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Taxonomy in Trouble in Canada

Posted by Hannah

Canada is at risk of losing its taxonomic expertise, according to a report released today. The report details stagnant research funding, greying experts, a lag in digitization and a lack of support for national collections. This is threatening Canada’s understanding of its biodiversity, and the ecosystem services it provides, the report concludes. “Canadian contributions to describing new species has dropped from being 6th in the world to 14th in the last decade,” says Thomas Lovejoy, Biodiversity Chair at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, who chaired the panel of 14 Canadian and international experts who authored the report. “The … Read more…

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Canada’s climate bill flattened

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“Spitting mad,” is how the Victoria Times Colonist described Andrew Weaver, a climate modeller at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, following the news that Canada’s climate change bill had been defeated in the Senate late on Tuesday. “Retiring with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s sounds good right now,” Weaver said. The Climate Change Accountability Act called for greenhouse gas emissions cuts with a short-term target of 25% below the 1990 level by 2020, and a long-term target of 80% below the 1990 level by 2050. For nearly a year and a half it had shuttled between the House of Commons … Read more…

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Cold cash for cold science

Posted by Hannah

The recent funding wrap-up from the international polar year (IPY) has left many Canadian researchers scratching their heads, trying to find a way to continue their arctic science projects. A new grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada may help close that research-funding gap. In its announcement yesterday, NSERC opened a competition to fund large-scale research with a focus—for this round of funding—on northern earth systems. The Discovery Frontiers initiative will heft Can$4 million over five years on the successful research team to study the physical, chemical, biological and social factors that affect the North and its … Read more…

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Canada urged to tackle scientific misconduct

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More education, advice and transparency needed to improve integrity. As cases of questionable conduct among scientists stack up around the globe, a report commissioned by the Canadian government calls for a rethink of the country’s research system to boost honesty and curb misconduct. The recommendations, if implemented, would relax privacy laws that hamper the identification of individuals and institutions found guilty of research misconduct, and create an independent council to promote best practices and prevent research misconduct. The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) — a not-for-profit corporation based in Ottawa that independently assesses science relevant to public issues — released … Read more…

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Sizing up the spill

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When the government began releasing estimates of the size of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil well leak, scientists and environmental groups questioned the figures, certain the leak was larger. New research supports that notion. According to the study, published in Science, some 4.4 million barrels of oil has escaped into the ocean. It is the first independent, peer-reviewed paper on the size of the leak. (doi: 10.1126/science.1195840) Timothy Crone, a marine geophysicist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, in Palisades, New York arrived at the estimate using a video analysis technique originally designed to study hydrothermal vents. He had spent years developing … Read more…