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While the eastern United States and large parts of Europe suffered through a long, cold winter, temperatures were nothing short of balmy over much of the Arctic. The North Pole experienced above-freezing weather in February, temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit above average from December into early March, and sea ice melted back to its second-lowest annual maximum extent since the satellite record began in 1979.

Western Canadian grain farmers may reap financial losses in the billions in years to come, unless the country’s railroads ramp up their capacity to get crops to market, says a University of Alberta expert.

A Mayo Clinic study finds no evidence that children given anesthesia before their third birthdays have lower IQs than those who did not have it. A more complex picture emerges among people who had anesthesia several times as small children: Although their intelligence is comparable, they score modestly lower on tests measuring fine motor skills, and their parents are more likely to report behavioral and learning problems. The findings are published in Anesthesiology.

The federal government is investing nearly $800,000 to pay for new equipment at the University of Northern British Columbia’s Wood Innovation Research Laboratory (WIRL) in downtown Prince George.

As the growing season progresses, you might not notice much about what’s happening to plants under the soil. Most of us pay attention to new shoots, stems, leaves, and eventually the flowers and crop we intend to grow. We might think of roots as necessary, but uninteresting, parts of the crop production process.