Link hosts: Lynn Desjardins, Marc Montgomery, Levon Sevunts

Link hosts: Lynn Desjardins, Marc Montgomery, Levon Sevunts
Photo Credit: RCI

The LINK Online Dec 19, 2015

With just a few days left before Christmas your hosts are Lynn, Levon and Marc

Listen
 A technician prepares the OLA sensor head for testing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
A technician prepares the OLA sensor head for testing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Baltimore, Maryland. © Hand-out (Photo: NASA / Goddard / Debora McCallum)

It’s life imitating art. Well not exactly, but there are similarities to a planned space mission by NASA and a feature film of a few years ago called “Armageddon”.

In that Hollywood movie, a team was sent on a mission into space to blow up an asteroid heading for Earth. In real life there is an asteroid which is heading in our direction, although with a slim chance of hitting the Earth.

Also in real life, NASA is sending a probe to the asteroid. On board will be an ultra-sophisticated laser mapping device. The space probe is called “Osiris-Rex” and the mapping system is the “Osiris-rex Laser Altimeter” or OLA.

Levon spoke to Michael Daly, the professor at Toronto’s York Univeristy who designed the technology.

Toronto Blue Jays Jose Bautista flips his bat after hitting a three-run homer during baseball division finals on October 14, 2015. The flip went viral as did the story of the team’s brilliant season. © PC/Chris Young/Canadian Press

As the year comes to a close we often look back at major events that occurred during the year.

With the advent of the internet and search engines, there is a lot more information generated and available, not only on a huge variety of subjects, but also a vast amount on any given subject.

Google is of course probably the best known of these search engines.

Every year it collects data on the most popular searches in different countries.

Lynn spoke to Aaron Brindle, a trends expert with Google to find out what Canadians were most interested in this past year.

The 21st gathering of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) which began like many other international climate meetings, ended in an extended session and a groundbreaking international agreement to limit golbal warming through a large number of initiatives
The 21st gathering of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) which began like many other international climate meetings, ended in an extended session and a groundbreaking international agreement to limit golbal warming through a large number of initiatives © Reuters/Philippe Wojazer via CBC

It was seen as an almost insurmountable task.

For two decades, such international climate change discussions had led to only mitigated progress to work on reducing global warming efforts.

Then suddenly, it seemed a deal was close, the Paris meeting this month, the 21st such meeting, was extended, and the 196 nations came to an agreement.

It is not legally binding, and enforcement would be virtually impossible anyway, but it is a morally obligating deal and nations will have to provide progress updates on the plans they agreed to.

Marc spoke to David Miller, CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada, about his reaction and the significance of the agreement.

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