakota in the United States.

Daily temperature highs in Yellowknife, the capital and largest city in the NWT, have been running nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above normal for July, while the city has received only about 2 percent of its average July rainfall. Meteorologists think that most of the fires have been sparked by lightning during “dry thunderstorms.” Such storms occur when the air below the clouds is so dry that any water falling from the clouds evaporates before it hits the ground.

Red dots mark the location of some of the large wildfires charing the Northwest Territories in Canada. Plumes of smoke from the fires have swept south and east through Canada’s prairie provinces into the United States. (Jeff Schmaltz MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC)

The fires in the NTW are “in line with climate trends of more fires burning in the northern reaches of the globe,” according to Climate Central, an independant organization of climate scientists and journalists. A 2014 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations committee, predicted that wildfire activity would double with every 1.8-Fahrenheit-degree (2-degree-Celsius) rise in average global temperatures. Such fires contribute to global warming by releasing soot, which darkens Arctic ice, promoting melting, and by adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Nearly all scientists think that the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere have significantly contributed to the rise in average atmospheric temperatures since the mid-1700′s. Forests in the NWT are part of the taiga, also called the boreal forest, a vast evergreen forest that circles the Northern Hemisphere. The taiga holds an estimate 30 percent of all the world’s carbon stored on land.

Additional World Book articles:

• Weather (2013) (a Back in Time article)
• Parched Earth (a Special Report)
• Weathering the Storm: Adapting to Global Warming (a Special Report)

June 6, 2014

Several thousand military veterans joined heads of state in Normandy, in northwestern France, today in a series of events commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the start of the Allied invasion of Europe in World War II (1939-1945). D-Day marked the beginning of the biggest amphibious invasion in military history. Some 160,000 troops, mainly from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, crossed the English Channel on June 6, 1944, to attack German dictator Adolf Hitler’s Fortress Europe (the areas of Europe controlled by Nazi Germany). By the end of D-Day, the Allies had a foothold in France. Within 11 months, Nazi Germany had been defeated, ending World War II in Europe. The Allied success on D-Day came at a significant cost, however. More than 10,000 Allied soldiers, sailors, and aviators were killed, were wounded, or went missing.

Speaking at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, U.S. President Barack Obama said, “America’s claim–our commitment to liberty, to equality, to freedom, to the inherent dignity of every human being–that claim is written in blood on these beaches, and it will endure for eternity.” The cemetery overlooks Omaha Beach, one of the Allies’ five code-named landing sites in Normandy. United States forces also landed at Utah Beach. British forces landed at Gold and Sword beaches, while Canadian troops landed at Juno Beach. “What more powerful manifestation of America’s commitment to human freedom” could there be, asked President Obama, “than the sight of wave after wave of young men boarding those boats to liberate people they’d never met?”

Hitting the beach, Allied infantrymen swarmed ashore along the Normandy coast of northern France on D-Day—June 6, 1944. It was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Hitler had boasted that German defenses along the coast could resist any attack. But he was wrong. (U.S. Coast Guard)

President Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom were among world leaders and dignitaries who attended a luncheon hosted by French President Francois Hollande. Queen Elizabeth is the only living head of state who served in World War II. She worked as a mechanic and military truck driver. Russia (then the Soviet Union), which fought Hitler’s forces on the war’s eastern front, did not participate in the Normandy invasion. But the Soviet Union suffered more casualties than any other country in World War II–about 27 million troops and civilians killed and millions more wounded. Also at the luncheon were the monarchs of Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway; the presidents or prime ministers of Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Poland, and Slovakia; the grand duke of Luxembourg; and the governor-general of New Zealand.

Following the luncheon, world leaders, dignitaries, veterans, and spectators attended the main commemoration, held at Sword Beach. The ceremony included speeches, a re-creation of scenes from the invasion, a 21-gun salute, and a flyby of World War II aircraft. At dawn today, an international task force of ships sailing across the English Channel arrived at Normandy. The force was led by HMS Bulwar, the Royal Navy flagship.

Additional World Book articles:

• Battle of Normandy
• Sir Winston Churchill
• Dwight David Eisenhower
• Erwin Rommel

February 20, 2014

She was only one of the more than 2,500 snowy owls that left the Arctic for the United States and Canada this winter. But thanks to an encounter with a city bus and an SUV, she became a media star. On January 30, the owl, which had appeared in Washington, D.C., some days earlier, suffered a broken toe and a head injury in a traffic accident. Rushed to a city wildlife facility, she was treated successfully and moved to comfortably cold rooms for her recuperation. Apparently, she enjoyed the food—white mice—served at the facility. But as she improved, she became increasingly dissatisfied with her small accommodations. So earlier this week, her caretakers moved her to larger quarters at an undisclosed location. Bird experts there hope she will be healthy enough for release in spring, when snowy owls traditionally return to the Arctic.

Snowy owls are graceful birds of prey that usually live on the Arctic tundra in Canada, where they feed mainly on lemmings. The owls reach about 23 inches (58 centimeters) long and have mostly white plumage with brown markings. Adult females have more brown markings than the adult males.  In addition to lemmings, the owls may feed on mice, voles, ducks, and hares.

The call of the snowy owl features several rough notes and sounds somewhat like a dog’s bark. (Alan D. Carey, Photo Researchers)

Although snowy owls migrate south every winter, this year’s invasion has been one of the largest in memory, scientists said. Bird watchers working with eBird, an online citizen science project run by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, have reported spotting the owls in 25 states and 7 Canadian territories. The project (at ebird.org) uses sightings collected by bird watchers in more than 115 countries to create maps showing where species can be found. Unlike most owls, snowy owls are active during the day, making them easier to observe. Usually, the younger birds make the trek south, chased out of their home range by older birds after fresh snow starts to fall. The lemmings take advantage of the cover to drop out of sight, significantly reducing the food available to the owls.

Additional World Book articles:

• Audubon, John James
• Bird
• Spotted owl

February 13, 2014

The discovery of a site in Canada containing hundreds of ancient fossils is being heralded as one of the most important discoveries in paleontology in the past 100 years. The huge fossil site, located in Marble Canyon in Kootenay National Park in southeastern British Columbia, contains hundreds of magnificently preserved fossils of early animals from the Cambrian, a period in Earth’s history that lasted from about 543 million to 490 million years ago. So far, scientists have found the fossils of more than 50 invertebrate (animals without backbones) species, about a dozen of which have never been seen before. The site rivals the famous Burgess Shale formation, a 505 million-year-old site discovered in 1909 in Yoho National Park about 26 miles (42 kilometers) northwest of Marble Canyon. For now, the exact location of the fossil deposit is being kept secret to protect the delicate fossils from collectors. The Marble Canyon site was discovered in 2012 by scientists fromt the Royal Ontario Museum, the Universities of Toronto and Saskatchewan in Canada, Pomona College in California, and Uppsala University in Sweden.

During the Cambrian Period, the region lay at the bottom of a shallow ocean. Fine-grained mud that accumulated over time preserved in exquisite detail the soft-bodied invertebrates that lived and died in this ocean over millions of years, giving paleontologists an excellent view of their anatomy. Many of the animals can be identified as types of worms and arthropods (animals with jointed legs). Among them are trilobites, an extinct group of arthropods related to modern crabs and lobsters. Some of the fossil animals appear similar to invertebrates alive today, while other are unique and are new to science.

A mold preserved the three-dimensional form of a trilobite after its body decayed. ((c) Sinclair Stammers, Science Photo Library; Photo Researchers)

The Cambrian Period was an important time in the history of life on Earth. Many major types of animals first appear in fossils from the early Cambrian Period. Scientists often refer to this sudden, dramatic increase in the variety of animal fossils as the Cambrian Explosion. During the Cambrian Explosion, animals evolved (developed gradually) into many new forms and spread throughout Earth’s oceans. They also began interacting with one another and their environment in more complex ways. Animals began eating other animals, growing skeletons for protection, and burrowing into sea-floor sediments for food and shelter.

The fossils unearthed from the Marble Canyon site will help researchers better understand the conditions of the marine ecosystem that spurred the rapid diversification of animal forms during the Cambrian Period. For example, some of the invertebrate species found at Marble Canyon are also known from fossil sites in Asia about the same age. This indicates that some species had spread throughout the world, while others may have been limited to particular habitats.

Additional World Book articles:

• Earth (History of Earth)
• Prehistoric animal
• How the Ocean Came to Be (a Special Report)
• Paleontology (1991) (a Back in Time article)

July 9, 2013

On July 6, a run-away train with more than 70 crude-oil tanker cars derailed in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, triggering an enormous explosion. At least 15 people are known dead and 60 others are missing, feared dead. As many as 30 buildings were destroyed in the blast, including the town grocery and library. The tankers, en route from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota to a refinery in New Brunswick, carried pressurized crude oil. Fires from the massive explosion forced the evacuation of about 2,000 of the town’s 6,000 residents.

Yesterday, officials learned that the train—parked outside Nantes, a town 8 miles (12 kilometers) west of Lac-Megantic, during an overnight driver shift-change—started rolling downhill on empty tracks just minutes after firemen had extinguished a blaze in one of its locomotives. “About five minutes after the firemen left, I felt the vibration of a train moving down the track,” eyewitness Andre Gendron told Reuters news service yesterday. “I then saw the train move by without its lights on.” Reuters also reported that Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert confirmed that his crew had switched off the locomotive late on July 5 while putting out a “good-sized” blaze in the motor. “Our protocol calls for us to shut down an engine because it is the only way to stop the fuel from circulating into the fire,” he noted.

In a diesel-electric locomotive, an air compressor runs off the diesel engine and keeps the locomotive’s brakes charged and working. When a locomotive is shut down, its brakes will eventually cease to function. (Electro-Motive Division of General Motors Corporation-World Book diagram)

According to the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic (MM&A) Railway, the engineer parked the train in Nantes on July 5, but left one locomotive running to ensure the air brakes worked properly. “If the operating locomotive is shut down, there’s nothing left to keep the brakes charged up, and the brake pressure will drop finally to the point where they can’t be held in place any longer,” MM&A railroad chairman Ed Burkhardt told the Toronto Star newspaper.

March 7, 2013

A Canadian family from British Columbia received a surprising notice in the mail this week. Matt Buie opened his phone bill and found his charges for January totaled $22,000. The family had taken a vacation to Mexico in January, and the extraordinary bill represented roaming fees–fees charged by cell-phone carriers when customers use their cell phones outside the carrier’s coverage area. Roaming fees can be several times the amounts that would be charged for the same usage within the coverage area.

The technology firm Apple Inc. has engineered a setting to temporarily turn off data roaming on its iPhone to avoid this very problem. Buie had in fact turned off roaming on his iPhone before leaving Canada. However, his son–confined to a hotel room with a severe sunburn–changed the setting and used the smartphone to entertain himself. The $22,000 bill represents three days of one bored 11-year-old streaming videos and games in Mexico.

Using your smartphone outside your coverage area can be hazardous to your bank account. (© Gary Hershorn, Reuters/Landov)

Roaming data fees are difficult to assess, as people rarely have any idea of how much data they are using when they access the Internet, read e-mail, or watch videos on their phone. The European Union (EU) passed a law in 2009 that limits roaming data charges within the EU to 50 euros (about $65 U.S.).

In the United States, all major phone companies have formed an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that, by April 2013, they will send warnings via text messaging to customers who have reached the limit on their voice, messaging, or data plan in a given month.  This law will apply to both domestic and international usage.

Canada has no such law. So, Matt Buie is currently attempting to negotiate his $22,000 phone bill down to some reasonable level. No word on the status of his son’s allowance.

Additional World Book articles:

• Telephone
• The Second Wireless Revolution (a special report)

March 20, 2012

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom continued the commemoration of her diamond jubilee with a speech before a rare joint session of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. The Queen is celebrating her 60-year reign, which began in 1952 upon the death of her father, George VI. The only other British monarch to have achieved a diamond jubilee was Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother, Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901. Queen Elizabeth is the head of state of the United Kingdom as well as of 15 other countries that belong to the Commonwealth of Nations, including Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Elizabeth II has been the queen of the United Kingdom and head of the Commonwealth of Nations since 1952. (Courtesy of AP/Wide Wide)

During her speech, the Queen promised to “rededicate” herself  to serving the United Kingdom and its people. She also particularly thanked her husband, Prince Philip, whom she married in 1947,  for being her “constant strength and guide.” Her speech was greeted with a standing ovation by hundreds of dignitaries, including Prime Minister David Cameron and other members of the Cabinet.

In honor of the occasion, the Queen was presented with a stained glass window featuring her Royal Arms. The window, which was designed by British artist John Reyntiens, is to be installed above the north door of Westminster Hall and is a gift from members of both Houses of Parliament.

Additional World Book articles:

• Kings and queens of the United Kingdom
• Royal Family of the United Kingdom
• United Kingdom, History of (The Victorian Age–1840′s-about 1900)