Average hourly wage in Canada now $34.95: StatCan
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
As if rising sea levels, increased drought, and more extreme weather events won't be enough to deal with, climate change will also bring us longer mosquito seasons.
That's the conclusion reached by scientists at the University of Florida, who say their research on the pesky insects shows that the bugs can very quickly adapt to changes in the temperature around them.
In regions poised to experience newly tropical temperatures in a warmer world, they report, mosquitoes could become a year-round nuisance. In places that won't get quite that warm – Canada, for example – they may still be able to reduce the amount of time they spend dormant due to chilly conditions, leaving us fending off mosquitoes for much longer than we're used to.
The findings come from experiments the researchers conducted on 1,000 mosquitoes that were gathered in and around Gainesville, Fla.
As they detail in a study published this month in the journal Ecology, they placed the mosquitoes in vials and then placed the vials into a water bath. They then adjusted the water temperature, which in turn altered the temperature inside the vials.
As the temperature fluctuated, the researchers made note of when each mosquito became what is known as "cold bounded" – the hibernation-like dormant state that they enter when conditions are too cold for them to thrive.
Over a period of several months, they found that mosquitoes had a larger acceptable range of temperatures in the spring and fall than during the summer, suggesting the insects have evolved to cope with the wild fluctuations that can occur during spring and fall.
“We found that the mosquitoes in our study are what we call 'plastic,' meaning that, like a rubber band, the range of temperatures they can tolerate stretches and contracts at different times of year,” Brett Scheffers, senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the University of Florida's wildlife ecology and conservation department, said in a press release.
“That tells us that as climate change makes our autumns and winters warmer, mosquitoes in more temperate regions are well prepared to be active during those times."
By some estimates, summers in the Northern Hemisphere will last for as long as six months by the end of the century.
The researchers say it's not clear what allows the mosquitoes to adapt so quickly to changing temperatures, or if other insects are able to do the same.
One possibility is natural selection. Because most mosquitoes only live for a few days, it could be that those born during spring and fall need to be able to adapt to temperature swings, whereas those born in the summer can survive without developing that skill.
The next step for the Florida researchers is to determine whether that theory could be true, or whether there is something else at play.
Either way, the researchers are warning us about more than the nuisance aspect of mosquitoes. Because the insects are major carriers of infections such as West Nile virus and dengue fever, they say their findings point to the need to prepare for increased prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases as the planet warms.
Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.
A 4.2-magnitude earthquake was recorded west of Vancouver Island early Friday morning.
Andy Kim's 'Rock Me Gently' is marking a major milestone, as it celebrates its 50th anniversary.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
Oprah Winfrey said on Thursday evening that she has long played a role in promoting unhealthy and unrealistic diets.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Toronto police say a man who allegedly attempted to access Drake’s Bridle Path property was taken to hospital on Thursday after an altercation with security guards.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.