Ottawa museum of Nature

The range of products and services available at the Ottawa Museum of Nature is as broad and interesting as the range of activities.

·Birthday Parties: Give your child — aged from 4 to 12 — an unforgettable birthday party at the museum!

·Facility Rentals: Planning an event in Ottawa? Let our elegant, historic, castle-like setting and our dedicated staff help you create a magical event to remember!

·Travelling Exhibition Rentals Looking for new programming for your institution? We have many popular travelling exhibitions — small and large — that tour across Ottawa.

·Photo and Film Shoots: Either of our unique buildings would make great backdrops for your project. Whether for a commercial (广告), education, media, of fashion production, we’ve got a location for you.

How to get here?

If you are on Highway 417 (the Queensway), take the Metcalfe exit, No. 119. You Can see the museum from the highway look for a “castle” on the north side.

Walking from the downtown The museum is only 20-minute walk fro Parliament Hill. Metcalfe Street takes you directly to the main entrance of the museum. Elgin and O’Connor streets take you to the outer edges of the museum grounds.

Membership

We strongly advise you to apply for our membership. A lot of on-site benefits are waiting for you:

·Free admission to the museum for one year;

·Free admission to temporary blockbuster exhibitions (i. e. no special-exhibition surcharge);

·Discount on museum programs, including adult workshops and special lectures (to a maximum of 20%);

·10 points for use at the Nature Trade;

·10% discount at the Nature Café.

This past summer I went on a journey to Canada’s Arctic with Students On Ice. When I left Calgary I wondered what I would find what I would learn and who I would meet. On the trip to Ottawa I was wrapped in a blanket of uncertainty and excitement. But when I first met the group of students, scientists and leaders, I knew that l didn’t have anything to worry about. The group was amazingly receptive and I was soon part of a big family setting out on an amazing adventure—an adventure of a lifetime!

When we reached the Arctic I saw a vast Land that appeared untouched and original. I was surprised by its great size and beauty and my senses were repeatedly shocked and amazed. I stood on the Kapitan Khlebnikov and saw twelve polar bears. They walked in search of seal holes, and patiently waited for a meal. I learned that polar bears are successful only one out of every twenty hunting attempts.

However, I learned that the Arctic and its people are being threatened by pollution and global warming. I learned that pollutants are carried by ocean and air and have a bad effect on all Arctic people. I learned that global warming has put polar bears at risk because a warmer climate means that they have a shorter time to hunt seals on the ice.

The trip was a feast (盛宴) for the senses. I have learned more about our environment, and particularly how alive and interesting the Arctic is and why it is so important to take care of it. I learned pollution, ignorance of individual and global problems need to be solved. The Arctic deserves to he preserved. My trip with Students On Ice has made me more determined to try to ensure that I do not leave harmful footprints on either Earth or its people.

Scientists have found an unexpected use for virtual reality headsets (耳机). The devices (装置), widely used by computer gamers, show pictures that can be used to test the navigational (导航的) skills of people, who were thought to be at risk of dementia (痴呆). Those who do worse in the tests will be the ones more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease later in life, scientists now believe.

The discovery that the loss of navigational skills was associated with Alzheimer’s was made several years ago by Dennis Chan and his colleagues based at several centers in the UK. These studies used computers to test navigational tasks. But now scientists plan to take their tests to a new level with the use of the virtual reality headsets in which wearers are placed in man-made environments through which they must navigate.

Around 300 people, aged between 40 and 60, will be arranged to participate in the study. Some will have a gene that puts them at risk of the condition or will come from a family with a history of Alzheimer’s. Not all will certainly be affected by the disease, however. Chan’s project aims to find out who will. Wearing the headsets, participants will be asked to navigate their way through a series of different environments and then remember the details.

Researchers recently pointed out the significance of a tiny area of the brain known as the entorhinal cortex (an important memory center in the brain ). It acts as a center in a widespread brain network that controls navigation. This now appears to be the first part of the brain that seems to be easily harmed by Alzheimer’s.

The goal of the work is to help people as they develop the disease. “So far, drug trials for Alzheimer’s have been applied when people have already got dementia, by which time considerable damage to the brain has already occurred,” Chan told the Obsenver. “If we can entorhinal cortex, then this would have the potential to prevent the dementia.”

After decades of cat-and-mouse between athletes and the word anti-doping agency (WADA), athletes found what they must have believed to be the ultimate (终极的) doping agent: their own blood. To enhance athletic performance with your own blood, you draw your blood and store it in a freezer. Your body compensates by creating more blood. Then, months later, just before a competition, you can re-inject (注射) the old blood for a boost. As the red-blood-cell count goes up, so does an athlete’s ability to absorb oxygen. The more oxygen you get with each breath, the more energy your body is able to burn and the better you are able to perform.

Although the enhancement is small compared to actual drugs, it can be the difference between a gold medal and a silver medal. Best of all, “extra blood” was never something WADA tested for.

But WADA wasn’t going to sit by and be fooled. What it came up with in response might be a solution to stop doping once and for all: an athlete biological passport (ABP). The idea is to record some biological features of an athlete through testing done at regular intervals. The biological passport’s partial implementation (实施)—recording blood and steroid levels—began in January 2014.

When all necessary biological features are finally combined, WADA will no longer need to worry about finding new methods to detect a drug. It will only have to detect (检测) resulting changes in the body. In the case of blood doping, if the athlete’s normal red-blood-cell count is, say, 47%, but then is found to be 51% after a competition, cheating may have been involved.

WADA is confident that the biological passport could even prevent genetic changes—the ultimate, ever-lasting enhancement—which are surely coming next. If an athlete inserts a performance enhancing gene, it will probably leave detectable changes in the body, that would differ from the athlete’s feature in the biological passport.

Taking care of a sick loved one can put stress on your health. When taking care of other persons, you may ignore your own physical needs. You may find that your health is failing. If you fall ill, you won’t be able to help.     16    .

Eat well. When things seem out of control, you may have no time to focus on good eating habits. You may not eat much;     17    . Both of those put stress on you. Try to eat as healthily as you can, even if sometimes you have to rely on simple meals like salads.

Try to get enough sleep. Sleep can also be difficult when you’re caring for a loved one. You may be too worried to sleep at times,     18    . Not getting enough sleep can make you less effective in the task. Therefore, try to get as much as you can.

Take time to exercise. Exercising will also help you keep healthy while you’re caring for a loved one. Exercise can reduce your stress level.     19    . So you’ll need to find ways to work it into your schedule. You can take a short walk a couple of times or do yoga at home.

    20    . It can be easy to overlook the health problem in yourself when you’re caring for someone else. If you fall ill, that does not do anyone good. So it’s best to make sure you’re in good health.