News 1. What the wild things say The famed gannets at Cape St. Mary’s in Newfoundland are abandoning their chicks, repeating an unprecedented abandonment in 2012. Gannets have been observed for centuries, and the one consistent observation is that “gannets never abandon their chicks,” biologist Bill Montevecchi tells the St. John’s Telegram: One parent stays with the […]
Archives for August 2014
Let’s be responsible when writing about drugs and rape
by Hilary Beaumont “Super scary stuff—heads up Haligonians,” one of my Facebook contacts typed last week as she shared a story about a drug that went missing from the QEII hospital. She wasn’t the only one to react fearfully to the story. On Twitter and Facebook people posted about the 16 vials of Midazolam, a...
Bring out your dead: Morning File, Friday, August 29, 2014
News 1. Slow down on fracking The final Report of the Nova Scotia Independent Review Panel on Hydraulic Fracturing was released yesterday, and it basically punts the issue down the road a few years. It’s a massive document, several hundred pages, and I haven’t had time to read it this morning, but the take-away is in […]
Hanging out with two jackasses: Morning File, Thursday, August 28, 2014
News 1. Inaccessible schools At least 72 schools in Nova Scotia are not accessible to students who use wheelchairs, reports the CBC. 2. Brain mapping for language Scientists at the IWK are doing cool work looking at how our brains process language. And Global’s Julia Wong should be congratulated for tackling a science-heavy subject and reporting […]
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain: Morning File, Wednesday, August 27, 2014
News 1. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain Peter MacKay says there’s nothing wrong with his former employee Peter Van Praagh being named project manager for the Halifax Security Forum. Van Praagh’s employment is a stipulation of the $9.96-million contract, reports the Chronicle Herald. 2. Stephen McNeil is going to China Says the press release: While […]
The Knights Who Say Nay: Morning File, Tuesday, August 26, 2014
News 1. Ship of Theseus The Bluenose 2 (or 3 or 4 or whatever) will either be ready next year or they’ll start over and replace each of the planks with new planks and the boat will become a metaphor in Philosophy 101 text books, says Stephen McNeil. 2. Bhutanese refugees The CBC has a report on […]
Disappearing crosswalks: the science of ignoring pedestrians
On January 24, 2011, there was a tragic accident at the corner of Coburg Road and Edwards Street. A 63-year-old woman walking across Coburg from north to south was hit by a vehicle, and killed. That day, police went out to measure the street, to determine if the unfortunate woman was within the “unmarked crosswalk” or not,...
Overnight sensation: Morning File, Monday, August 25, 2014
News 1. Sipekne’katik to develop in Hammonds Plains The native band is going to develop its 54 hectares at Wallace Hills. Something like 50,000 hectares have been bulldozed over for development of ticky tacky McMansions through Kingswood, Voyageur Lakes, and the sprawling Pockwock Road corridor, but this development is the first to irk area councillor Matt […]
China dreams: Morning File, Saturday, August 23, 2014
News 1. Stadium deferred Remember when Halifax went gaga last winter when CFL Mark Cohon showed up in town, had a photo op with Mike Savage and went off and hung out at the Lower Deck with a bunch of business people to hit on coeds? Cohon had been a champion of league expansion, and his […]
Moose sex, bank fees, and the end of newspapers: Morning File, Friday, August 22, 2014
News 1. Internet for all The Halifax chapter of ACORN held a small demonstration yesterday at the Spring Garden Road library, calling for increased access to the internet for people with low incomes and “calling on companies like Bell Aliant to offer a $10 per month web service and subsidized computers or tablets,” reports Metro. I […]
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