to read
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Driving through Canada’s Acadian history : Road Trips, Canada
For most Canada-bound visitors, the country’s rich French culture – the result of a colonial movement that began in the 1600s – is well known. But while many New France pioneers settled in what later became the province of Quebec, where more than six million Francophones live today, others called the adjoining east coast region, now known as the Maritimes, home. Related article: A theatrical journey into Canada's Charlevoix
7 May 2013 Last updated at 14:06 GMT In the 1980s scientists made a tobacco plant glow A glowing plant that could provide a sustainable light source has caught the imagination of backers on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. With a month still to go, the project has raised $243,000 (£157,000). Its initial goal was $65,000.
Kickstarter crowd gives glowing plant the green light
Applicants wanted for a one way ticket to Mars
17 April 2013 Last updated at 00:12 GMT By Melissa Hogenboom BBC News Want to go to Mars? Dutch organisation Mars One says it will open applications imminently. It would be a one-way trip, and the company hopes to build a community of settlers on the planet. Uncharted waters, mountains or far away lands have always drawn explorers.
12 March 2013 Last updated at 20:50 ET By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News The eyes have it: The Neanderthal skull (L) has larger eye sockets compared with a modern human skull (R).
Neanderthals' large eyes 'caused their demise'
8 March 2013 Last updated at 02:26 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Continue reading the main story Scientists have their best measure yet for the amount of ice in Antarctica. A detailed analysis of data compiled during 50 years of exploration shows the White Continent to contain about 26-and-a-half-million cubic km. It is a colossal volume, and to put that in some sort of context: if this ice was all converted to liquid water, it would be sufficient to raise the height of the world's oceans by 58m.
Antarctic ice volume measured
If zombies do eventually strike in Quebec, the province's public security department wants to be ready. Participants at an annual symposium on civil security next week will be discussing how to handle a zombie attack in the province, among other topics. The zombies, of course, are hypothetical.
Quebec prepares for hypothetical zombie attack - Montreal
6 February 2013 Last updated at 12:56 ET By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News Just next door to our nearest red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri, is a star known to host an exoplanet The nearest habitable, Earth-sized planet could be just 13 light-years away, research suggests. An analysis of small, dim "red dwarf" stars - which make up a majority of stars in our galaxy - shows that 6% of them host such a planet. The results will appear in Astrophysical Journal. Study co-author David Charbonneau of Harvard University said the findings had implications for the search for life elsewhere.
Exoplanets near red dwarfs suggest another Earth nearer
26 November 2012 Last updated at 22:07 By Michelle Warwicker BBC Nature Lemmings became "regionally extinct" five times due to rapid climate change during the last Ice Age, scientists have found. Each extinction was followed by a re-colonisation of genetically different lemmings, according to the study. It investigated how Europe's small mammals fared during the era when large numbers of megafauna became extinct. Previously, experts believed that small mammals were largely unaffected during the Late Pleistocene.
BBC Nature - Ice Age warmth wiped out lemmings, study finds
11 September 2012 Last updated at 05:48 ET
Who, What, Why: In which countries is Coca-Cola not sold?
26 November 2012 Last updated at 17:21 GMT By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News Doctors have warned of a "lack of knowledge" about the dangers of mixing some medications with grapefruit. The fruit can cause overdoses of some drugs by stopping the medicines being broken down in the intestines and the liver. The researchers who first identified the link said the number of drugs that became dangerous with grapefruit was increasing rapidly.
Grapefruit and pills mix warning
Grapefruit juice reacts with expanding list of drugs | Sympatico.ca News
Grapefruit juice is known to interact with some types of medications, leading to an overdose hazard . Bailey reviews new product monographs and prescribing information for the Canadian Pharmacists Association, and keeps a close eye on those with the potential to produce serious adverse reactions. "What I've noticed over the last four years is really quite a disturbing trend, and that is the increase in the number of drugs that can produce not only adverse reactions but extraordinarily serious adverse drug reactions," Bailey said. "Between 2008 and 2012, the number of drugs in the list has gone from 17 to now 44." Many of the drugs are common, such as some cholesterol-lowering statins, antibiotics and calcium channel blockers used to treat high blood pressure.Scientists say they have the best evidence to date pinpointing the substance in grapefruit that can interact dangerously with some drugs. Grapefruit is known to increase the rate at which some drugs - including cholesterol and blood pressure medications - enter the blood stream. It was thought the flavonoids that make grapefruit taste bitter were to blame. But a US study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests other chemicals - furanocoumarins - are key. The drugs affected by grapefruit juice usually have some difficulty entering the body after they are consumed because an intestinal enzyme partially destroys them as they are absorbed. Grapefruit juice, but not other commonly consumed fruit juices, inhibits this enzyme, allowing more of these drugs to enter the body.
Health | Clue to grapefruit drug reaction
Risk of robot uprising wiping out human race to be studied
26 November 2012 Last updated at 13:28 ET In The Terminator, the machines start to turn on the humans Cambridge researchers are to assess whether technology could end up destroying human civilisation. The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) will study dangers posed by biotechnology, artificial life, nanotechnology and climate change. The scientists said that to dismiss concerns of a potential robot uprising would be "dangerous". Fears that machines may take over have been central to the plot of some of the most popular science fiction films.13 April 2012 Last updated at 11:12 ET
Majorana particle glimpsed in lab
11 July 2012 Last updated at 19:36 ET By Mukti Jain Campion Writer and radio producer In 1872 two men began work on a lexicon of words of Asian origin used by the British in India. Since its publication the 1,000-page dictionary has never been out of print and a new edition is due out next year.