An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Oil and gas companies are gearing up to invest in so many new projects that they'll blow away potential progress to mitigate emissions and stop worst-case climate scenarios, says a new investigation from the Guardian. Why describe them as bombs? If completed, these projects would push climate change well past the 1.5-degree Celsius warming target that the Paris Agreement has set for the world. These projects would literally blow through our carbon budget, the Guardian reports.

But how will this be financed? Oil prices are currently sky high at the pump, and the two largest petroleum companies in the U.S. -- Chevron and ExxonMobil -- have raked in record profits. That means that large fossil fuel companies can bet on expansion projects that could dish even bigger payouts, the Guardian found. [...] The Guardian's investigation found that about 60% of these projects are already pumping, and Canada, Australia, and the U.S. are among the nations with the biggest fossil fuel project expansion plans. The commitment to these projects is pretty clear. Large companies, including Shell, Chevron, BP, PetroChina, and Total Energies, are set to spend over $100 million a day for the rest of this decade on creating projects in new oil and gas fields. This is despite the fact that we might be on track to meet 1.5 degrees of warming in the next four years. In an editorial follow-up to their investigation, the Guardian says "governments much find ways to promote the long-term health of the planet over short-term profit." They added: "There is no alternative but to force companies to write off the most dangerous investments."

Disney added 7.9 million new subscribers to its Disney Plus streaming service during the first three months of 2022, the company announced (PDF) in its Q2 earnings report on Wednesday. The Verge reports: That brings the total to around 87.6 million worldwide, excluding the 50.1 million people subscribed to Disney Plus Hotstar internationally. In the US and Canada alone, Disney Plus now has 7.1 million more subscribers than it did a year ago, with 44.4 million. The company also said that the number of subscribers for all of its streaming offerings -- including Hulu and ESPN Plus -- had grown to over 205 million, an increase from the 196.4 million it reported in January.

Disney also reports that it's earning more per Disney Plus subscriber than it had been previously, at least in the US. Where its average monthly revenue per paid subscriber used to be $6.01, it's now sitting at $6.32. Disney says this is thanks to "an increase in retail pricing and a lower mix of wholesale subscribers." Despite this, Disney Plus is actually losing the company money at a greater clip than it was before. Disney says this is thanks to higher costs for production, advertising, and technology. Those costs seem unlikely to go down, and raising prices, like Netflix did, could cut off its subscriber growth. All that put together makes it obvious why Disney is looking at creating an ad-supported tier sooner rather than later.

Google has signed deals to pay more than 300 publishers in Germany, France and four other EU countries for their news and will roll out a tool to make it easier for others to sign up too, the company told Reuters. From the report: The move to be announced publicly later on Wednesday followed the adoption of landmark EU copyright rules three years ago that require Google and other online platforms to pay musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists for using their work. News publishers, among Google's fiercest critics, have long urged governments to ensure online platforms pay fair remuneration for their content. Australia last year made such payments mandatory while Canada introduced similar legislation last month. The blog did not say how much publishers were being paid. Two-thirds of this group are German publishers including Der Spiegel, Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "So far, we have agreements which cover more than 300 national, local and specialist news publications in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland, with many more discussions ongoing," Sulina Connal, director for news and publishing partnerships, said in blog post. "We are now announcing the launch of a new tool to make offers to thousands more news publishers, starting in Germany and Hungary, and rolling out to other EU countries over the coming months," Connal said in the blogpost.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Now, a team has for the first time mapped a huge, actively circulating groundwater system in deep sediments in West Antarctica. They say such systems, probably common in Antarctica, may have as-yet unknown implications for how the frozen continent reacts to, or possibly even contributes to, climate change. The research appears today in the journal Science. [...] The researchers in the new study concentrated on the 60-mile-wide Whillans Ice Stream, one of a half-dozen fast-moving streams feeding the Ross Ice Shelf, the world's largest, at about the size of Canada's Yukon Territory. Prior research has revealed a subglacial lake within the ice, and a sedimentary basin stretching beneath it. Shallow drilling into the first foot or so of sediments has brought up liquid water and a thriving community of microbes. But what lies further down has been a mystery.

The team used a technique called magnetotelluric imaging, which measures the penetration into the earth of natural electromagnetic energy generated high in the planet's atmosphere. Ice, sediments, fresh water, salty water and bedrock all conduct electromagnetic energy to different degrees; by measuring the differences, researchers can create MRI-like maps of the different elements. The team planted their instruments in snow pits for a day or so at a time, then dug them out and relocated them, eventually taking readings at some four dozen locations. They also reanalyzed natural seismic waves emanating from the earth that had been collected by another team, to help distinguish bedrock, sediment and ice. Their analysis showed that, depending on location, the sediments extend below the base of the ice from a half kilometer to nearly two kilometers before hitting bedrock. And they confirmed that the sediments are loaded with liquid water all the way down. The researchers estimate that if all of it were extracted, it would form a water column from 220 to 820 meters high -- at least 10 times more than in the shallow hydrologic systems within and at the base of the ice -- maybe much more even than that.

Salty water conducts energy better than fresh water, so they were also able to show that the groundwater becomes more saline with depth. Key said this makes sense, because the sediments are believed to have been formed in a marine environment long ago. Ocean waters probably last reached what is now the area covered by the Whillans during a warm period some 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, saturating the sediments with salt water. When the ice readvanced, fresh melt water produced by pressure from above and friction at the ice base was evidently forced into the upper sediments. It probably continues to filter down and mix in today. The researchers say this slow draining of fresh water into the sediments could prevent water from building up at the base of the ice. This could act as a brake on the ice's forward motion. Measurements by other scientists at the ice stream's grounding line -- the point where the landbound ice stream meets the floating ice shelf -- show that the water there is somewhat less salty than normal seawater. This suggests that fresh water is flowing through the sediments to the ocean, making room for more melt water to enter, and keeping the system stable. The direction of water flow could be reversed if the ice surface were to thin, warn the researchers. "Overlying pressures would decrease, and deeper groundwater could begin welling up toward the ice base," reports Phys.Org. "This could further lubricate the base of the ice and increase its forward motion. Furthermore, if deep groundwater flows upward, it could carry up geothermal heat naturally generated in the bedrock; this could further thaw the base of the ice and propel it forward."

If the groundwater begins moving upward, it would bring up the dissolved carbon used by the microbes living in the shallow sediments. "Lateral groundwater flow would then send some of this carbon to the ocean," reports Phys.Org. "This would possibly turn Antarctica into a so-far unconsidered source of carbon in a world already swimming in it."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Peoples Dispatch: Mexico has officially nationalized its lithium industry. On April 21, the bill, proposed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), that modified the mining law to give the state the exclusive right to explore, exploit and use the valuable metal entered into force. According to the law, published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, the executive or the president now has 90 days to create a decentralized state company that will deal with all lithium-related matters. [...] The new mining law recognizes lithium as a heritage of the nation, and reserves it for the benefit of the people of Mexico. It elevates lithium to the category of "strategic mineral," and prohibits granting concessions, licenses, contracts, permits, assignments or authorizations for its exploitation to private corporations.

The president emphasized that lithium is a strategic element for the development of the nation, and its effective exploitation can contribute to economic growth. He said that his administration would work to develop necessary technology to take the best advantage of their lithium, ensuring that it does not harm the health of the population, the environment, or the rights of Indigenous people. He also took the opportunity to reiterate that his administration would review all lithium contracts. He requested that the shareholders and managers of the companies and corporations begin to establish a dialogue with their legal representatives. There is only one lithium mine in Mexico, operated by Chinese firm Ganfeng Lithium, which is slated to produce 35,000 tons of the metal per year starting in 2023. In the coming days, it will be discussed if that will be taken over by the government.

Meanwhile, the right-wing opposition criticized nationalization of lithium. Some legislators from the opposition National Action Party (PAN) and Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who voted against the reform, said that it would severely affect the development in the mining of the metal, arguing that the Mexican government has no experience in mining lithium. Others criticized that it violated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and would bring trade tensions. Nevertheless, the people of Mexico have expressed their approval of the president and his policies. A number of social organizations and trade unions have praised the president and the ruling center-left MORENA party, recalling that the nationalization of lithium in Bolivia during former president Evo Morales' rule helped the country achieve high levels of economic and social growth. "Lithium is considered an important resource due to its importance for the development of batteries used for electric cars," notes the report. "According to data from the US Geological Survey, Mexico has 1.7 million tons of lithium mining reserves."

Nigerian banks have been hit by an exodus of tech talent, chief executives of the nation's lenders say. From a report: "So many of our very experienced talents especially in the area of software engineering are either leaving the industry or leaving the country," Abubakar Suleiman, chief executive officer of Sterling Bank, told reporters at the end of a meeting of bank CEOs on Thursday, according to a voice recording shared by the central bank. He referred to it as a "great resignation." The meeting came as traditional lenders in Africa's largest economy face stiff competition for talent from technology startups attracting increased funding from international investors and offering better working conditions, in and outside the country. Africa-focused startups raised a record $5 billion last year, with those specializing in digital and mobile payments and lending soaking up most of the funding. Two economic contractions in the last five years have also forced some Nigerians with globally marketable skills to leave the country, with the U.S., Canada and U.K. being preferred destinations.

Scientists believe they have found evidence of microbes that were thriving near hydrothermal vents on Earth's surface just 300m years after the planet formed -- the strongest evidence yet that life began far earlier than is widely assumed. From a report: If confirmed, it would suggest the conditions necessary for the emergence of life are relatively basic. "If life is relatively quick to emerge, given the right conditions, this increases the chance that life exists on other planets," said Dominic Papineau, of University College London, who led the research. Five years ago, Papineau and colleagues announced they had found microfossils in iron-rich sedimentary rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq supracrustal belt in Quebec, Canada. The team suggested that these tiny filaments, knobs and tubes of an iron oxide called haematite could have been made by bacteria living around hydrothermal vents that used iron-based chemical reactions to obtain their energy.

Scientific dating of the rocks has suggested they are at least 3.75bn years old, and possibly as old as 4.28bn years, the age of the volcanic rocks they are embedded in. Before this, the oldest reported microfossils dated to 3.46bn and 3.7bn years ago, potentially making the Canadian specimens the oldest direct evidence of life on Earth. Now, further analysis of the rock has revealed a much larger and more complex structure -- a stem with parallel branches on one side that is nearly a centimetre long -- as well as hundreds of distorted spheres, or ellipsoids, alongside the tubes and filaments.

Amazon is launching a big recruiting push aimed at teens who are about to graduate high school, in the e-commerce giant's latest effort to keep its sprawling network of warehouses staffed up in a tight labor market. The Information: In a hiring drive set to kick off next month, Amazon will attend events at schools across the U.S. and Canada, a person briefed on the matter said. The effort will involve recruiters going to hundreds of high school career days to talk up college tuition benefits and other perks of working at Amazon, the person said. Not having enough workers has already eaten into the company's bottom line. Amazon said operational disruptions from not being able to staff up its facilities during the 2021 holiday rush, along with inflationary pressures pushing up labor and transportation expenses, cost the company $4 billion in the fourth quarter. Further reading: Amazon workers made up almost half of all warehouse injuries last year.

Google is partnering with iFixit to sell official replacement parts for its Pixel phones later this year, making it easier for independent professionals and consumers to repair the devices. From a report: The news follows similar moves by Apple and Samsung and will cover models ranging from the Pixel 2 to the Pixel 6 Pro, along with future Pixel models. The parts will sold through ifixit.com and be available in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and European Union countries where Pixels are sold. The parts, which will include batteries, replacement displays and cameras, will be available either individually or in iFixit kits, which include tools needed to perform the repairs like specialty screwdriver bits, Google said.

Canada will offer a substantial incentive to companies that invest in carbon-capture technologies and will set aside as much as $3 billion over eight years to accelerate critical mineral exploration, extraction and processing as it seeks to cut carbon emissions. From a report In this year's budget presented on Thursday, Canada is introducing a 60% tax credit for equipment used to capture carbon from the air, and 50% for all other capture equipment, plus a 37.5% credit for transportation and storage equipment. Carbon capture and storage (CSS) facilities are expected to be a key part of global efforts to contain emissions from fossil fuels. Canada is the world's fourth-largest oil producer and has a set a goal of generating net-zero emissions by 2050. "For the oil and gas sector this tax credit, combined with the fact they are generating massive revenues right now, is more than enough to reduce the risk associated with going ahead with CCS projects," said Chris Severson-Baker, Alberta regional director at the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think-tank.

The federal Liberal government introduced legislation Tuesday to force digital giants to compensate news publishers for the use of their content. CBC News reports: The new regulatory regime would require companies like Google and the Meta Platforms-owned Facebook -- and other major online platforms that reproduce or facilitate access to news content -- to either pay up or go through a binding arbitration process led by an arms-length regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The compensation extracted from these digital giants must be used, in large part, to fund the creation of news content to protect the "sustainability of the Canadian news ecosystem," according to a government backgrounder distributed to reporters. The government is pitching the arrangement as a way to prop up an industry that has seen a steady decline since the emergence of the internet.

To preserve access to Canadian news, the federal government has adopted much of the so-called "Australian model," named after the country that first forced digital companies to pay for the use of news content. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, more than $190 million has been paid already to Australian media companies since the model was enacted last year. The big winners have been legacy media and larger media outlets.

The new Canadian scheme would require that Facebook, Google and other digital platforms that have "a bargaining imbalance with news businesses" make "fair commercial deals" with newspapers, news magazines, online news businesses, private and public broadcasters and certain non-Canadian news media that meet specific criteria. The goal is to have these digital platforms negotiate deals with publishers without the need for government intervention. [T]he amount of money each news business gets from these digital giants will be decided by those negotiations -- there's no preset formula. In the absence of some sort of voluntary arrangement, news businesses can initiate a mandatory bargaining process and go to a CRTC arbitration panel for a binding decision.

"Russia's Roscosmos will stop working with NASA and other western space agencies on the International Space Station," reports Engadget: On early Saturday morning, Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin slammed international sanctions against Russia and said normal cooperation between the space agency and its western counterparts would only be possible after they were lifted.... Rogozin said Roscosmos would submit proposals on ending its work with NASA and other international space agencies to Russian authorities.

It's unclear how the decision would affect the space station. The ISS is not owned by any single country. The US, European Union, Russia, Canada and Japan operate the station through a cooperative agreement between the countries. Roscosmos, however, is critical to the ISS. The Russian Orbital Segment handles guidance control for the entire station....

The ISS isn't the first joint space program to see its future thrown into uncertainty due to rising tensions between the West and Russia. In March, Roscosmos said it would not ferry OneWeb's internet satellites to space until the UK government sold its stake in the company. That same month, the European Space Agency announced it was suspending its joint ExoMars mission with Roscosmos.
But in the middle of all this, "There are currently seven astronauts onboard the ISS — three Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts and one German-born ESA astronaut, Matthias Maurer..." reports UPI: The three Russian cosmonauts are Sergey Korsakov, Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev. It was not immediately clear how the suspension of cooperation would impact the cosmonauts at the ISS.

Artemyev has expressed support for Russia and its decision to invade Ukraine in a statement made last month after he boarded the space station in a yellow and blue uniform, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. "There is no need to look for secret signs and symbols in our uniform. Color is just color," he said. "Despite the fact that we are in space, we are together with our president and people!"

In the past five years, reports of staggering insect declines have stoked anxiety and debate concerning the fate of the "little things that run the world," as the late biologist E. O. Wilson once called them. As for the how and why of these declines, the prime culprits are habitat destruction, rampant use of pesticides, and climate change. But new research published March 30 in Biology Letters adds an unexpected suspect, at least for a large swath of North America: the earthworm. From a report: The study looked at 60 plots in an aspen and poplar forest in Alberta, Canada, and found that as the numbers of earthworms wriggling in the soil and leaf litter increased, the diversity and abundance of invertebrates aboveground decreased. These results might sound surprising, since earthworms are widely considered to be helpful garden residents. Worms earned their reputation by aerating and mixing soil with their burrows and releasing locked up nutrients in their castings, all of which can help certain plants thrive.

But this new study is part of a growing body of research suggesting that at least in the forests of northern North America, earthworms may not be the slimy angels of the underworld we tend to think they are. "When people talk about insect decline, they rarely talk about the soil," says Nico Eisenhauer, a soil ecologist at Leipzig University in Germany and one of the authors of the new study. "Many of the insects and invertebrates that are in decline have life phases in the soil. What you don't see flying around now has first disappeared from the soil, and earthworms can fundamentally alter soil conditions."

Earthworms' subterranean engineering isn't a problem in their native ecosystems, but in the northern half of North America, the glaciers of the last ice age wiped out virtually all soil-dwelling worms more than 10,000 years ago. The ice sheets covered nearly all of Canada, most of the northeast U.S., and much of the upper Midwest. When the ice receded, forests returned but the worms did not because they can only expand their range by a maximum of about 30 feet a year. These northerly ecosystems evolved for millennia in the absence of earthworms. Without worms munching through fallen foliage and churning the soil, these forests accumulated thick layers of leaf litter, which came to support a vast array of animals, fungi, and plants. Eisenhauer says even non-scientists can appreciate the difference.

Canada is joining the ranks of countries and states planning to ban sales of combustion engine cars. Engadget reports: Canada has outlined an Emissions Reduction Plan that will require all new passenger car sales to be zero-emissions models by 2035. The government will gradually ramp up pressure on automakers, requiring "at least" 20 percent zero-emissions sales by 2026 and 60 percent by 2030. Officials didn't say whether this applied to a make's product mix or simply the volume of cars sold. The strategy is more forgiving for the workplace -- the Canadian government wanted 35 percent of total medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales to be zero-emissions by 2035, and 100 percent of a "subset" of those machines by 2040.

The country is also offering $1.7 billion CAD (about $1.36 billion US) to extend incentives for buying electric cars and other zero-emissions vehicles. The current federal program offers up to a $5,000 CAD ($4,010 US) rebate for EVs, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell cars that meet varying price, seat and battery requirements. Some provinces, such as British Columbia and Nova Scotia, offer their own incentives. The broader plan is meant to reduce emissions to 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050. This includes funds to support renewable energy projects, shrink oil industry emissions and develop "nature-based climate solutions."

About one-third of U.S. subscribers to Netflix share their login credentials with others, according to new data from Leichtman Research Group. From the report: The research firm's online survey of 4,400 consumers confirms the company's own conclusions in recent years. While 64% of respondents said they pay for and use Netflix only in their own household, 33% indicate some form of sharing. (The remaining 3% are households whose Netflix comes packaged via other subscriptions.) Netflix has about 74 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada and has penetrated nearly 70% of U.S. broadband homes. With subscription growth flattening in the region of late, Netflix has recently phased in rate increases in order to continue funding its $18 billion in annual programming spending. Earlier this month, Netflix announced a test of monthly fees for password-sharing in three territories outside of the U.S. The rise of password sharing between households, a blog post explained, is âoeimpacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.â

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it will expand its cybersecurity skilling initiative to 23 additional countries. The campaign, which began last year in the U.S., is part of the company's push to help solve the cybersecurity industry's growing talent problem, while also helping diversify the industry. From a report: Like many industries within tech, cybersecurity is facing both a workforce shortage and a widening skills gap among workers. According to Kate Behncken, vice president and lead of Microsoft Philanthropies, by 2025 there will be 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs open globally. Microsoft originally launched the skilling campaign in the U.S. last fall, partnering with 135 community colleges to skill and recruit workers into the cybersecurity industry. By expanding skilling and training to 23 countries, Microsoft aims to get ahead of the demand. The countries, which include Australia, Brazil, Canada and India, were chosen due to their "elevated cyberthreat risk."

Limiters cap amount of electricity households can use, making many appliances unusable. From a report: Josie Gagne was stumbling in the dark, sobbing while on the phone with an Enmax customer assistant, as she tried to locate the tiny orange button under the utility meter that would restore heat inside. It was the shock that got her. The young single mother with two kids under two returned home one winter day last year to find a note on her door from Enmax. She'd fallen behind on bills; the home was now on a limiter, capping her electricity. The furnace was off and at that point, she had no idea what a limiter even was. "I'm freaking out. I'm crying, thinking 'What am I going to do?'" she said. "It's the middle of winter, it's still cold outside. How am I going to feed my children when my oven doesn't work?"

Rising utility bills have community advocates worried the number of Calgarians facing this scenario will increase, and many don't know what a load limiter is. It's often the first step before disconnection. Several Calgary residents flagged the issue while sharing their utility bill experiences with CBC Calgary through text messaging, and on Calgary Kindness, a mutual aid Facebook group. They've shared their personal stories with CBC journalists so others know what to expect. Contributors said they were scared their fridge would lose power and their groceries would rot. They relied on air fryers, barbecues or a hot plate to make it through. The extra fees -- $52 for the notice, $52 to remove the limiter -- only made it worse. Plus, the black mark on their files means they often can't get a contract with more favourable fixed rates. When the device is installed, a stove or anything else requiring 240 volts of electricity won't work.

"Researchers testing repurposed drugs against Covid-19 found that ivermectin didn't reduce hospital admissions, in the largest trial yet of the effect of the antiparasitic on the disease driving the pandemic," reports the Wall Street Journal: Public-health authorities and researchers have for months said the drug hasn't shown any benefit in treating the disease.... The latest trial, of nearly 1,400 Covid-19 patients at risk of severe disease, is the largest to show that those who received ivermectin as a treatment didn't fare better than those who received a placebo. "There was no indication that ivermectin is clinically useful," said Edward Mills, one of the study's lead researchers and a professor of health sciences at Canada's McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
"That finding is consistent with long-standing FDA claims that ivermectin showed no benefits in clinical testing and could be dangerous in large doses," reports the New York Daily News.

These new findings "have been accepted for publication in a major peer-reviewed medical journal," notes Seeking Alpha.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has confirmed in an undertaking to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) that it would stop opening new accounts for users in the Canadian province, the regulator said on Thursday. The dispute between Binance and OSC started in June last year, when the exchange announced its decision to quit Ontario after a regulatory crackdown on crypto exchanges in the province for allegedly failing to meet securities laws. However, in December, Binance notified investors that it was allowed to continue its operations in Ontario while still being unregistered in the province, the OSC said.

In the undertaking, Binance also made a slew of other commitments, including halting trading in existing Ontario accounts, with certain exceptions that the company said were necessary "to protect investors." The crypto exchange also offered to provide fee waivers and reimbursements to certain Ontario users, and said it would hire an independent third party to oversee the implementation of its commitments.

A newly discovered fossilized vampire squid has been named after the US president, Joe Biden, a team of paleontologists has announced. From a report: The Syllipsimopodi bideni, which has been described as an "incredibly rare" fossil, was first dug up in Montana and then donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in 1988. But it sat untouched in a drawer for decades until a scientist pulled it out for a closer look. Speaking to the New York Times, Christopher Whalen, a paleontologist from New York's American Museum of Natural History, said he first noticed the squid's preserved arms and saw small suckers in the rock. "This was sitting in a museum since the 80s and no one realized it was important," said Whalen. "We chanced on that importance because I happened to notice the arm suckers." The Syllipsimopodi bideni drifted across oceans nearly 328m years ago. According to Whalen, it is the oldest known ancestor of vampyropods, a group that includes vampire squids and octopuses.