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Health News Science

Canadian Awards Predict Nobel Prize Winners

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The Gairdner Foundation recently announced the winners of its 2012 awards.

The Canada Gairdner Awards are given to people who have made a new scientific discovery to combat disease or ease human suffering. It is one of the most important medical awards in the world.

As the Gairdner website puts it, “we’re dedicated to recognizing the world’s most creative and accomplished biomedical scientists.” Biomedical scientists work in medicine and biology (the study of living organisms).

The late James A. Gairdner established the Gairdner Foundation in 1957. Since then, 300 awards have been given. Seventy-three of those award winners have gone on to win a Nobel Prize in either medicine or chemistry.

The awards are selected by Canadians, but they are given to scientists throughout the world.

This year’s seven award winners include three people who broke through mysteries of the human circadian clock, the internal mechanism that controls our sleep and wakefulness, body temperature, and many other functions.

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Breaking News News Politics

Canada’s Plan To Balance Its Budget By 2015

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Last week Canada’s Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, spent $138.98 on a new pair of black dress shoes.

Why? Because he was announcing a new budget.

Flaherty is in charge of presenting Canada’s budget, which is why he bought the new shoes.

It’s a tradition in Canada that the Finance Minister wears new shoes to present the budget.

According to Wikipedia no one really knows why, but it’s something most Canadian Finance Ministers have done since the 1960s. It’s a tradition.

This year, the federal government structured its budget to reduce Canada’s annual deficit to zero by 2015.

A deficit happens when a government spends more than it collects in a year.

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News

Candy, Coins Scattered Across Highway After Truck Accident

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Millions of dollars worth of coins, and a load of candy, were scattered along the Trans-Canada Highway and in the bush in northeastern Ontario on Wednesday.

A Brink’s tractor-trailer truck was driving along Highway 11 north of Kirkland Lake, when it hit a rock cut.

In this case, rock cuts are steep, rocky cliffs on either side of the highway created when a highway is carved through a hill.

They are common in northern Ontario.

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Environment News Science

Does Ancient Antarctic Lake Hold Secrets To Life In Outer Space?

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A team of Russian scientists in Antarctica has found an ancient lake buried under more than three kilometres of ice.

The lake – Lake Vostok – has been sealed off from the rest of the world for at least 15 million years.

Scientists think the lake may contain tiny organisms, like bacteria, which are not found anywhere else on earth.

If the organisms exist in the lake, it would be because they have been able to adapt to living in the darkness, saltiness and extreme cold of the hidden lake. In that case, they would likely have developed special features that no other organisms on earth have.

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Sports

Rockies Pitcher Jamie Moyer Not Letting Age Deter Him

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Major League Baseball (MLB) begins on April 4.

Until then, the baseball players are in spring training to fine-tune their skills.

The teams, fans and players are hoping to have a great year—and none more so than 49-year-old pitching hopeful, Jamie Moyer.

If Moyer wins a game this season, he’ll be the oldest pitcher in MLB history to win a regular season game according to the Elias Sports Bureau, an organization that keeps track of baseball statistics.

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News Politics

Mulcair Elected As Leader Of NDP, Official Opposition

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Thomas Mulcair is the new leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP).

Mulcair was elected, after a gruelling 12 hours of voting, at the NDP’s convention on the weekend.

The NDP is the political party that is Canada’s “official opposition” to the country’s governing party, the Conservatives.

As leader of the federal NDP, Mulcair will also become the leader of the Official Opposition.

The NDP had to elect a new leader after their last leader, Jack Layton, passed away from cancer in August 2011.

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Breaking News Kids News

High Park Residents Unite To Rebuild “Castle”

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People in the community of High Park in Toronto have come together to rebuild a special playground there.

On March 17, an early-morning blaze destroyed a section of the castle-like wooden playground in the park.

Police and fire officials are investigating to find out the cause of the fire.

In the meantime, local residents and business owners are already actively planning and raising funds to rebuild the one-of-a-kind structure.

The Jamie Bell Adventure Playground, where the “castle” was, is in High Park, just north of Lake Ontario in Toronto.

It opened in 1999 and is named after a Toronto resident whose idea it was to build the unique playground.

Members of the community are pulling together again to rebuild the portions damaged by the fire.

And it’s not just local residents who have offered to assist; Canadian Tire has pledged a significant donation towards the project.

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Breaking News Kids News

Toronto Librarians On Strike But Kids’ Website Stays Open

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Toronto’s 98 libraries are temporarily closed after talks between representatives for the City of Toronto and the library workers’ union broke down last Sunday.

Last Monday, 2,300 library workers set up picket lines at libraries. A picket line, in this case, is where the library workers march with signs that tell the public what they want from the City of Toronto, which pays their salary. Picketing is a way of letting people know that a deal needs to be made before they will go back to work.

What do both sides want?
Library workers are looking for job security*, especially for part-time workers. Part-timers want the city to let them work more hours during the week, says Maureen O’Reilly, president of the Toronto Library Workers Union. The City wants workers to be part-time because it cannot pay full-time salaries.

The deadline for a deal has come and gone four times but the two parties cannot agree on how to settle their differences. The library workers decided that a strike was the only option left for them.

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News Science Technology

DNA Reveals Clues About “Ötzi The Iceman”

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Scientists studying a 5,000-year-old mummy have learned that the man had brown eyes and hair and that he couldn’t digest milk. They also think he may have relatives alive today.

The mummy is nicknamed “Ötzi the Iceman.” He was discovered in 1991 by two people hiking in the Alps in Italy.

By examining the body, scientists found that Ötzi (pronounced “`oetsi”) died from an arrow wound about 5,300 years ago. His body was preserved by ice and snow.

They discovered that he about 45 years old when he died, 1.6 metres tall and weighed 50 kilograms. He wore a goatskin coat, had shoes made from grass and deerskin, and he carried a bow, an arrow and some tools.

Recently scientists have learned even more about the Iceman, by studying his DNA. DNA is a collection of molecules that contains information about the characteristics of an individual plant or animal. This information is stored in the cells that make up each individual.

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