Health advice is all over social media. Here’s how to vet claims

Health and wellness advice is available in abundance on social media — from trendy to informative to straight-up disinformation — and you're far from alone in seeing it.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults — and around half of those under 50 — get health information from social media or podcasts.

Researchers also looked at the social media profiles of 6,828 health and wellness influencers with at least 100,000 followers. Only about 4 in 10 list a background as a health professional. About one-third called themselves coaches, about 3 in 10 described themselves as entrepreneurs and about 1 in 10 cited their own life experience, like being a parent.

Despite the wide range of expertise, about half of people who get health and wellness information from influencers said the influencers help them better understand their own health, while about one-third said it hasn't made much difference. About 1 in 10 said it made them more confused.

Nature is a big part of the Canadian economy — but how big? We crunched the numbers.

Canada’s vast landscape, which boasts 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater, a quarter of global wetlands and 28 per cent of its boreal forests, is critical to its economy. Natural resource industries — forests, farms, fisheries, mining and oil and gas — together make up approximately seven per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product.

Tension exists between expanding these industrialized sectors and protecting the ecosystems on which they depend.

In Manitoba, some worry protecting the Seal River Watershed, which spans more than 50,000 square kilometres in the province’s north, will hinder opportunities in mineral resources and hydro; to the east, critical mineral mining ambitions in Ontario’s Ring of Fire clash with the protection of the Hudson and James Bay Lowlands, the second-largest carbon sink on earth; and in B.C., Coastal First Nations have protested that lifting the large tanker ban through their waters will endanger the protected Great Bear Rainforest.

These tensions make it easy to frame nature as the antithesis of economic activity, if it’s always put in opposition to projects that are described as growing Canada’s wealth, sovereignty and security.

Conservation shouldn’t come at the cost of access

The Seal River Watershed in northern Manitoba is one of the last great intact ecosystems in North America.

Bird Lake man says freeing moose from ice a ‘rush’

A Manitoba man says he’s honoured to have been able to help rescue a moose stranded in the ice in Nopiming Provincial Park.

St. Vital Park duck pond to get new design before $3-M rehabilitation in 2027

A new design is set to spruce up the duck pond at St. Vital Park, making it deeper, more naturalized and less prone to algae.

What to do with inconvenient wildlife

Their flocks darkened the skies, over a mile wide and hundreds of miles long. It would take hours or even days for them to pass over a fixed spot. They were a common Manitoba resident, nesting as far north as York Factory. In the 1860s, one hunter trapped 80 dozen in a net near St. Andrews.

Why claims of sentience can’t guide black bear policy

The modern debate over sustainable-use bear hunting often hinges on a few claims including bears are sentient, therefore humans have no moral right to hunt them.

It’s a powerful emotional argument, but it collapses under scientific scrutiny and ecological reality. Sentience is real. Bears and other animals do feel.

But the leap from “animals feel” to “humans must never hunt” is not supported by biology, ethics or conservation science. If we want wildlife policy that protects species and ecosystems, we need to separate what sentience is from what animal rights activists want it to mean.

In scientific terms, sentience refers to the capacity to feel or perceive, not the ability to make moral judgments.

Crop-enhancement firm eyes potato prosperity

Of all the research labs in all the cities in all the world, Kinneret Shefer walks into St. Boniface Hospital’s.

The researcher and entrepreneur is the co-founder of GeneNeer Ltd., an agricultural biotechnology company from Israel. Earlier this year, the company established its North American operations at the Albrechtsen Research Centre in the central Winnipeg hospital.

“We moved to Canada because our technology developed, we are moving to implementation and we have some business agreements in negotiation,” said Shefer, who holds a PhD in genetic counselling from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

GeneNeer launched its Canadian operations in January. The company converted laboratory facilities at the research centre and had them operating within two weeks, allowing research activities to begin almost immediately.

Colombia approves plan to cull roaming hippos linked to Pablo Escobar

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian officials on Monday authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos roaming freely through a region in the center of the country, where they threaten villagers and displace native species years after notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar brought in the first ones.

Environment Minister Irene Vélez said previous methods to control their population have been expensive and unsuccessful, including neutering some of the animals or moving them to zoos. Vélez said up to 80 hippos would be affected by the measure. She did not say when hunting would begin.

“If we don’t do this we will not be able to control the population,” Vélez said. “We have to take this action to preserve our ecosystems.”

Colombia is the only country outside of Africa with a wild hippo population. The hippos are the descendants of four brought to the country in the 1980s by Escobar as he built a private zoo in Hacienda Nápoles, a gigantic ranch in the Magdalena River valley with a private landing strip that served as his rural abode.

Not consulted on Clear Lake motorboating: Chief

The chief of Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation says he did not consent to the return of motorboats at Clear Lake.

Motorboats to return to Clear Lake this summer

Motorboats will be allowed to return to Clear Lake this summer, a year after they were banned amid the discovery of invasive species.

Parks Canada officials said Wednesday watercraft inside the Riding Mountain National Park lake would be permitted under a mandatory tagging program and several other conditions.

“We’re pleased, but we also want to see how it will be implemented,” said Trevor Boquist, spokesperson for the Fairness for Clear Lake advocacy group.

“I would say we want to be part of the conversation of how this will be implemented.”

Caring for native flowers and grasses helps former adult educator find ‘hope and joy in a dark time in the world’

After a career guiding newcomers through the logistics of life in Winnipeg, from registering with a family doctor to figuring out the transit system, Gerry Pearson turned her sights toward helping the city’s native plants settle back into place.

Invasive species on the march, threaten city’s ash, elm trees

Winnipeg’s tree canopy is under siege.

The emerald ash borer has made a resurgence — after nearly a decade of minimal spread — and another invasive insect is bearing down on elm trees, which are already at risk of Dutch elm disease.

‘Good day to be a polar bear’: Carney unveils nature strategy, new conservation areas

LA PÊCHE - The Liberal government's new $3.8 billion nature protection strategy will put Canada's 2030 nature conservation goals within reach, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday.

Announcing the new plan at an event in Wakefield, Que., Carney said the federal government will create new national parks, urban parks and marine conservation areas.

Carney said his government is taking an "ambitious" approach to conservation spaces and urban parks. He said the plan will require "significant" federal funding and includes aspirations to spur private-sector investments.

The new conservation areas will include the Wiinipaawk Indigenous protected area and national marine conservation area in Eastern James Bay, and the Seal River watershed national park in Manitoba.

Protecting mature trees should be a priority

I have to tell you — there are days when I am utterly gobsmacked by the stuff people do.

New studies of old dogs help scientists understand where they came from

Using the oldest dog genes studied so far, scientists are finding more evidence that our furry friends have been our companions for thousands of years.

After 15 years of building North American brand, Winnipeg-based XiteBio Technologies Inc. eyes overseas markets

Out of the laboratory and into farmers’ fields.

If you had to describe Manas Banerjee’s career trajectory in fewer than 10 words, you could do a lot worse than that.

Banerjee is the CEO and founder of XiteBio Technologies Inc., an agricultural biotechnology company based in south Winnipeg, but before that, he was a researcher, scientist and professor at a number of institutions.

After earning a PhD in soil microbiology from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, Banerjee moved to Canada. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Saskatchewan, a research associate at the University of Manitoba and an adjunct professor at Western University (Ontario), publishing numerous papers and book chapters related to soil science.

‘Extreme’ workouts drive spike in ‘rhabdo’ cases among young N.L. women, says doctor

ST. JOHN'S - Intense workouts and social media pressure are driving a spike in rhabdomyolysis cases in young women in Newfoundland and Labrador, a physician with the province's health authority said Thursday.

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services said it confirmed about 20 cases in the eastern part of the province in the past six months. Doctors typically expect to see a few cases a year, said Dr. Richard Barter, the clinical chief of emergency medicine in the authority's eastern urban zone.

"The cases that we've seen have been exclusively exertional rhabdomyolysis, and this is when a person takes their physical workouts to an extreme level," Barter said in an interview.

Rhabdomyolysis, or "rhabdo," occurs when muscle tissue is severely damaged and breaks down, leaking enzymes and other substances into the blood. The painful condition can cause urine to turn the colour of black tea and it can lead to kidney damage, Barter said.

Churchill port could further stunt polar bear growth: U of M researcher

Manitoba’s bold plan to transform the Port of Churchill into a shipping powerhouse could have a negative effect on the area’s treasured polar bear population, which fuels its tourism trade, new research shows.

Oldest known whale recording could unlock mysteries of the ocean

A haunting whale song discovered on decades-old audio equipment could open up a new understanding of how the huge animals communicate, according to researchers who say it’s the oldest such recording known.

Canada, Manitoba lagging behind promise to meet 2030 target of protecting more land and water

There are just four years left on the clock for Manitoba — and the rest of the country — to meet a promise to conserve 30 per cent of land and water by 2030.

But halfway through the timeline adopted at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity in 2022, Canada has made little progress, adding less than one percentage point to its protected land tally and three points to its protected waters.

The country needs to double its protected areas to meet its target, known as 30-by-30. But conservation groups, including the Wilderness Committee and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, warn progress could stall even further as federal funding for conservation initiatives is set to run out at the end of the month — and there’s no indication it will be renewed.

“We have a conservation economy that we can build on, that gives local jobs, that helps honour our Indigenous reconciliation commitments,” Sandra Schwartz, national executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said.