How an ancient astronomical error affects Easter

Easter weekend brings a lot of things to mind — religion, family, food, bunnies and Easter eggs, to name a few. The moon usually isn't on that list, but it actually has a big influence over the date on which the holiday weekend falls.

In fact, an ancient misunderstanding of astronomy can make us wait up to a month to celebrate Easter, depending on the year.

For hundreds of years, churches have looked to the sky to determine when they should celebrate Easter, trying to align it with the Vernal, or Spring, equinox. The holiday is a time of renewal and rebirth for the Christian church, so celebrating around the dawn of Spring made sense.

But way back when people were determining the rules for when the date would fall, humanity's understanding of the sky was a little lacking. Robert Cockcroft, a McMaster University astronomer and physicist, explains.

"Back in 325 A.D. these rules were made, but they couldn't accurately predict astronomical events because they didn't understand it all, so they set up estimations," Cockcroft said.

The church decided Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after a full moon that falls either on or after the Spring equinox.

The Spring equinox, Cockcroft explained, is the point in the year when the path of the sun crosses the line representing the projection of the Earth's equator, meaning it's making its way back to the northern hemisphere and spring is on the way.

Unfortunately, when they were making the rules nearly 1,700 years ago, they didn't realize the date of the equinox changes slightly every year. It can occur on March 19, 20 or 21 (most often on the 20), but the church fixed the date for the equinox at March 21.

Church officials also followed an ecclesiastical calendar to determine when the full moon would fall — the 14th of a "lunar month" — which isn't always the case, either.

"Those understandings of the words 'full moon' and 'Vernal equinox' are not the astronomical definition of those terms, which is where the complication arises," Cockcroft said.

Out of sync

Most years the church's definitions are pretty much in harmony with the actual astronomical events taking place. This year, for example, the equinox occured at 11:02 a.m. on March 20 and the first full moon to follow occurred early Wednesday, so Sunday's date is accurate.

But some years, the discrepancies mean the two dates fall out of sync: six years from now, the church's Easter date falls almost a full month after the astronomical Easter date.

"I can imagine it would be confusing during the years when they don't agree," Cockcroft said.

And it gets even more complicated depending on where in the world you're celebrating Easter.

Western Christianity follows the Gregorian calendar — that's the civic calendar we follow — to determine the date. Eastern Christianity follows the Julian calendar, which is 13 days out of sync.

Therefore, Easter can fall on any Sunday between April 4 and May 8 for Eastern Christians; this year it's May 5.

Cockcroft explained it's not just churches that can get caught up in old traditions that don't mesh with new understandings; it happens all the time in science.

"This is how science works as well. We look for a pattern and categorize it, then realize later on those categories are incorrect, but we're kind of stuck with them," he said, pointing to the categorization of stars as an example.

"Rather than label stars hottest to coolest from A to Z, we label the hottest O, followed by B, then A, F. It's because it's arranged differently than when we first made the rules."

On the bright side, Easter may change from year to year and hemisphere to hemisphere, but at least the cream eggs stay the same.

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Cheaper green energy storage solution invented by Calgary profs

A new discovery by a pair of University of Calgary chemists could make the large-scale use of wind and solar energy more feasible.

Curtis Berlinguette and Simon Trudel have invented an environmentally friendly, highly customizable way to make a key component in a process that stores electricity by turning water into hydrogen fuel — at a price they say is roughly 1,000 times cheaper than current methods for making that component.

They published their method this week online in the journal Science Express and are currently trying to commercialize it through a new spinoff company called Firewater Fuel Corp.

Wind and solar energy are considered clean, renewable sources of electricity, but they have a major drawback — the amount of power they generate at a given time depends on the amount of wind and sun at that moment. That doesn't necessarily correlate with the demand for electricity at a given time, so in order to use wind and solar power efficiently on a large scale, there needs to be a way to store it for later use.

Technically, electricity can already be stored cleanly by converting water into hydrogen and oxygen through a process called electrolysis, using a device called an electrolyzer. The stored chemical energy can be reconverted to electricity by recombining the hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell. It's a process similar to what happens in a battery and can be used in similar applications, including electric vehicles. However, hydrogen and water are cleaner storage materials than those used in batteries and fuel cells tend to be more efficient than batteries in a number of different ways.

'Very complicated reaction'

Unfortunately, at a molecular level, breaking water down into oxygen and hydrogen is a "very complicated reaction" where many different things can happen over many steps, said Berlinguette. As a result, the reaction is normally too slow to be of practical use unless you compensate for the slow speed by adding extra electricity.

University of Calgary chemistry researchers Simon Trudel, left, and Curtis Berlinguette have started a company called Firewater Fuel Corp. to commercialize their discovery. (Riley Brandt/University of Calgary)"If you don't have a catalyst, you'll probably need two or three times as much electricity as you should," Berlinguette said.

Obviously, that's not very efficient, green or practical. A special type of compound called a catalyst can speed the reaction up and greatly reduce the amount of extra energy needed. But up until now, water electrolysis catalysts have been made of crystals containing rare, expensive toxic metals such as ruthenium and iridium.

Berlinguette and Trudel have invented a way to make catalysts that perform just as well as those expensive catalysts but cost 1,000 times less. The new process also allows catalysts to be made from relatively non-toxic metal compounds such as iron oxide, better known as rust.

Infinite recipes

"Our method effectively translates to every metal in the periodic table," Berlinguette said.

And because the new process is much more customizable than existing methods for making this type of catalyst, the recipe can be tweaked to include any combination of metals in any proportions to get the best possible performance. That means it may be possible to find a recipe that far outperforms existing, expensive catalysts.

The new catalysts and the process to make them are completely different from existing water electrolysis catalysts because they weren't originally intended to be used as catalysts. Trudel was studying them because he was interested in their magnetic properties. One day, he happened to be hanging out after work with Berlinguette, who was researching a different kind of catalyst.

"Truthfully, we were just chatting over a beer and [I] said 'Why don't we take your materials and see if they work as catalysts?'" Berlinguette recalled. "And they worked."

Traditional methods for making water electrolysis catalysts involve sticking an electrode into a solution containing the metal, causing crystals called metal oxides to deposit on the electrode. Mixtures of different metals don't work, Berlinguette said, because some of them deposit on the electrode more quickly than others, forming separate layers rather than a uniform mixture that would make for a useful mixed metal catalyst.

The new method involves putting the metals in a scaffold of light-sensitive, non-metallic, carbon-based molecules and dissolving them in a solution. Different metals can be dissolved in the same solution and mixed evenly. The electrode is dipped in the solution and the solvent is allowed to evaporate, causing the catalyst-containing molecules to stick to it. The researchers then shine a light on the electrode, breaking down the light-sensitive scaffold and leaving behind just the evenly distributed metal oxides.

These metal oxides aren't crystals like traditional electrolysis catalysts, but "amorphous" materials with a less organized structure and gaps called "defects." The researchers think that is what makes them more reactive and therefore better catalysts.

According to the University of Calgary, FireWater Fuel Corp. plans to have a commercial electrolyzer available by 2014 and a home version on the market a year later.

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Facebook Android event spurs new phone rumours

Facebook is holding am event about its 'new home on Android' next Thursday at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. (Reuters)

Facebook has invited journalists to the unveiling of what it calls its "new home on Android."

Next Thursday's event will take place at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. Facebook isn't providing further details.

There has been speculation about a "Facebook phone" for a few years. Facebook has long said it would not make its own phone. Rather, such a phone would likely integrate Facebook deeper into the phone's software.

Citing unnamed sources, the tech blog TechCrunch says Facebook Inc. will launch a modified version of Android that embeds Facebook deeply into the operating system, on a phone made by HTC Corp.

A Facebook rival, Google Inc., makes the Android software that Facebook and HTC would be using under that scenario. Google makes the software available on an open-source basis, meaning others including rivals are free to adapt it for their needs. Amazon.com Inc. does just that in modifying Android to run its Kindle tablet computers.

More than half of Facebook's 1.06 billion monthly users access it on a mobile device. A deeper integration would help Facebook with its mobile aspirations.

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How an ancient astronomical error affects Easter

Easter weekend brings a lot of things to mind — religion, family, food, bunnies and Easter eggs, to name a few. The moon usually isn't on that list, but it actually has a big influence over the date on which the holiday weekend falls.

In fact, an ancient misunderstanding of astronomy can make us wait up to a month to celebrate Easter, depending on the year.

For hundreds of years, churches have looked to the sky to determine when they should celebrate Easter, trying to align it with the Vernal, or Spring, equinox. The holiday is a time of renewal and rebirth for the Christian church, so celebrating around the dawn of Spring made sense.

But way back when people were determining the rules for when the date would fall, humanity's understanding of the sky was a little lacking. Robert Cockcroft, a McMaster University astronomer and physicist, explains.

"Back in 325 A.D. these rules were made, but they couldn't accurately predict astronomical events because they didn't understand it all, so they set up estimations," Cockcroft said.

The church decided Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after a full moon that falls either on or after the Spring equinox.

The Spring equinox, Cockcroft explained, is the point in the year when the path of the sun crosses the line representing the projection of the Earth's equator, meaning it's making its way back to the northern hemisphere and spring is on the way.

Unfortunately, when they were making the rules nearly 1,700 years ago, they didn't realize the date of the equinox changes slightly every year. It can occur on March 19, 20 or 21 (most often on the 20), but the church fixed the date for the equinox at March 21.

Church officials also followed an ecclesiastical calendar to determine when the full moon would fall — the 14th of a "lunar month" — which isn't always the case, either.

"Those understandings of the words 'full moon' and 'Vernal equinox' are not the astronomical definition of those terms, which is where the complication arises," Cockcroft said.

Out of sync

Most years the church's definitions are pretty much in harmony with the actual astronomical events taking place. This year, for example, the equinox occured at 11:02 a.m. on March 20 and the first full moon to follow occurred early Wednesday, so Sunday's date is accurate.

But some years, the discrepancies mean the two dates fall out of sync: six years from now, the church's Easter date falls almost a full month after the astronomical Easter date.

"I can imagine it would be confusing during the years when they don't agree," Cockcroft said.

And it gets even more complicated depending on where in the world you're celebrating Easter.

Western Christianity follows the Gregorian calendar — that's the civic calendar we follow — to determine the date. Eastern Christianity follows the Julian calendar, which is 13 days out of sync.

Therefore, Easter can fall on any Sunday between April 4 and May 8 for Eastern Christians; this year it's May 5.

Cockcroft explained it's not just churches that can get caught up in old traditions that don't mesh with new understandings; it happens all the time in science.

"This is how science works as well. We look for a pattern and categorize it, then realize later on those categories are incorrect, but we're kind of stuck with them," he said, pointing to the categorization of stars as an example.

"Rather than label stars hottest to coolest from A to Z, we label the hottest O, followed by B, then A, F. It's because it's arranged differently than when we first made the rules."

On the bright side, Easter may change from year to year and hemisphere to hemisphere, but at least the cream eggs stay the same.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cheaper green energy storage solution invented by Calgary profs

A new discovery by a pair of University of Calgary chemists could make the large-scale use of wind and solar energy more feasible.

Curtis Berlinguette and Simon Trudel have invented an environmentally friendly, highly customizable way to make a key component in a process that stores electricity by turning water into hydrogen fuel — at a price they say is roughly 1,000 times cheaper than current methods for making that component.

They published their method this week online in the journal Science Express and are currently trying to commercialize it through a new spinoff company called Firewater Fuel Corp.

Wind and solar energy are considered clean, renewable sources of electricity, but they have a major drawback — the amount of power they generate at a given time depends on the amount of wind and sun at that moment. That doesn't necessarily correlate with the demand for electricity at a given time, so in order to use wind and solar power efficiently on a large scale, there needs to be a way to store it for later use.

Technically, electricity can already be stored cleanly by converting water into hydrogen and oxygen through a process called electrolysis, using a device called an electrolyzer. The stored chemical energy can be reconverted to electricity by recombining the hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell. It's a process similar to what happens in a battery and can be used in similar applications, including electric vehicles. However, hydrogen and water are cleaner storage materials than those used in batteries and fuel cells tend to be more efficient than batteries in a number of different ways.

'Very complicated reaction'

Unfortunately, at a molecular level, breaking water down into oxygen and hydrogen is a "very complicated reaction" where many different things can happen over many steps, said Berlinguette. As a result, the reaction is normally too slow to be of practical use unless you compensate for the slow speed by adding extra electricity.

University of Calgary chemistry researchers Simon Trudel, left, and Curtis Berlinguette have started a company called Firewater Fuel Corp. to commercialize their discovery. (Riley Brandt/University of Calgary)"If you don't have a catalyst, you'll probably need two or three times as much electricity as you should," Berlinguette said.

Obviously, that's not very efficient, green or practical. A special type of compound called a catalyst can speed the reaction up and greatly reduce the amount of extra energy needed. But up until now, water electrolysis catalysts have been made of crystals containing rare, expensive toxic metals such as ruthenium and iridium.

Berlinguette and Trudel have invented a way to make catalysts that perform just as well as those expensive catalysts but cost 1,000 times less. The new process also allows catalysts to be made from relatively non-toxic metal compounds such as iron oxide, better known as rust.

Infinite recipes

"Our method effectively translates to every metal in the periodic table," Berlinguette said.

And because the new process is much more customizable than existing methods for making this type of catalyst, the recipe can be tweaked to include any combination of metals in any proportions to get the best possible performance. That means it may be possible to find a recipe that far outperforms existing, expensive catalysts.

The new catalysts and the process to make them are completely different from existing water electrolysis catalysts because they weren't originally intended to be used as catalysts. Trudel was studying them because he was interested in their magnetic properties. One day, he happened to be hanging out after work with Berlinguette, who was researching a different kind of catalyst.

"Truthfully, we were just chatting over a beer and [I] said 'Why don't we take your materials and see if they work as catalysts?'" Berlinguette recalled. "And they worked."

Traditional methods for making water electrolysis catalysts involve sticking an electrode into a solution containing the metal, causing crystals called metal oxides to deposit on the electrode. Mixtures of different metals don't work, Berlinguette said, because some of them deposit on the electrode more quickly than others, forming separate layers rather than a uniform mixture that would make for a useful mixed metal catalyst.

The new method involves putting the metals in a scaffold of light-sensitive, non-metallic, carbon-based molecules and dissolving them in a solution. Different metals can be dissolved in the same solution and mixed evenly. The electrode is dipped in the solution and the solvent is allowed to evaporate, causing the catalyst-containing molecules to stick to it. The researchers then shine a light on the electrode, breaking down the light-sensitive scaffold and leaving behind just the evenly distributed metal oxides.

These metal oxides aren't crystals like traditional electrolysis catalysts, but "amorphous" materials with a less organized structure and gaps called "defects." The researchers think that is what makes them more reactive and therefore better catalysts.

According to the University of Calgary, FireWater Fuel Corp. plans to have a commercial electrolyzer available by 2014 and a home version on the market a year later.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Facebook Android event spurs new phone rumours

Facebook is holding am event about its 'new home on Android' next Thursday at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. (Reuters)

Facebook has invited journalists to the unveiling of what it calls its "new home on Android."

Next Thursday's event will take place at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. Facebook isn't providing further details.

There has been speculation about a "Facebook phone" for a few years. Facebook has long said it would not make its own phone. Rather, such a phone would likely integrate Facebook deeper into the phone's software.

Citing unnamed sources, the tech blog TechCrunch says Facebook Inc. will launch a modified version of Android that embeds Facebook deeply into the operating system, on a phone made by HTC Corp.

A Facebook rival, Google Inc., makes the Android software that Facebook and HTC would be using under that scenario. Google makes the software available on an open-source basis, meaning others including rivals are free to adapt it for their needs. Amazon.com Inc. does just that in modifying Android to run its Kindle tablet computers.

More than half of Facebook's 1.06 billion monthly users access it on a mobile device. A deeper integration would help Facebook with its mobile aspirations.

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How do mega-stars grow? With ample help from their elders

Far infrared light emitted by the giant cloud of gas and dust containing Westerhout 3 (W3) is seen in this image from the Herschel telescope. Stars and gas are not visible because the telescope doesn't detect visible light. (ESA/PACS & SPIRE consortium; A. Rivera-Ingraham and P. G. Martin/University of Toronto; F.Motte/ HOBYS Key Programme)

Newborn stars can grow to be 10 to a 100 times more massive than the Sun if they form in stellar nurseries surrounded by lots of older stars, scientists say.

The discovery, reported in the Astrophysical Journal, and on the pre-press website ArXiv.org, helps explain why stars over eight times the mass of the Sun exist, even though astronomical models indicate they shouldn't.

"This observation may lift the veil on the formation of the most massive stars which remains, so far, poorly understood," said Alana Rivera-Ingraham, who led the study while a graduate student at the University of Toronto.

All stars are born in giant clouds of molecular gas and dust.

Once young stars are massive enough to trigger the nuclear fusion process that makes them shine, they begin generating stellar winds.

These winds blow away any remaining gas and dust, preventing the star from accumulating any more mass and so limiting its size.

"The radiation during the birth of high-mass stars is so intense that it tends to destroy and push away the material from which they need to feed for further growth," said Rivera-Ingraham, who is now at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie in France.

Rivera-Ingraham and colleagues used high-resolution images from the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope to study high-mass star formation in a giant cloud of gas and dust called Westerhout 3, located 6500 light-years away.

They examined the cloud at microwave and far-infrared wavelengths, mapping dust densities and temperatures, looking for the densest regions where the dust is both cold and shielded from radiation. These are areas where new stars are about to be born.

Rivera-Ingraham and colleagues noticed that the densest region of the cloud was surrounded by a constellation of old high-mass stars.

They believe stellar winds from these stars prevented gas and dust from the newborn stars from being blown away, and allowing the star to accumulate more mass in a process known as convergent constructive feedback.

No coincidence

This corralling effect could also be provide the initial compression of the molecular gas and dust cloud needed to ignite the star formation process in the first place, say the researchers.

They suggest each generation of these stars may have created the right conditions for the next generation of stars to grow comparably or even more massive in its midst, ultimately leading to the formation of a rare cluster of high-mass stars.

Astronomer Maria Cunningham from the University of New South Wales said the research is "startling".

"We've all been looking for the youngest stars to be on the outskirts of these clusters, not in the centre," says Cunningham.

"But this is good evidence that the age of star formation is decreasing as you get closer to the centre of a cluster."

Cunningham says the new findings tick many boxes.

"It explains why we see high mass stars grouped together, and why there are so few high mass stars compared to other stars," she says.

"If the cluster is not only needed for the triggering of star birth, but also for the formation of the massive star, then this all starts to make a lot of sense."

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How an ancient astronomical error affects Easter

Easter weekend brings a lot of things to mind — religion, family, food, bunnies and Easter eggs, to name a few. The moon usually isn't on that list, but it actually has a big influence over the date on which the holiday weekend falls.

In fact, an ancient misunderstanding of astronomy can make us wait up to a month to celebrate Easter, depending on the year.

For hundreds of years, churches have looked to the sky to determine when they should celebrate Easter, trying to align it with the Vernal, or Spring, equinox. The holiday is a time of renewal and rebirth for the Christian church, so celebrating around the dawn of Spring made sense.

But way back when people were determining the rules for when the date would fall, humanity's understanding of the sky was a little lacking. Robert Cockcroft, a McMaster University astronomer and physicist, explains.

"Back in 325 A.D. these rules were made, but they couldn't accurately predict astronomical events because they didn't understand it all, so they set up estimations," Cockcroft said.

The church decided Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after a full moon that falls either on or after the Spring equinox.

The Spring equinox, Cockcroft explained, is the point in the year when the path of the sun moves along with the equator, meaning it's making its way back to the northern hemisphere and spring is on the way.

Unfortunately, when they were making the rules nearly 1,700 years ago, they didn't realize the date of the equinox changes slightly every year. It can occur on March 19, 20 or 21 (most often on the 20), but the church fixed the date for the equinox at March 21.

Church officials also followed an ecclesiastical calendar to determine when the full moon would fall — the 14th of a "lunar month" — which isn't always the case, either.

"Those understandings of the words 'full moon' and 'Vernal equinox' are not the astronomical definition of those terms, which is where the complication arises," Cockcroft said.

Out of sync

Most years the church's definitions are pretty much in harmony with the actual astronomical events taking place. This year, for example, the equinox occured at 11:02 a.m. on March 20 and the first full moon to follow occurred early Wednesday, so Sunday's date is accurate.

But some years, the discrepancies mean the two dates fall out of sync: six years from now, the church's Easter date falls almost a full month after the astronomical Easter date.

"I can imagine it would be confusing during the years when they don't agree," Cockcroft said.

And it gets even more complicated depending on where in the world you're celebrating Easter.

Western Christianity follows the Gregorian calendar — that's the civic calendar we follow — to determine the date. Eastern Christianity follows the Julian calendar, which is 13 days out of sync.

Therefore, Easter can fall on any Sunday between April 4 and May 8 for Eastern Christians; this year it's May 5.

Cockcroft explained it's not just churches that can get caught up in old traditions that don't mesh with new understandings; it happens all the time in science.

"This is how science works as well. We look for a pattern and categorize it, then realize later on those categories are incorrect, but we're kind of stuck with them," he said, pointing to the categorization of stars as an example.

"Rather than label stars hottest to coolest from A to Z, we label the hottest O, followed by B, then A, F. It doesn't make any sense, but it's because it's arranged differently than when we first made the rules."

On the bright side, Easter may change from year to year and hemisphere to hemisphere, but at least the cream eggs stay the same.

22.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Soyuz spacecraft arrives safely at space station

A Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked Friday with the International Space Station, bringing the size of the crew at the orbiting lab to six.

Chris Cassidy of the United States and Russians Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin travelled six hours in the capsule before linking up with the space station's Russian Rassvet research module over the Pacific Ocean, just off Peru, at 10:28 p.m. ET.

"It's such a beautiful sight, hard to believe my eyes," the 59-year-old Vinogradov, who had been in space in 1997 and 2006, was heard saying on NASA TV.

The incoming crew will spend five months in space before returning to Earth.

About two hours passed before pressure equalized between the capsule and the station, allowing safe entrance.

"Hey, is anyone home?" joked Vinogradov as he floated into the station.

Warm welcome

Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin were greeted with cheers and hugs by American Tom Marshburn, Russian Roman Romanenko and Canadian Chris Hadfield, who have been at the station since December.

The astronauts then had a brief session with Mission Control outside Moscow, talking with friends and relatives.

"You're such a star! I'm really proud of you!" Misurkin's tearful mother said. The 35-year-old Russian is on his first flight into space.

Their mission began with a late-night launch from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan.

It was the first time a space crew has taken such a direct route to the orbiting lab. Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin are the first crew to reach the station after only four orbits instead of the standard 50-hour flight to reach the station.

The new manoeuvr was tested successfully by three Russian Progress cargo ships, unmanned versions of the Soyuz used to ferry supplies to the space station. Russian cosmonauts have described the two-day approach manoeuvr in the cramped Soyuz as one of the most grueling parts of missions.

Vinogradov said at a pre-launch news conference that the shorter flight path would reduce the crew's fatigue and allow the astronauts to be in top shape for the docking.

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Controversial ocean fertilization project defended by B.C. village

The head of a small First Nations community in British Columbia plans to go ahead with a second controversial iron fertilization project in the North Pacific, despite an international outcry and ongoing investigation by Environment Canada.

Ken Rea, chief councillor of the village of Old Massett in Haida Gwaii, told the fifth estate's Gillian Findlay in an exclusive interview that despite two UN resolutions banning iron fertilization and anti-dumping legislation in Canada, he would like to do it again and make it sustainable.

Last July, his village was involved in dumping 100 tonnes of iron-rich dirt into the ocean off the coast of Haida Gwaii, sparking international controversy.

"After all the uproar, based on a whole bunch of inflammatory mischaracterized words, after calling it illegal, calling it dumping, calling it rogue and not having any of the evidence to back up their statements, none of it, they had no evidence to back all these statements up, we have it," Rea says in an interview that airs on the fifth estate Friday at 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in N.L.

Ken Rea, chief councillor of the village of Old Massett in Haida Gwaii, says that he would like to bring iron fertilization back to Canada and make it sustainable, despite anti-dumping legislation. (CBC)

Old Massett residents invested $2.5 million to start the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation (HSRC) and initiate the iron fertilization project, in hopes that it would boost the salmon population.

U.S. businessman Russ George is the chief scientist and CEO for the HSRC, and he has been a proponent of the controversial idea of iron fertilization for years.

Scientists say that iron-rich dirt promotes the growth of plankton, microscopic organisms that provide a food source for salmon and other sealife. George based the experiment on the theory that growing artificial plankton blooms can remove carbon from the atmosphere, and help reduce global warming. Plankton absorb carbon dioxide from the sea and the air; the theory is that when plankton die they take carbon to the bottom of the ocean. Countries or companies that produce a lot of carbon could then buy carbon credits from the company that created the artificial plankton bloom.

There have been more than a dozen studies on iron fertilization in oceans with varying results, but there is no conclusive evidence that plankton can remove substantial amounts of carbon from the environment in the long-term.

Some scientists say putting iron-rich dirt in the ocean is dangerous, because it could create 'dead zones' where nothing can live. John Cullen, a professor of oceanography at Dalhousie University in Halifax, says unregulated projects, like the one off the coast of Haida Gwaii, should not be allowed.

"If those consequences cannot be predicted with confidence and verified with measurements then the activity should not be permitted," he said.

George first gained media attention when he tried to do an iron fertilization project off the Galapagos Islands in 2007. His company, Planktos Inc., attempted to dump 100 tonnes of iron-rich dirt near the World Heritage Site before he was stopped by governments and environmentalists.

Jim Thomas, of the environmental action organization the ETC Group, says a UN moratorium on iron fertilization was passed with George in mind.

"It was prompted by what Russ George was planning to do, so we then had two international moratoria in place. And since then there has actually been even further agreements through other bodies," Thomas told the fifth estate.

Old Massett residents said three meetings were held in 2011 before the community voted to approve the iron fertilization project. April White, a local artist and geologist, told the fifth estate the project was pitched by the village's economic development officer, John Disney.

Iron fertilization involves dumping iron-rich soil into the ocean. Scientists say that iron-rich dirt promotes the growth of plankton, microscopic organisms that provide a food source for salmon and other sealife. (CBC/HSRC)

"He said this project would bring in so much money. Everybody would have jobs because he had customers already lined up to buy the carbon credits from rich industries in Europe," White said.

There is currently no regulated market for carbon credits based on fertilizing the ocean. Since there is no proof that plankton actually removes carbon in any significant way, there is no market.

White says Old Massett residents were also told the project would bring back salmon. That convinced them to vote in favour of the project, she said.

"Salmon is very much a part of the culture. I like to say we're salmon people. It's what connects us to nature. For the salmon not to come back in the same numbers is a real trauma. It really is a heartfelt thing."

According to Rea, the salmon have all but disappeared and the loss has hit his fishing community hard. He said unemployment is about 70 per cent in Old Massett.

George declined to speak to the fifth estate. The HSRC website says that through this project the company is "working to learn how to replenish and restore the ocean plankton blooms, the ocean pastures, and salmon."

The iron fertilization experiment has split the Haida nation. Residents of Skidegate First Nation, another Haida community, 100 kilometres south of Old Massett, told the fifth estate that they believe their reputation as stewards of the environment has been tarnished by what the village of Old Massett has done.

In an email to the fifth estate, Environment Canada said ocean fertilization is not allowed under Canadian law unless it qualifies as legitimate scientific research. Environment Canada says it did not receive an application from the village of Old Massett, and it still investigating.

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What powers do police have for online surveillance?

Police need to have a special wiretap warrant to access a suspect's daily batch of text messages from their wireless provider, the Supreme Court of Canada decided Wednesday, in its latest ruling on privacy protection in the age of cellphones and digital communication.

The ruling recognized that text messages are a type of private electronic communication, so police need to meet a higher standard when seeking a judge's permission to access them than simply asking for a routine search warrant.

The case worked its way up to Canada's top court as wireless provider Telus Corp., which opts to keep a database of text messages within its network for 30 days, argued it should not have to hand over clients' text messaging logs daily when police ask for them using a general search warrant.

'The police can always ask for information. The question is when can companies give that information over and what power do police have to receive it?'—Abby Deshman, from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association

Telus based its case on the argument that seizing the messages would be an "interception," which would require a wiretap warrant.

Wiretap warrants are more difficult for police to obtain than general search warrants because private communications are afforded special privacy provisions in the Criminal Code.

The decision affirms that there is no practical difference between texting and a traditional phone conversation, which would also require a wiretap warrant to be intercepted.

Special interception warrants

Canadian law allows the police to legally intercept Canadians' private communications without their knowledge or consent only through an intercept authorization warrant, said Abby Deshman, the director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association public safety program.

Typically, police can apply for three types of warrants: a standard search warrant (which can include searching a computer and printing out data), a production order (which compels someone to hand over information stored in a physical space or on an electronic device) or a general warrant (which can be a little more wide-ranging).

But if police want to intercept a private communication they must apply for a wiretap authorization and meet a higher standard, including:

• having tried other investigative procedures;
• demonstrating that other investigative procedures have failed or are likely to fail;
• showing the urgency of the case makes it impractical to use only other investigative procedures.

If granted, interceptions are time-limited, and the person whose communication was intercepted will eventually be notified.

The CCLA was pleased with the court's decision and released a statement saying, "police may not use technical differences in how text messages are transmitted from one person to another to avoid the more rigorous scrutiny of a wiretap authorization."

However, there are situations when police do not require a warrant.

"The most concrete example is you don't need to get a warrant to go into a private house if someone is screaming for help inside," said Deshman, adding there are many such circumstances when police do not need a warrant.

"The police can always ask for information. The question is, when can companies give that information over and what power do police have to receive it?"

Wiretapping in emergencies

In February, federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson introduced a new bill, C-55, which would give police the right to intercept private communications without a warrant in emergency situations, like immediate harm to an individual or national security.

On the same day, the federal government killed the so-called Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, or Bill C-30, after intense public lobbying over privacy concerns. Bill C-30 was heavily opposed for its "Big Brother" qualities.

Internet service providers would have been required to help police intercept and track online communications without a warrant.

Password protected phones

Police powers were also expanded last month when the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled that officers have the right to search a person's phone — as long as it is not password protected.

If someone is arrested and that person's cellphone does not require a password to access text messages, photos, browsing history or call logs then police are allowed to peruse the phone for additional information. If the phone is password protected, however, then police must obtain a search warrant to access it.

In the case that sparked the ruling, a man was arrested after a jewelry stand robbery and was found to have incriminating images and text messages on his phone. The court ruled that police were within their right to check his phone "in a cursory fashion."

With files from the Canadian Press

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BlackBerry swings back to profit

BlackBerry posted a profit in the fourth quarter as the smartphone maker gave a first glimpse of its performance since unveiling its latest suite of smartphones several weeks ago.

The Waterloo, Ont.-based company reported a profit of $94 million US or 18 cents per share for quarter ended March 2. That's a turnaround from the recent trend: in the same period a year ago, RIM lost$125 million US or 24 cents per share.

The results surprised analysts who according to Thomson Reuters were expecting on average a loss of 29 cents per share from the company.

The numbers are the first we've seen from RIM since the company unveiled its new Z10 and Q10 smartphones in Canada, the U.K. and abroad. However, they don't include sales from the key U.S. market where the launch was delayed.

The company shipped about one million smartphones on its new BlackBerry 10 operating system in the period, it said. That would include devices sent to retail outlets that landed in customers hands, or also have yet to be sold.

"We have implemented numerous changes at BlackBerry over the past year and those changes have resulted in the company returning to profitability in the fourth quarter," said chief executive Thorsten Heins in a release.

Lazaridis steps down

Meanwhile, the company's longtime subscriber base, which had been growing until the third quarter, dropped to 76 million from 79 million, a sign that more people ditched their older Blackberry models in favour of competitor phones.

"They lost about a million more subscribers than we thought," Jefferies analyst Peter Misek told CBC News after the numbers were released. "But overall this is a better than expected result."

Selling fewer older devices that are less profitable ate into the company's earnings. But the uptick in newer models may be enough to power growth.

"The numbers suggest that they're on a recovery path," Misek said. "But the key question is can they execute it."

Revenue increased to $2.68 billion, coming in below expectations of $2.84 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.

The company also announced that co-founder Mike Lazaridis will retire as vice-chairman and director on May 1. Lazaridis was the inventor of the iconic BlackBerry device almost two decades ago. He ran the company along with co-CEO Jim Balsillie until early 2012 when the duo were replaced in a management shakeup.

His departure as chair is the last symbolic link to the company's origins. Although he's retiring after 29 years with the company, Lazaridis says he has no plans to sell his significant stock holdings in the company. He still owns almost six per cent of RIM.

BlackBerry shares gained almost two per cent or 26 cents to $14.83 in New York on Thursday.

With files from The Canadian Press

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Germany pitching Berlin as hub for internet start-ups

Nearly two dozen people are sipping coffee in a Berlin office at a weekend workshop held by Coffee Circle, a German company that sources, roasts and sells coffee online.

This kaffeeklatsch is not a business meeting, but a seminar organized by Gidsy.com, a Berlin start-up that hopes to change the way people experience the cities they live in and travel to.

"We're like a peer-to-peer marketplace – anyone can offer something, anyone can book something. If you're a professional or want to show off your skill or knowledge, you can offer off-the-grid things to do," explains Edial Dekker, co-founder and CEO of Gidsy.com.

"We want to become the place where people go if they're looking for really unique things to do, to replace Lonely Planet or Rough Guide."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel watches artist Gerben Steenks draw a character at Wooga social games developer during a tour of local start-ups in Berlin on March 7. (Thomas Peter/Reuters )

In the last few years, Berlin has become known as "Silicon Allee," the epicentre of the European Internet start-up scene, in part because its hip reputation and relatively low cost of living are attracting entrepreneurs and developers from around the world. It's a reputation the government is encouraging.

'We want to become the place where people go if they're looking for really unique things to do, to replace Lonely Planet or Rough Guide.'—Edial Dekker, Gidsy.com

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Economy Minister Philipp Rösler recently showed their support for the nascent industry by touring the Berlin offices of Wooga, an online game developer for smartphones and tablets. Wooga has become a poster child of the city's start-up community.

Industry leaders also point to the success of a company such as SoundCloud, a platform for musicians to exchange their compositions.

'We could do very much better'

At the CeBIT convention in Hamburg earlier this month, Merkel said a fully operational IT infrastructure is as important as water, electricity and gas, and a crucial factor in economic growth.

"We must always aim to be the best in the world. We are good in many areas, but in information and communication technology, there are a great many fields in which we could do very much better," Merkel told delegates at what is billed as the world's leading high-tech event.

In Germany, it is estimated that 850,000 people work in IT, but there are 40,000 job vacancies, Merkel said, adding that the government is specifically promoting technical training and degree courses.

Rösler has said 9,000 new IT companies were founded in Germany last year, and 20 per cent of the growth in German productivity comes from the tech world.

A study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research found that in 2011, €926.1 million flowed from investment funds into so-called early-stage financing in German internet companies.

That pales by comparison to the United States, where investors pump the equivalent of €30 billion into start-ups every year.

In a ranking of the world's top start-up ecosystems in 2012, analysts at the networking blog Start-Up Genome ranked Berlin at number 15.

"Berlin start-ups might consider relocating as the ecosystem is not mature enough in terms of capital, support infrastructure, and mindset," they wrote in a recent report.

In fact, there have been some high-profile flame-outs, such as the social network StudiVZ, which was worth €85 million a few years ago until it fell to its competitor, Facebook.

Hannes Fendrich (middle) and Moritz Waldstein (left) of Coffee Circle, demonstrate the siphon method of coffee-making at a weekend seminar in Berlin. (Karen Pauls/CBC)

Still, for the young entrepreneurs at Gidsy.com, Berlin is the only place to be right now. It's where everything started in 2011, and where the most events are available – from street art walking tours and kite-boarding in an abandoned airport to a "cake walk" in one of the trendy neighborhoods.

"We're trying to change the way people explore the world and their own cities," says Gidsy's community manager, Katie Needs, who's originally from Aurora, Ont.

"Canadians are really community-oriented people, so Gidsy is perfect for Toronto and smaller cities – just think of the thing you love to do most or can share with people, log into Gidsy.com and create an activity people can book."

For "experience providers" such as Coffee Circle, Gidsy.com takes care of logistics, such as booking and payment, Coffee Circle co-founder Moritz Waldstein says.

So far, all of his company's events are booked through Gidsy.com, although the business has grown so much, it will open its own roaster and workshop this summer.

"It's a nice platform, because it connects an interesting array of people interested in new things," he says.

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Architects change recycling habits with design

Architects and designers may be on the frontlines of the war against garbage, suggests a new University of British Columbia study, which found that people in "green buildings" are more likely to act in an environmentally responsible manner regardless of their past habits.

A group of UBC psychology students used a hidden camera to record other students' recycling decisions at two Vancouver campus cafeterias: the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability, a so-called "living laboratory" for sustainability research, and the Student Union Building, a relic from the late 1960s.

'The design of a building can be a powerful tool to shape behavior.'—Alessandra DiGiacomo, co-author of recycling study

At the CIRS cafeteria, 86 per cent of users properly recycled their waste, according to the findings. While, at the noticeably darker, dingier SUB lunchroom, only 58 per cent chose to recycle.

"The design of a building can be a powerful tool to shape behaviour," Alessandra DiGiacomo, a UBC graduate student and co-author of the study, said.

To weed out any potential bias from people occupying the environmentally friendly building, researchers administered surveys in both buildings and found that CIRS patrons didn't have more of a vested interest in the environment in general. DiGiacomo said this means that context is important.

The power of design

Perkins+Wills designed the CIRS building, which is a well-lit, mostly wooden space that ventilates natural air throughout.

"Design can absolutely influence people," Susan Gushe, a principal with the firm, told CBC News.

She says there are several things designers take into consideration when integrating recycling and garbage receptacles into buildings, such as:

• Locating them in areas where people are likely to use them, such as the CIRS's kitchenettes.
• Making bins easy to access for patrons and maintenance staff.
• Clearly labelling bins.

It's also important to make the recycling hubs look good, she said.

"Do you want to see great big bins out in the corridor? No, not really," says Gushe. "You want to integrate the utilitarian things in a building into the fabric of the building, so that you don't have this really ugly stuff sitting out there."

Gushue points to her firm's design of recycling receptacles in a building at the University of Calgary. Bins are tucked into walls every 10 metres in the building's corridors and easily roll out, without heavy tops for patrons to struggle with.

She calls it, "recycling at its best," and said people are more likely to participate if the bins are well-implemented and clearly labelled.

She recently visited the building and was struck by how compliant its patrons were about not littering.

"There wasn't a single piece of garbage around," she says "There was no newspapers lying around ... There was no coffee drink cups. There was no plastic bottles."

The library paradox

More empirical research is needed to actually determine if design can change behaviour, says Robert Levit, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Toronto.

Architecture is not an agent of change, he says, but responsive and a participant in it. Architects design buildings for certain ways of living and social practices that "both shape and are shaped by the way people use buildings."

A University of British Columbia study found only 58 per cent of patrons of the 1960s Student Union Building recycled. (Brain and Attention Research Lab/UBC)

According to Levit, libraries have been restructured recently because they have become less about silent reading and more about community spaces. "It's not that the library decided on its own that they should rearrange the way people operate.

"I don't think that there's a kind of 'if you do this, then people will do,' that kind of circumstance."

People have become increasingly aware that recycling is a good thing to do, he says. But he adds "that this kind of change in behaviour has to be linked to campaigns to raise awareness." People "have to have internalized the command, the desire, the moral compass."

Eye-tracking, signage studies

DiGiacomo, whose lab is already planning the next steps for this research, said she thinks it all comes down to design.

A University of British Columbia study found 86 per cent of patrons of the "living lab" Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability recycled. (Brain and Attention Research Lab/UBC)

Both buildings offer the same recycling options and have similar signage indicating where to put different types of garbage, she points out. But they differ on the aesthetic of the building.

"Even in the SUB ... there are still these signs on the recycling stations that kind of draw attention to this issue of sustainability, but the rest of the building is not the most pleasant place to be in."

Researchers at the lab are conducting waste signage studies now, trying to determine what type of signs are most effective: coloured, black and white, or with or without icons.

In about two months, they will place the most effective signs at the waste disposals in both buildings. They will study the recycling choices of patrons wearing eye tracking devices in both buildings to help determine if the CIRS environmentally friendly design really makes people more likely to act green.

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Wiretap order needed to seize text messages, court rules

Police need a wiretap order to seize text messages from your wireless provider, Canada's highest court has ruled.

"Text messaging is, in essence, an electronic conversation. Technical differences inherent in new technology should not determine the scope of protection afforded to private communications," wrote Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella in the reasons for the judgment, which was supported by two judges.

Two other judges agreed in part and in the result, while two remaining judges dissented.

The decision overturns a lower court ruling against Telus Communications that required the company to hand over copies of two of its customers' text messages after it was served with a general warrant by police in Owen Sound, Ont.

Telus had appealed the ruling. The phone provider argued that seizing the messages would constitute "interception" of the communication and would therefore require a wiretap warrant. That is more difficult to get than a general warrant, because of special privacy provisions in the Criminal Code protecting private communications.

Abella said the only practical difference between text messaging and traditional voice communications is the transmission process.

"This distinction should not take text messages outside the protection to which private communications are entitled," she wrote.

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No longer kids stuff: the evolution of video games

For kids who've grown up with game consoles equipped with cutting-edge motion-sensing technology, it's difficult to imagine that only a generation ago, playing video games meant popping a quarter in an arcade machine in the corner of a restaurant.

Game On 2.0, an exhibition that opened on March 9 at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, aims to chronicle the dramatic changes in the video game industry since 1962. It features more than 150 playable titles, from arcade games like Tron and Pac-Man to the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft.

"In the '80s and '90s, there was a big push for graphics … to basically have games catch up with our imagination. But now we've gone passed that point — what we can think of, we can put in a game," said Mathieu Ranger, an educator at the Ontario Science Centre and spokesperson for the exhibition.

With the transition to social gaming and mature story lines, video games have evolved beyond the stereotype of mindless, "shoot-'em-up" entertainment. Instead, they help bring people — hardcore gamers and casual players alike — together by replicating an authentic human experience.

The legacy of Pong

Ranger credited Spacewar!, a two-player space combat game conceived by students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962, as the first computer-based video game to pave the way for its successors.

The game was not commercially successful, largely because of how complicated it was, but Ranger said making the game fun for players wasn't the focus of early developers.

"It was just like, 'Hey, we're pretty smart guys and we have this tech and I think we can make some game out of it, so let's just try playing around with it.' You know, it was kind of the sense of exploration with the technology," Ranger said.

But this focus on technological advancement over enjoyment left an opening for other developers, such as Atari.

Ranger, although more of a "Nintendo-and-after guy," reminded us about the time when Atari released the arcade version of the tennis sports game Pong in the early 1970s. It became so popular that machines at arcades often became unplayable, because they were jammed full with quarters.

Ranger said Pong owed its success to its simplicity and recognizability. Players could easily relate to the tennis- and ping pong-like game and understand the simple goal of scoring 15 points to win.

"It just hit on something that people had never quite experienced before, and it was a very simple experience that people love," said Ranger.

Nintendo rises above the rest

Cartridge games like Pong — ones that players had to buy separately and plug into a device to play — became so popular and easy to make that the market was flooded with poorly made games in the mid-1980s.

"Anybody who had access to cartridges to various systems could just release their own games to the market," Ranger said.

There were so many poorly designed products that a video game crash took place in the early 1980s, according to Ranger, when many companies hit hard financial times.

Nintendo reinvigorated the industry with the release of game console Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, also known as Famicon in Japan, in 1985.

The Japanese consumer electronic maker did this not only because of their hit games, but also because it introduced the "seal of quality" system that required any game produced for NES to be approved by Nintendo before heading to the market. That led to fewer games, but the ones on the market were of much higher quality.

"From then on, it's been completely non-stop, especially in terms of the home console market," Ranger said.

Zombies and the future of gaming

So what's next?

Game makers are increasingly emphasizing the social aspect of gaming, incorporating the capability for players to share their experience both within the games and on social networks.

The latest version of the urban planning game SimCity, for example, requires all users to have an internet connection to play. Many speculate that this controversial move by its developer Electronic Arts is to combat piracy, but Ranger said the change has made waves in the gaming world.

He explained that this online dependency forces players to work with other online players as they build their cities. For example, when one person needs electricity to power their city's grid, they might ask another person who has a city elsewhere on the web for power. Or, if another player needs space to get rid of garbage, they might ask you to help out.

This shared online interaction is the future of video games, said Ranger.

Games on non-traditional gaming platforms, such as Zynga's farming simulation game FarmVille on Facebook, also capitalize on these social networks.

Independent video games, titles made by individuals or smaller teams, are also shifting the makeup of the video game industry. Commonly known as indie games, they are resetting the boundaries of what games can achieve by exploring different artistic styles and mature themes that mimic real-life situations.

One of the notable indie games, as Ranger pointed out, is Telltale Games's zombie apocalypse-themed game Walking Dead, which is based on the popular comic-book series of the same name.

"You're not just shooting a bunch of zombies. You're making tough moral decisions that have repercussions on the characters around you that you care about," Ranger explained.

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Yahoo buys teen developer's bestselling app

One of Britain's youngest internet entrepreneurs has hit the jackpot after selling his top-selling mobile application Summly to search giant Yahoo.

Seventeen-year-old Nick d'Aloisio, who dreamed up the idea for the content-shortening program when he was studying for his exams, said he was surprised by the deal. As with its other recent acquisitions, Yahoo didn't disclose how much it is paying for Summly, although British newspapers suggested the deal's value at several million dollars.

"I would have never imagined being in this position so suddenly," he wrote on his website, before thanking his family, his school — and his venture capitalist backer Li Ka-Shing — for supporting him.

Summly works by condensing content so readers can scroll through more information more quickly — useful for the small screens of smartphones.

The deal announced Monday is Yahoo's fifth small acquisition in the past fi months. All of them have been part of CEO Marissa Mayer's effort to attract more engineers with expertise in building services for smartphones and tablet computers, an increasingly important area of technology that she believes the internet company had been neglecting.

Although the Yahoo acquisition won't close until later this spring, D'Aloisio said the Summly will no longer be available. Summly's technology will return in other Yahoo products, he said.

D'Aloisio will work for Yahoo in its London office — in part so that he can complete his high school exams. Two other Summly workers will join Yahoo at its Sunnyvale, Calif. headquarters.

D'Aloisio is younger than Yahoo, which was incorporated in March 1995.

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Private cargo ship en route from space station

The International Space Station's Canadarm2 robotic arm released SpaceX's Dragon capsule early Tuesday. It is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:35 p.m. ET. (NASA/Associated Press)

A privately owned cargo ship left the International Space Station with a full science load Tuesday and aimed for a splashdown in the Pacific.

Astronauts released the unmanned SpaceX capsule, named Dragon, from the end of the space station's giant robot arm, Canadarm2 at 6:56 a.m. ET. The parting occurred 400 kilometres over the South Pacific and was a poignant moment for the three space station residents, who had helped to snare the Dragon three weeks earlier.

"Sad to see the Dragon go," astronaut Thomas Marshburn told Mission Control. "Performed her job beautifully. Heading back to her lair. Wish her all the best for the splashdown today."

The Dragon was due to splash down off the Baja California coast 5 ½ hours after its space station departure. It will be transported by ship to Los Angeles and then by truck to the SpaceX company's plant in McGregor, Texas.

Within hours, NASA will retrieve the science samples meticulously collected over the weeks and months by space station astronauts, as well as experiments that flew up with Dragon, such as flowering weeds and mouse stem cells. Old space station equipment and other items will be removed by SpaceX in McGregor. In all, more than a tonne of gear was loaded into the capsule.

Dragon's return to Earth was delayed one day by bad weather in the splashdown zone.

The California-based SpaceX company launched the Dragon from Cape Canaveral, Fla., at the beginning of March. Mechanical trouble caused a one-day postponement in Dragon's arrival at the space station. SpaceX flight controllers at company headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., managed to fix the problem within hours.

SpaceX — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — is run by billionaire Elon Musk, who made his fortune as a co-creator of PayPal. He also owns the electric car maker Tesla Motors.

NASA is paying SpaceX to resupply the space station. This was the second flight of a Dragon to the orbiting outpost under the $1.6 billion contract, and the third delivery mission altogether for SpaceX. The next flight is slated for late fall.

A competitor, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., plans a test flight of its Antares rocket and a dummy payload next month. That launch will be conducted from Wallops Island, Va.

Russia, Japan and Europe also periodically send up supplies, but SpaceX has the only craft capable of returning goods. All the others burn up upon re-entry.

Three astronauts are aboard the space station right now. They will be joined by three more following Thursday's Soyuz launch from Kazakhstan.

With its space shuttles now museum pieces, NASA is paying Russia to launch U.S. astronauts until SpaceX or another American company comes up with spaceships than can safely fly crews. Musk anticipates that happening by 2015.

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Dad talks $22,000 cellphone roaming charge down to $200

The man who successfully fought his $22,000 cellphone roaming charge is back with a guide to help others do the same.

In a CBC Go Public exclusive earlier this month, Burnaby resident Matt Buie accused Rogers of price gouging after getting a $22,000 bill for data charges racked up on a family vacation in Mexico.

'This has taken six weeks of my time. It's not about the money. It's the principle and fair play.'—Matt Buie, a financial planner from Burnaby

When he first complained, Fido, which is owned by Rogers, immediately offered to cut the charge to $2,200 but Buie kept negotiating.

He says the company was using the "shock factor" of the huge initial charge to get him to settle for a bill that was still too high.

"My cost could not have been anywhere near a dollar," Buie said.

Buie argues Telus would have cut off data access when the bill reached $200, but Fido didn't alert him until three days of charges had piled up.

Buie told Fido he would be willing to pay the equivalent of the Telus cutoff point, at which point Fido agreed to slash the bill to $500.

Fight to the top

But Buie still refused to pay, taking his complaint to the office of the president at Fido. The company eventually reduced Buie's charge to $200.

Despite the cost in time and stress, Buie considers it a victory.

The Mexico data usage is calculated on Matt Buie's bill, for the first two days of his son's video streaming. February 1 data use will show on the next bill. (CBC)

"This has taken six weeks of my time," Buie said. "It's not about the money. It's the principle and fair play."

During the fight, Buie learned about service provider responsibilities and what conduct is already set out by the CRTC.

Buie says he cited the outcome of a CRTC hearing last month, in which telecom executives alluded to $200 being a fair cap on unexpected data charges should a cap be in place.

Buie says the industry is largely unregulated.

He wants telecom companies to cap cellphone roaming fees at a manageable amount pending authorization from users for further charges, as providers do in Europe.

Buie said he also found evidence a large number of Canadians have gone through similar fights.

"I Googled 'Canadian roaming charge complaints' and I came up with 1.7 million entries," he said.

Buie has helped publish a toolkit to help other Canadians negotiate excessive and unexpected cellphone charges down to reasonable amounts.

Buie's step-by-step guide to negotiation with telecom customer service can be found on the website OpenMedia.ca.

With files from the CBC's Luke Brocki and Kathy Tomlinson

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Microsoft Xbox panned for virtual thefts, disputed charges

A Toronto woman blames Microsoft for what she calls lax security, after her 11-year-old son's Xbox Live account was hacked, which she believes allowed a thief to charge $300 in gaming purchases to her credit card.

"I wasn't aware that these purchases were happening," said Jennifer Stubbs. "Someone had gone into our device remotely."

Stubbs said she had no idea hacking of the popular FIFA 13 Ultimate game on Xbox Live was a problem until her son Dylan went to play one morning and found all the players he had bought to build his virtual team — with her permission — had been stolen.

Jennifer Stubbs and her son Dylan had no idea hacking was a problem with FIFA 13 on Xbox Live until all of his players were stolen. (CBC)

"We hear these screams from the living room and we go, 'My god, what has happened?!'" said Stubbs. "He was beside himself."

Dylan is an avid soccer player and his mom said he'd been building the virtual team for months.

"He was so proud … and all of his friends play it as well. So it's a really important social thing, and it's good for his soccer," said Stubbs.

Not alone

She said she and her husband were surprised to then find several online articles and posts in forums written by others whose players and points had also been stolen. They also discovered unauthorized charges on their credit cards.

Some gamers suggest Microsoft has not done enough to make the online Xbox service secure.

"We found blogs everywhere. Even on the Microsoft website. There are forums about this. There are people complaining," said Stubbs.

Many Xbox Live subscribers keep credit card information linked to their devices, so they can buy points online, which they use to buy better players for their FIFA team.

Stubbs's son charged his purchases to her Visa account that way. She said her records indicate he'd spent less than $100.

"After he was hacked, I checked and summarized all of the emails I received and did the math. I realized that out of 42 purchases, I'd only been notified [by Microsoft] of 17," said Stubbs.

Nasty surprise charges

When she got her Visa statement, she found $409 in charges from Microsoft, almost four times as many purchases than what her son's Xbox shows.

The FIFA virtual soccer games are hugely popular worldwide, but there are several complaints online about hacking, going back a couple of years. (CBC)

"The device says he bought 7,000 points," said Stubbs. "The Visa says he bought 25,000 points."

Stubbs pointed out Microsoft is making a lot of money from these purchases, including questionable ones.

"It's big business. They are targeting the kids, especially under 13. The kids think this is the best thing since sliced bread, so I feel that they are targeting the kids and getting their parents to pay more and more and more into a digital [player] add-on system."

Microsoft declined to be interviewed, but sent a statement saying it is working on improvements.

"In this industry, security is an ongoing challenge and we are working every day to bring new forms of protection to Xbox Live," said the company.

Brazen hackers

Xbox Live hackers are easy to find online, where some actually boast. At least one has a Facebook page advertising he can "get the best players" and will sell or trade them.

Stubbs compared her Visa charges with information on her son's Xbox Live and said she found several charges for purchases he didn't make. (CBC)

In Stubbs's case, EA Sports – which produces the FIFA 13 game – replaced all of her son's lost points, so he could buy back his players and more, after she complained about the theft.

But Microsoft has so far refused to reverse the charges on her credit card.

"I thought I had foolproof proof … that we don't have records of all these billings," said Stubbs. "Microsoft just said … look at our terms and conditions. If you buy something, that's it."

Experts say a key problem for consumers – with many other companies, not just Microsoft – is after the customer agrees to terms and conditions online, the company can legally hold them responsible for any charges to their account.

"All companies are using end-user licence agreements, but almost all consumers are not reading them," said University of British Columbia Prof. Jon Festinger, an expert in video game law.

"The law has generally adopted the position that the agreement has been read."

Big profits

Joel Bakan, who wrote the book Childhood Under Siege, said it costs nothing to replace stolen virtual players, as EA Sports did for Stubbs's son, but it would cost Microsoft to improve security.

Microsoft has refused to reverse the disputed charges from Stubbs account. (CBC)

"Since it costs them nothing to give them their players back, that's going to have lower costs than really addressing the hacking problem," said Bakan.

The sale of virtual goods is the fastest growing and most profitable part of the gaming industry worldwide, he said.

"It's $15 billion a year today. In 2007, it was $2 billion a year," said Bakan.

Many of the games, he said, are designed to hook children into buying digital add-ons.

"There's no doubt kids are being victimized by thieves and hackers and what not, but arguably they are being victimized or at least preyed upon by the big companies," Bakan said.

Microsoft said to protect accounts, security information should be changed often.

"Many of our security enhancements and recovery processes are dependent upon our members being able to verify their identities using information that is unique to them, such as secondary email addresses, phone numbers, security questions and answers, and trusted devices," said the company.

"The best way to protect an account is to maintain up-to-date security information with Microsoft."

Self-protection advised

EA Sports also sent a statement advising users to learn more about security.

"We try to educate FIFA players to take measures to keep their accounts safe. We do this via our social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, our FIFA online forums, and our customer experience team. When issues surface, we work directly with the individual to resolve the matter quickly," said the company.

Expert Joel Bakan shows reporter Kathy Tomlinson how virtual goods like FIFA soccer players are big business online. (CBC)

Stubbs has now removed her Visa information from the Xbox Live account.

If her son wants to buy points for players, she said she now gets him a pre-paid purchase card from a gaming store.

"I tell every parent that I know what has happened to us," said Stubbs. "I am now cautious of anything to do with the Xbox."

Submit your story ideas to Kathy Tomlinson at Go Public

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Pandas touch down in Toronto

Two giant pandas have touched down at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, and are scheduled to receive VIP treatment from both the prime minister and mayor of Toronto, kicking off a five-year stay in Canada's most populous city.

Er Shun, a five-year-old female, and Da Mao, a four-year-old male, will spend 10 years in Canada in total, an arrangement that Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in China last year. But there are high hopes that the two will produce offspring while they are in Toronto.

The two pandas will spend the first half of that time at the Toronto Zoo and the second half in Calgary.

Harper, his wife Laureen and Zhang Junsai, the Chinese ambassador to Canada, are expected to participate in a photo op after the pandas arrival in Toronto.

This photo from the plane shows Da Mao, one of two pandas en route to Toronto, enjoying the in-flight catering. (FedEx Canada)

The pandas were scheduled to arrive in Toronto at 10:30 a.m. ET, but were delayed by about 20 minutes, FedEx said. Harper is expected to make a few remarks shortly before 11 a.m.

FedEx handled the transport of the giant pandas to Canada aboard an MD-11 plane dubbed the Panda Express. This is the sixth time the company has handled a panda move.

FedEx Canada president Lisa Lisson was interviewed live on CBC News Network on Monday morning and said the pandas had adjusted well to their 15-hour, 12,875-kilometre journey.

"They look quite happy," Lisson said, referring to photos send via Twitter that show Da Mao chomping on bamboo inside the plane.

Plenty of legroom

Er Shun and Da Mao also had veterinarians travelling with them.

The FedEx plane carrying two giant pandas destined for the Toronto Zoo touched down in Toronto on Monday morning. (Marivel Taruc/CBC)

The bears had a "full entourage and lots of legroom," Lisson told News Network host Heather Hiscox. They had "the whole plane to themselves."

Officials are hopeful the pair of pandas will become more than friends during their time together in Canada.

"We're hoping that when they're at the Toronto zoo they are going to breed, so we can protect this endangered species," said Lisson. "This is their first big date. They've never met before." said Lisson.

For the trip to Toronto, FedEx brought plenty of food — mostly bamboo and bamboo shoots, but also apples — for the pandas to munch on during their long journey.

Da Mao, a four-year-old male giant panda, was transported by FedEx from Chengdu, China to Toronto. (FedEx Canada)

FedEx will continue to be involved with the panda exhibit during Er Shun and Da Mao's time in Toronto. The company will be flying fresh bamboo for them to eat several times a week.

Canada has not hosted panda bears for more than two decades.

A pair of giant pandas came to the Toronto Zoo for a few months in 1985, and the Calgary Zoo hosted pandas in 1988. Their short stay in Toronto drew hundreds of thousands of visitors that year.

Another couple of pandas spent a brief period at the Winnipeg Zoo in 1989.

With files from The Canadian Press

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Atlantic Canadian mega-volcanoes blamed in mass extinction

The major extinction that paved the way for the rise of the dinosaurs was caused by the eruption of massive volcanoes in what is now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the northeastern U.S. and Morocco, a new study says.

"This is one of the largest lava flows on Earth here in the Bay of Fundy… and quite capable of producing poisonous gases that affect the Earth's environment in an eruption," said Greg McHone, a geologist based on New Brunswick's Grand Manan Island, who co-authored the study published online in Science this week.

The End-Triassic Extinction wiped out half the world's species about 200 million years ago, including early crocodile relatives, tree lizards, broad-leafed plants, eel-like fish called conodonts, and ammonites, which are squid-like sea creatures with shells.

Up until now, there was some scientific debate about whether the extinction was caused by a meteor impact, like the one thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs 135 million year later, or a major volcanic eruption like the ones that caused most other major extinctions.

From his window, geologist Greg McHone can see basalt cliffs on Grand Manan Island, off the coast of New Brunswick, built up from the magma spewed by volcanoes that caused the End-Triassic extinction. (Courtesy of Greg McHone)

The new study, led by Terrence Blackburn at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows that eruptions in Morocco likely kicked off the mass extinction, while eruptions in Atlantic Canada and the northeastern U.S. ramped it up about 3,000 and 13,000 years later, respectively. The study also pinpoints the time of both the Moroccan eruption and the start of the mass extinction at 201,564,000 years ago.

The deadly ancient volcanoes weren't mountains. Rather, they were long, magma-spewing fissures in the Earth, similar to the Krafla eruptions in Iceland, but "much, much bigger," McHone said.

The retired geology professor helped the research team locate and sample the basalt rocks that were once part of the ancient lava flow, as well as estimate the gases that might have been emitted by those massive volcanoes.

At the time of the eruptions, the Atlantic Ocean didn't exist, and Africa and North America were joined as part of a big continent known as Pangaea. Over 600,000 years, the eruptions in an area known as the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, deposited roughly 10 million cubic kilometres of lava.

Extreme climate swing

The massive eruptions would have blasted carbon dioxide gas and a thick sulphurous smog into the skies. Initially, the smog would have blotted out the sun, causing a multi-year winter. Once the sulphurous dust had settled, the carbon dioxide would have caused rapid warming — possibly as fast as the human-caused warming taking place today, said a news release from Columbia University, where study co-author Paul Olsen is based.

McHone said one reason why it had previously been so difficult for scientists to figure out when and how the mass extinction occurred is that the layered, sedimentary rocks containing the fossil evidence of the extinction were not necessarily in the same places as the rocks formed from the lava flows.

"So much has been eroded away from the Earth's surface for the last 200 million years."

For example, the rocks in Morocco didn't contain any evidence of the extinction. Meanwhile, the rocks in North America showed the extinction, but it seemed to occur below — and therefore before — many of the lava flows, said Blackburn in an interview.

He solved the puzzle by analyzing crystals of zircon that form as the lava cools, trapping small particles of uranium in the process. The uranium decays into lead at a consistent rate. By measuring the ratio of uranium to lead, it was possible to precisely calculate the age of the basalt layers.

The analysis was possible thanks to "huge advancements" in this type of analysis in the past five or 10 years, Blackburn added.

The method can't be used on the sedimentary rocks containing the fossils. However, Olsen developed a way to measure the relative age of sedimentary rocks using the fingerprint left by changes in the Earth's orbit over time — a technique called astrochronology. In cases where the sedimentary rocks were sandwiched between basalt, he was able to calibrate the astrochronological fingerprint to actual dates and use that to figure out the dates of events in sedimentary rock samples that weren't close to any basalt layers.

By carefully comparing the data in many parts of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, the researchers showed that the eruptions very likely caused the End Triassic extinction and were able to reconstruct how the events unfolded.

Remnants of the basalt deposited by the eruptions can still be seen in low-lying parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, including on Grand Manan Island.

"When I look out my window, I can see a ridge of this same lava flow that is in the Bay of Fundy, now linked to the mass extinction," McHone said. "So it's quite fun."

The End-Triassic extinction was the fourth known major extinction in the history of life on Earth. The die-off is thought to have opened up opportunities for the dinosaurs to diversify and thrive in the 135 million years that followed.

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Smart elevators to get you there faster

Ding! The next-generation elevator should be much faster, thanks to responsive rides that require less waiting, make fewer stops and anticipate your destination.

Personal Occupant Requirement Terminal, or PORT, is elevator maker Schindler's solution to vertically growing cities. It's a kiosk with a touch screen in a skyscraper's main floor lobby that replaces the traditional call buttons. Passengers enter their destination floors, then the kiosk directs them to a particular elevator, grouping people who are going to the same floors.

The system and its algorithm will also begin to understand the traffic of the building and track passenger behaviours, such as when they go for lunch or take coffee breaks.

"So it begins to learn where the elevator stops, when it stops, what floor it stops at, how often it stops, so we could begin to predict where people want to be and where they want to go throughout the day," James Ellingson, national director of sales and marketing of Schindler Elevator Corporation in Canada, tells CBC Radio's Spark in an interview that airs Sunday.

It's no surprise that this old-fashioned transportation technology is getting the boot. Since Archimedes, the eureka-shouting Greek inventor, put together the first lifting device with ropes and pulleys, riding the elevator has become one of the minor annoyances of modern life as buildings grow taller and bigger.

Ellingson cited studies that show 60 per cent of the world population will live in urban areas in 40 years as more people move to the cities.

"In order to move those masses of people intuitively [and] efficiently … something had to change, because we couldn't bear those types of numbers with traditional dispatching," he said.

PORT technology could shorten the time passengers spend waiting for and riding in elevators by 30 per cent, according to Ellingson.

"That's pretty significant if you think about the time we spend during the day moving vertically."

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Possible meteor lights up U.S. East Coast

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Reports of a flash of light that streaked across the sky over the U.S. East Coast appeared to be a "single meteor event," the U.S. space agency said. Residents from New York City to Washington and beyond lit up social media with surprise.

'It looked like a plane preparing to land at the airport.'—Matt Moore, The Associated Press news editor

"Judging from the brightness, we're dealing with something as bright as the full moon," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environmental Office said Friday. "We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the northeast."

Cooke said the meteor was widely seen, with more than 350 reports on the website of the American Meteor Society alone.

Robert Lunsford of the society told USA Today "it basically looked like a super bright shooting star."

The sky flash was spotted as far south as Florida and as far north as New England, the newspaper reported.

Matt Moore, a news editor with The Associated Press, said he was standing in line for a concert in Philadelphia around dusk when he saw "a brilliant flash moving across the sky at a very brisk pace... and utterly silent."

"It was clearly high up in the atmosphere," he said. "But from the way it appeared, it looked like a plane preparing to land at the airport."

Moore said the flash was visible to him for about two to three seconds, and then it was gone. He described it as having a "spherical shape and yellowish and you could tell it was burning, with the trail that it left behind."

Observers tweet sightings

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, agreed that the sightings had all the hallmarks of a "fireball."

Pitts said this one got more attention because it happened on a Friday evening — and because Twitter has provided a way for people to share information on sightings.

He said what people likely saw was one meteor — or "space rock" — that may have been the size of a volleyball and fell fairly far down into the Earth's atmosphere. He likened it to a stone skipping across the water — getting "a nice long burn out of it."

Pitts said experts "can't be 100 per cent certain of what it was, unless it actually fell to the ground and we could actually track the trajectory."

But he said the descriptions by so many people are "absolutely consistent" with those of a meteor.

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Atlantic Canadian mega-volcanoes blamed in mass extinction

The major extinction that paved the way for the rise of the dinosaurs was caused by the eruption of massive volcanoes in what is now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the northeastern U.S. and Morocco, a new study says.

"This is one of the largest lava flows on Earth here in the Bay of Fundy… and quite capable of producing poisonous gases that affect the Earth's environment in an eruption," said Greg McHone, a geologist based on New Brunswick's Grand Manan Island, who co-authored the study published online in Science this week.

The End-Triassic Extinction wiped out half the world's species about 200 million years ago, including early crocodile relatives, tree lizards, broad-leafed plants, eel-like fish called conodonts, and ammonites, which are squid-like sea creatures with shells.

Up until now, there was some scientific debate about whether the extinction was caused by a meteor impact, like the one thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs 135 million year later, or a major volcanic eruption like the ones that caused most other major extinctions.

From his window, geologist Greg McHone can see basalt cliffs on Grand Manan Island, off the coast of New Brunswick, built up from the magma spewed by volcanoes that caused the End-Triassic extinction. (Courtesy of Greg McHone)

The new study, led by Terrence Blackburn at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows that eruptions in Morocco likely kicked off the mass extinction, while eruptions in Atlantic Canada and the northeastern U.S. ramped it up about 3,000 and 13,000 years later, respectively. The study also pinpoints the time of both the Moroccan eruption and the start of the mass extinction at 201,564,000 years ago.

The deadly ancient volcanoes weren't mountains. Rather, they were long, magma-spewing fissures in the Earth, similar to the Krafla eruptions in Iceland, but "much, much bigger," McHone said.

The retired geology professor helped the research team locate and sample the basalt rocks that were once part of the ancient lava flow, as well as estimate the gases that might have been emitted by those massive volcanoes.

At the time of the eruptions, the Atlantic Ocean didn't exist, and Africa and North America were joined as part of a big continent known as Pangaea. Over 600,000 years, the eruptions in an area known as the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, deposited roughly 10 million cubic kilometres of lava.

Extreme climate swing

The massive eruptions would have blasted carbon dioxide gas and a thick sulphurous smog into the skies. Initially, the smog would have blotted out the sun, causing a multi-year winter. Once the sulphurous dust had settled, the carbon dioxide would have caused rapid warming — possibly as fast as the human-caused warming taking place today, said a news release from Columbia University, where study co-author Paul Olsen is based.

McHone said one reason why it had previously been so difficult for scientists to figure out when and how the mass extinction occurred is that the layered, sedimentary rocks containing the fossil evidence of the extinction were not necessarily in the same places as the rocks formed from the lava flows.

"So much has been eroded away from the Earth's surface for the last 200 million years."

For example, the rocks in Morocco didn't contain any evidence of the extinction. Meanwhile, the rocks in North America showed the extinction, but it seemed to occur below — and therefore before — many of the lava flows, said Blackburn in an interview.

He solved the puzzle by analyzing crystals of zircon that form as the lava cools, trapping small particles of uranium in the process. The uranium decays into lead at a consistent rate. By measuring the ratio of uranium to lead, it was possible to precisely calculate the age of the basalt layers.

The analysis was possible thanks to "huge advancements" in this type of analysis in the past five or 10 years, Blackburn added.

The method can't be used on the sedimentary rocks containing the fossils. However, Olsen developed a way to measure the relative age of sedimentary rocks using the fingerprint left by changes in the Earth's orbit over time — a technique called astrochronology. In cases where the sedimentary rocks were sandwiched between basalt, he was able to calibrate the astrochronological fingerprint to actual dates and use that to figure out the dates of events in sedimentary rock samples that weren't close to any basalt layers.

By carefully comparing the data in many parts of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, the researchers showed that the eruptions very likely caused the End Triassic extinction and were able to reconstruct how the events unfolded.

Remnants of the basalt deposited by the eruptions can still be seen in low-lying parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, including on Grand Manan Island.

"When I look out my window, I can see a ridge of this same lava flow that is in the Bay of Fundy, now linked to the mass extinction," McHone said. "So it's quite fun."

The End-Triassic extinction was the fourth known major extinction in the history of life on Earth. The die-off is thought to have opened up opportunities for the dinosaurs to diversify and thrive in the 135 million years that followed.

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