Science & Earth

A 2026 NPJ Space Exploration study reports scarp-fronted deposits in Southeast Coprates Chasma that resemble river deltas and align at a common elevation, which the authors interpret as a coastline marking a high-water level across Mars' northern hemisphere.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Prince Rupert to meet the Coastal First Nations Alliance, Haisla and Lax Kw'alaams to discuss major projects including possible pipelines and marine conservation; First Nations leaders have publicly opposed the federal-Alberta pipeline agreement.

A study led by the University of Arizona reports scientists are describing about 16,000 species a year, and the research emphasizes that formal taxonomy is a key step for conservation.

Schmidt Space has proposed the $500 million Lazuli Space Observatory as a privately funded, faster-built flagship aimed at rapid follow-up of short-lived cosmic events, with a planned 3–5 year development timeline.

ESA's Mars Express imaged elongated yardangs near the northern Eumenides Dorsum, showing uniformly oriented ridges formed by persistent wind erosion; the scene also includes a fresh impact crater and ancient platy lava flow.

Astronomers used transit-timing variations to weigh four planets around the 20‑million‑year‑old star V1298 Tau and found they are very low density despite large radii; the researchers report these planets will lose atmosphere and contract over billions of years into the compact super‑Earths and sub‑Neptunes common in the Milky Way.

Volunteers with The Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) record backyard rainfall and snowfall across North America and submit those hyper-local readings online; agencies including the U.S. National Weather Service and conservation authorities use the data.

Part four of a series questions the mathematical-universe hypothesis, highlighting objections tied to Occam's razor, added assumptions like a multiverse, Gödel-related limits, and whether mathematics is discovered or invented.

Astronomers report a precessing black hole jet extending about 20,000 light-years in the disk galaxy VV340a, based on Keck, JWST and VLA observations; the structure appears to strip gas and may suppress star formation.

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Dec. 6 near the Alaska–Yukon border exposed a fault beneath glaciers, prompting the Yukon Geological Survey to carry out helicopter reconnaissance and field mapping. Scientists say the event provides direct evidence for a decades-old hypothesis about fault connections in a complex plate boundary region.

Researchers report that same-sex sexual behaviour is widespread across animals, including primates, and has been observed in more than 1,500 species; recent work suggests it can be partly inherited and may offer evolutionary benefits.

A University of Toronto analysis published in Science Advances finds that changes in NOAA instruments and methods made satellite records appear to show more autumn snow cover, while the corrected record indicates a decline in Northern Hemisphere autumn snow extent.

Astronomers report AT2024wpp (nicknamed Whippet), a luminous fast blue optical transient 1.1 billion light‑years away, and find its properties are consistent with a star being disrupted by a black hole companion.

The Sentinels of Change Alliance, a UBC–Hakai Institute partnership partly funded by an NSERC Alliance Grant and the Tula Foundation, brings together 26 researchers to coordinate biodiversity monitoring across the Salish Sea; the project is midway through its five‑year funding and includes an open-data policy and a community Light Trap Network.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory identified asteroid 2025 MN45, a 710-meter object in the main asteroid belt that rotates every 1.88 minutes, and reported the finding as part of the first published science results from its LSST commissioning data.

A survey combining Hubble, JWST and ALMA data tracked 18 early galaxies (z = 4–6) and found they accumulated heavy elements faster than expected and host numerous previously undetected active galactic nuclei.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Venezuelan oil and money would no longer go to Cuba, and activists reported heavy casualties amid nationwide protests in Iran; the Supreme Court of Canada will hear the WE Charity conflict-of-interest challenge this week.

The Ontario government provided $18 million to allow McMaster’s on-campus reactor to operate 24/7, enabling increased medical isotope production and expanded student research and training opportunities.

This article explains the mathematical universe hypothesis, which holds that reality is a mathematical structure and contrasts the 'bird' view (seeing the whole structure) with the 'frog' view (being inside it). It also notes Gödel's incompleteness objection and Tegmark's suggestion that only computable mathematical structures might be realized.

NASA announced an early return of SpaceX Crew-11 after a crew member required medical care; the capsule is scheduled to splash down off California on Jan. 15 at approximately 3:40 a.m. EST and the crew member is reported to be in stable condition.

Kepler Communications launched 10 Canadian-built satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 flight that also carried NASA’s Pandora exoplanet telescope; deployment of all payloads was confirmed about 2½ hours after liftoff.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope report a barred spiral galaxy, COSMOS-74706, dated to about 11.5 billion years ago, and presented the finding at the AAS meeting on Jan. 8, 2026.

Researchers identified new diterpene esters in roasted Coffea arabica that inhibited α‑glucosidase in laboratory tests, with some showing lower IC50 values than the drug acarbose. The team used a three-step, activity‑focused workflow combining NMR and LC‑MS/MS; the work appears in Beverage Plant Research.

Researchers at UBC Okanagan developed a dual-layer membrane that lab tests show captured nearly all microplastics and more than 98% of nanoplastics in landfill leachate.

Environment Canada warns of strong winds across Newfoundland from Sunday night into Tuesday, with yellow and orange warnings in effect and coastal snowfall up to 40 cm on the west coast.

A Dalhousie student made textured clay pots from locally foraged clay, seeded them with kelp spores in a lab, and placed the pots at Cranberry Cove as an underwater art installation; Nova Scotia kelp populations have declined amid warmer ocean temperatures.

The Vancouver Aquarium opens a permanent gallery called Amazing Axolotls that expands its axolotl display and highlights the species' biology, cultural roots and conservation concerns.

Global average temperatures exceeded 1.5°C in 2024 after reaching about 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels in 2023, and some wildfires in British Columbia are reported to still be burning underground.

A birder with the Yukon Bird Club reported seeing four white-tailed ptarmigan on Boxing Day at Haeckel Hill during the 2025 Christmas Bird Count, and organizers say the long-running census helps document shifts in bird populations.

Researchers at Jeonbuk National University developed a triboelectric nanogenerator design using hierarchical porous two-dimensional copper nanosheets that reportedly improves electrical output and mechanical stability, and the material can be produced by a scalable spray-coating method.