Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 07 Jan, 2025 05:24 PM
Researchers have discovered sea sponges' ability to sneeze like people after a study off the B-C coast.
University of Alberta professor Sally Leys says a study into the behaviour of a sea sponge nicknamed Belinda over four years found the animal doing slow-motion sneeze-like contractions lasting about a day.
Leys says the motion was used to clear out debris accumulated while it was filter feeding.
Leys says hundreds of hours of video was collected during the study off Vancouver Island's coast between 2012 and 2015.
Police in Maple Ridge have seized stolen firearms, jewellery, and illegal drugs in relation to a break and enter investigation. Ridge Meadows R-C-M-P say they responded to a report of a break and enter back in November at a home in Maple Ridge and the alleged suspects were identified.
The Canada Border Services Agency says a 34-year-old Vancouver resident has been arrested for their suspected involvement in a cigarette smuggling operation. It says an investigation into the operation was launched in February after C-B-S-A officers intercepted numerous contraband cigarette shipments at Vancouver International Airport Commercial Operations and the Vancouver International Mail Centre.
A landslide that blocked railway tracks has stopped Amtrak passenger service between Vancouver and Seattle. Amtrak says in a statement Thursday that the landslide near White Rock, B.C., led Burlington Northern Santa Fa Railway to place a 48-hour moratorium on passenger service.
For the first time since the pandemic, Canada had a year-over-year decline in its greenhouse gas emissions — though it is still a long way off its 2030 target. A preliminary emissions report Thursday from the federal government shows greenhouse gases emitted in 2023 fell by six million tonnes compared to 2022, the equivalent to what about 1.4 million passenger vehicles emit over the course of a year.
A former Hells Angels clubhouse that was seized by the British Columbia government in 2023 after years of fighting in court has been sold to the City of Kelowna. A statement from Public Safety Minister Garry Begg says the sale of the home in Kelowna includes a "right of entry," which means the province's civil forfeiture office can take the property back if it is ever acquired and used for organized crime in the future.
Health officials in British Columbia say at least 64 people have become sick after eating raw oysters from restaurants and retail locations.
A statement from the BC Centre for Disease Control and the provincial health authority says the "norovirus-like" gastrointestinal illnesses have been reported since Nov. 1 in the Vancouver Coastal Health, Fraser Health and Island Health regions.
