B.C. residents plan summer vacations from money worries

05. July 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: Keiran's World, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Travel. Photo © MyBiggestFan via flickr and creative commons

Travel. Photo © MyBiggestFan via flickr and creative commons

Now that the school year has run its course, the exodus has begun. Those who seek to take advantage of the coming interrupted workweek have made their reservations, packed their bags, and made their escapes. Others are taking their time, planning the requisite excursions to visit family, see new sights, and experience new adventures later during the season.

It’s also around this time that the latest data and surveys on travel intentions and travel habits become known. Every June, BMO Financial Group releases its latest survey results about Canadians’ summer travel plans. This year, survey says, B.C. residents intend to take a mental vacation from worrying about money. We, apparently, each plan to spend more than $6,000 on vacations, summer outings and entertaining at home. We rank second in Canada in profligacy, although the report also says that more than 40% of Canadians have not yet set budgets for summertime expenses.

Statistics Canada indicates we like to travel abroad. Fewer B.C. residents traveled to the U.S. for spring break this year compared to last, while more of us travelled to other international destinations.

Another trend appeared earlier this year in the spring break BMO travel survey. Apparently, we British Columbians are a cautious lot. We rank third in Canada for worry about needing medical attention while abroad—even though our provincial worry quotient nips at the heels of the national average (41 per cent). We are also among the most likely of all Canadians to purchase travel health insurance for our excursions abroad….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Articles, Canadian Forest Service research

27. June 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: Information Forestry, Keiran's World, Science Scribe

Although many of the articles I researched and wrote for the Canadian Forest Service’s Pacific Forestry Centre are posted on this blog, the entire collection is published in the centre’s science and technology bulletin, Information Forestry.

Real-world event mirrors B-grade film alien horror

08. June 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: Keiran's World, Vancouver Island, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Stranded velella, relatives of sea jellies. Photo © Dan (Newslighter), via flickr and Creative Commons

Stranded velella, relatives of sea jellies. Photo © Dan (Newslighter), via flickr and Creative Commons

Nature Boy spent a few minutes dabbling his toes in the water at Willows Beach last week.

“I don’t feel it,” he reported. “They say a great blob of warm ocean water has moved up to the northern coast. It appears to not have arrived at Willows.”

“Maybe it’s something only marine critters can easily feel,” I say. “If you spent all day in the water, you might notice.”

“If I did that,” he said, “someone might mistake me for a great, warm blob.”

The system Nature Boy refers to first appeared in the North Pacific Ocean in late-2013. Named the Blob by one of the University of Washington researchers who discovered it, it spread across almost two million square kilometres of the Gulf of Alaska, and now plugs up the Bering Sea, with daughter Blobs (Blobbies?) warming offshore waters all the way south to Mexico.

Acting much like the high-pressure Polar Vortex systems that lobed southwards over the prairies and pushed away systems of warmer air throughout the winter and spring of 2013–2014, The Blob redirects cold ocean currents from their eons-old routes. The two phenomena may not be connected.

Some unlikely warm-water species are now checking out northern latitudes as a result. Fishermen caught a skipjack tuna caught off Alaska last September, warm-water Velellas, relatives of sea jellies, washed ashore at Tofino and Haida Gwai’i, and rare pygmy orca have been spotted off Washington State.

However, The Blob is primarily a dead zone. With temperatures as much as three degrees above the region’s average, it not only redirects ocean currents, it dampens the natural mixing of water layers. This affects salinity, dissolved oxygen and acidity within the water, which in turn reduces nutrients and biological productivity….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Addictiveness by design casts ethical shadow over game designers

07. June 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Keiran's World, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Photo © Rebecca Pollard, via flickr and Creative Commons

Photo © Rebecca Pollard, via flickr and Creative CommonsSeven of Victoria’s video-game studios recently launched new games. The games, which include TinyMob’s Tiny Realms and GameHouse’s new version of Slingo, highlight the industry’s growth in the region.

The 20 or so Victoria-based studios employ 240 people and spend about $25 million annually. Eight years ago, about 40 people worked in local game studios.

On a global scale, gaming revenues are predicted to grow to $78 billion in the next two years.

The industry’s growth mirrors that in other digital technology industries. As the Internet advanced in sophistication and conquered both the wider, geographic world and our personal time, so have video games.

We’ve come a long way, baby, from Pokémon, Doom and The Legend of Zelda.

Game designers have also become more sophisticated in attracting and retaining players.

In many games, designers intentionally manipulate players to keep them online and to keep them returning to play more, again and at higher levels. They design consequences into games to prevent players from stopping play, and build in rewards for players who stay in the game, move up to higher levels and to subscribe to advance the game….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Today’s pesticides have roots in war

26. April 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Keiran's World, Science Scribe, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
First World War gas mask. Photo © Thom Quine, via Creative Commons and flickr
First World War gas mask. Photo © Thom Quine, via Creative Commons and flickr

First World War gas mask. Photo © Thom Quine, via Creative Commons and flickr

The recent tragedy experienced by a Fort McMurray family has roots in century-old events.

This February, an eight-month-old baby and her two-year-old brother died after breathing in a pesticide fumigant. Four other family members required treatment, with one requiring intensive care in Edmonton.

The building where the family lives is infested with bedbugs. During a recent visit to Pakistan, the children’s mother had purchased pesticide tablets to kill the bugs.

The pesticide is phosphine. This insecticide is usually sold as tablets that combine phosphide powder with calcium or aluminum. When the powder encounters moisture or humidity, it releases phosphine gas. It’s one of the most toxic pesticides registered in Canada, where it can be purchased and used only by licensed operators.

When inhaled, the gas irritates the lungs and airway, harms the heart and circulation, and produces severe stomach pains. It also interferes with the central nervous system, much like sarin gas, an outlawed chemical weapon.

Its effects can be immediate and severe, depending on level of exposure.

Phosphine gas wasn’t known 100 years ago. Had it been, it may have been used in the war in Europe.

Known as the chemists’ war, the First World War industrialised production of many new chemicals….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist: Fatal pesticide linked to chemical weapons…

Organic, by definition, includes contradictory meanings

28. March 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Keiran's World, Science Scribe, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Photo © Ray Frances Ong, via flickr and Creative Commons

Photo © Ray Frances Ong, via flickr and Creative Commons

 

I hope the organic food I purchase is “organic,” even though I KNOW all the food I eat is organic.

I realise that sounds confusing, but the word organic has many definitions.

The B.C. Government recently announced it would introduce regulations to govern the word’s use by food producers.

As we know, some farmers undergo extensive and expensive certification to demonstrate they’ve eliminated chemically made fertilizers, hormones and pesticides and genetically altered seed from their operations. Under B.C. and Canadian law, these producers may legally call their products “certified organic.”

Some other farmers eliminate the nasty stuff, but aren’t certified organic. These operations tend to be small and often lease farmland instead of owning it. Current regulations permit them to call their products organic, unsprayed, or pesticide free, provided they don’t market or sell their products outside B.C., or claim certification.

A third group of producers and sellers may exist who don’t use organic practices, but market their goods as such. The intended regulations mostly are meant to stifle these claims.

In these examples, we use Merriam-Webster’s definition of organic—“of, relating to, yielding, or involving the use of food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin without employment of chemically made fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides.”

The dictionary’s other definitions of organic encompass broader meanings—for example, “of, relating to, or derived from living organisms” and “of, relating to, or containing carbon compounds.” These definitions turn the organic word-world into a muddy, microbe-infested swamp of connotation and implication….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Night-sky marathon draws hardy enthusiasts

15. March 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Keiran's World, Science Scribe, Vancouver Island, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Ring Nebula. Photo © NASA
Orion nebula. Photo © NASA

Orion nebula. Photo © NASA

Ring Nebula. Photo © NASA

Ring Nebula. Photo © NASA

Next weekend, a few hardy members of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Victoria chapter will mark the start of spring with a little-known ritual. Clear skies willing, they will stay up until dawn on Sunday to participate in an astronomical test of endurance, knowledge and night-sky navigation skills.

Their marathon differs from most. Instead of running long distances, participants will spend the night hunched over their telescope eyepieces, twiddling knobs and adjusting their instruments by hand.  They seek not to cover territory on the ground, but in the sky. Their goal is to locate 110 very specific heavenly objects before dawn. The objects were first catalogued by a French astronomer named Charles Messier more than two centuries ago….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Perceptions change as our cities evolve

13. March 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: 14 Column Inches, Keiran's World, Science Scribe, Victoria Times Colonist · Tags: , , , , , , ,
One block along Victoria's Government Street. Photo © Jason Vanderhill, via flickr & Creative Commons
One block along Victoria's Government Street. Photo © Jason Vanderhill, via flickr & Creative Commons

One block along Victoria’s Government Street. Photo © Jason Vanderhill, via flickr & Creative Commons

I have little need for t-shirts, caps or jackets emblazoned with our capital’s name. I don’t bother with coasters, tea cozies or trinkets to remind me of my day-to-day existence here.

When I can step out my door to live the dream, I rarely think of shops that sell souvenirs to people who visit and want reminders of their brief time here.

I’m not the intended market.

However, a market clearly exists to keep the souvenir-type shops along Government Street in business, year after year.

They comprise about a dozen of the 50 or so shops along the eight blocks between Humboldt to Fisgard streets. This stretch of Government Street has been in the news lately, after Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps suggested lowering commercial property taxes along the street to encourage revitalization. The number of empty storefronts and For Rent signs—13 blackened storefronts at recent count—prompted her proposal.

Yet, while shops catering mostly to tourists are a minority along that stretch, their presence greatly influences the street’s informal, local brand. When many local residents think of Government street, it is often these shops that come to mind – and long lines of idling tour buses, sidewalk-clogging crowds, and phalanxes of kamikaze scooters.

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

 

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