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Industrial Archaeology

Industrial ARCHAEOLOGY is a type of interdisciplinary history that promotes understanding of the industrial era by focusing on physical remains, whether above ground or below, and by combining the insights of fieldwork and historical research.

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Balloon

 Balloon, vehicle that can rise within Earth's atmosphere because its total weight is less than that of the air it displaces. This principle was first enunciated by Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes.

Macleans

The Spread of SARS

IT WAS NOT what health-care officials had hoped for, to say the least. Only a week earlier, one of Health Canada's leading authorities on infectious diseases had speculated that SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome - might actually be "easy to control.

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Babiche

Babiche is a type of string traditionally made by Indigenous peoples from rawhide and had multiple uses, such as to lace snowshoes, fishing nets, drumheads and the like. Though typically considered a French Canadian term, babiche is an Algonquian word, loosely translating to “cord” (in Mi’kmaq, ababich) or “thread” (in Ojibwa, assabâbish).

Macleans

West Nile Virus Precautions

THEY'LL SOON be here, riding the warm currents of summer: MOSQUITOES armed with the latest bioweapon - the West Nile VIRUS. Short of building a concrete bunker or setting up an unhealthy fog of repellent spray, there are ways of safeguarding the pasty flesh of Canuckus winterus.

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Genetically Modified Foods

GM plants were first marketed in the 1990s. The first commercialized GM crop was a TOMATO called Flavr Savr (resistant to rotting), marketed in 1994 by a US-based company, Calgene. Since then, many GM crops have been commercialized.

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Medicinal Crops

About a third of the world's estimated 400 000 species of higher or vascular plants have probably been used for medicinal purposes by indigenous societies, generally in a raw or minimally processed form.

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Nortel

Nortel Networks Corporation, or simply Nortel, was a public telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer. Founded in 1895 as the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company, it was one of Canada’s oldest technology companies. Nortel expanded rapidly during the dot-com boom (1997–2001), purchasing many Internet technology companies in a drive to remain competitive in the expanding information technology (IT) market. At its height in 2000, the company represented over 35 per cent of the value of Toronto’s TSE 300 index. It was the ninth most valuable corporation in the world and employed about 94,000 people worldwide at its peak. But Nortel soon entered an extended and painful period of corporate downsizing, and in 2009, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in the largest corporate failure in Canadian history. Shareholders, employees and pensioners suffered losses as a result. Company executives, however, were paid a total US$190 million in retention bonuses between 2009 and 2016. Nortel sold off its assets for a total US$7.3 billion. Those assets were scheduled to be distributed to Nortel’s bondholders, suppliers and former employees in 2017.

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Greenhouse Crops

Today's greenhouse industry uses the most modern technologies, which allow it to reduce their negative effects on the environment, to considerably improve the energetic efficiency of crops (used energy by unit production) and thus to remain competitive in national and international markets.

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Gerontology

Gerontology is the scientific study of AGING and its consequences including psychological, biological, and social changes confronting individuals, the social and economic issues created by growing numbers of older people in a population, and the opportunities older age brings with it.

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Archaeology

The archaeological record is sometimes divided into historic and prehistoric periods, depending on the availability of written sources. In Canada, the prehistoric record extends back as much as 30 000 years (see Prehistory) in unglaciated portions of the northern Yukon.

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Mediterranean Archaeology

ItalyThe UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA has been active in southern Italy for several decades, in the ancient areas of Lucania and Apulia. This work started with the excavation of several indigenous pre-Roman sites, such as Botromagno, Monte Irsi and Roccagloriosa.

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Tommy Douglas and Eugenics

Tommy Douglas — the father of socialized medicine in Canada and one of the country’s most beloved figures — once supported eugenic policies. In 1933, he received a Master of Arts in sociology from McMaster University for his thesis, “The Problems of the Subnormal Family.” In the thesis, Douglas recommended several eugenic policies, including the sterilization of “mental defectives and those incurably diseased.” His ideas were not unique, as two Canadian provinces (and 32 American states) passed sexual-sterilization legislation in the 1920s and 1930s. However, by the time Douglas became premier of Saskatchewan in 1944, he had abandoned his support for eugenic policies. When Douglas received two reports that recommended legalizing sexual sterilization in the province, he rejected the idea.

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Sterilization of Indigenous Women in Canada

The practice of sterilization arose out of the eugenics movement and has a long, often hidden history in Canada. Sterilization legislation in Alberta (1928–72) and British Columbia (1933–73) attempted to limit the reproduction of “unfit” persons, and increasingly targeted Indigenous women. Coerced sterilization of Indigenous women took place both within and outside existing legislation, and in federally operated Indian hospitals. The practice has continued into the 21st century. Approximately 100 Indigenous women have alleged that they were pressured to consent to sterilization between the 1970s and 2018, often while in the vulnerable state of pregnancy or childbirth.

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Palaeontology

Palaeontology is the study of fossils, gives us knowledge of past life, helps us understand the nature of ancient organisms and provides information about the composition of the biomass of past times.