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FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 2010
WE’RE S E 76 PAGY! TODA
Under the watchful eye of her father Pinder, a UBC research engineer, Woodward Hill Elementary student Jenna Dosanjh prepares a soil plug to receive tomato seeds, some of which have spent time on the International Space Station. It’s part of an experiment to see if space time affects growth.
SIX STORIES TO TALK ABOUT:
DRUNK DRIVING LAWS Police like them but some say it gives them too much power 3
CHILD PORN Computers seized but police say man is not a threat 8
TRAGEDY TIMES THREE
FROM THE SOUTH FRASER TO THE PEACE ARCH
Mourning woman’s mom dies during son’s murder trial 8
ROTTEN TOMATOES Who’s griping about their neighbours this week? 15
URBAN SECRETS Site reveals some 8,000 years of human activity 19
‘RITE OF SPRING’ Talented teenaged ball players show their stuff at camp 53
WHAT’S ON
❚PHOTO/
Ted Colley
❚EDUCATION/Surrey students’ science experiment a ‘once in a lifetime chance’
SPACE SEEDS STIR IMAGINATIONS How it works
Marisa BABIC
Over the course of the next two weeks, students at Woodward Hill Elementary school will track the germination of tomato seeds that were taken to space by Canadian astronaut Julie Payette and returned to earth later in the fall of 2009. Results of the experiment will be sent to the Tomatosphere Project, a huge project that involves more than 11,300 classrooms in Canada and the U.S.
Staff Reporter
Students at Woodward Hill Elementary school are conducting a science experiment that’s out of this world. Led by Pinder Dosanjh, a research engineer in the department of physics and astronomy at UBC, the Grade 4 class is growing tomato seeds that were aboard the International Space Station. The students are part of the Tomatosphere Project, a huge project that involves more than 11,300 classrooms in Canada and the
United States. The tomatoes seeds were taken to space by Canadian astronaut Julie Payette and returned to earth later in the fall of 2009. The working title of the Tomatosphere Project is: “Did the seeds survive.” Sponsored by the Canada Space Agency and others, the goal of the experiments is to investigate the effects of the space environment on the growth of food, information that will one day be used to support a long-tern human mission, establishing a base on the moon and eventually manned flights to Mars.
Dosanjh took a few questions from the students before preparing the growing medium for the seeds, known as Heinz H9478. One boy, displaying a healthy scientific skepticism, wondered whether the seeds were really in space. “These ones were really were in space,” Dosanjh reassured the students. Guided by Dosanjh, each of the students in Elaine Vaughan’s Grade 4 class took a turn poking a hole into a water-puffed peat pellet with a pencil and gingerly dropping a tomato seed into it.
see SEEDS page 3
❚ACCIDENT/Police investigate as mayor recovers at home
Watts crash: more questions than answers ❚PHOTO/Sharon Doucette
‘RAW HONESTY’ Youth prepare to pour their hearts out at Surrey Arts Centre 23
How do they Ted know the mayor had COLLEY Staff Reporter a green light? That’s what Les Redekopp would like to know. His wife, Shawnene, 55, was driving a sedan involved in a collision
with an SUV driven by Mayor Dianne Watts last Friday night. “How can they tell she had the green? She T-boned my wife; not the other way around. There were no skid marks or anything. Usually when somebody runs a
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red light, they T-bone the other car,” Redekopp told the Now Wednesday. “Mind you, I’m not saying it didn’t happen. It’s just that, according to my wife, she said, ‘I was going through on a green light.’”
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Redekopp’s assumption that it’s more likely Watts ran a red light because her vehicle broadsided his wife’s car is erroneous, according to Surrey RCMP Const. Peter Neily.
see WATTS page 3
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A ‘NOW’ COLUMN: LESBIAN TEACHER’S CASE IS JUST THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF CHURCH’S HYPOCRISY PAGE 20