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CTV News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Edmonton science museum bringing a new, high-energy set of shows into the rotation
Edmonton's Telus World of Science is hosting a new series of high-energy science demonstrations this summer called 'Wow Wednesdays.' Loading the player instance is taking more time than usual Loading the player instance is taking more time than usual A new science show in Edmonton on select Wednesdays this summer is aiming to be as high-energy as it is educational. TELUS World of Science Edmonton (TWOSE) is bringing WOW Wednesdays into its show rotation, a set of live science demonstrations that aim to entertain and inform an all-ages audience. Cate Collins, the staff scientist at TWOSE, said the shows are meant to draw in attention with crowds that may be more easily distracted. 'It's so easy to scroll online … because of that, we try to do really visual experiments and things that really get [people] talking,' said Collins. The first show of the season, 'Sounds of Science,' kicked off Wednesday to feature demonstrations about sound through vibration, frequency and fire. Their bag of tricks includes lots of audience participation and a dance party finale. The big demonstrations are possible, Collins said, because of the resources available to the museum by way of safety equipment. Despite being for all ages, she also said that staff are taking younger audiences into account. 'We start off by asking what they know,' she said. From there, they start applying it to bigger ideas – but always come back to the less complex examples. 'That repetition helps kids understand … so that they're able to take away something from the show,' she said. Shows are playing a couple times a day on select days in July and August. The full schedule is on the TELUS World of Science Edmonton website. With files from CTV News Edmonton's Brandon Lynch
Global News
04-07-2025
- Climate
- Global News
‘Incredible video' captured during Alberta storm could be rare ball lightning event: scientist
No injuries were reported after an intense night of stormy weather unfolded in central Alberta on Wednesday night, but once the storms passed, one couple was left with a strange video of something bright and shiny a few hundred metres from their home that they could not make sense of. Ed Pardy told Global News that he and his wife Melinda stepped onto the back porch of their home near Rich Valley, Alta., just before 7 p.m. to get a closer look at the storm passing through which featured fierce lightning all around, and also at one point triggered tornado watches and warnings in the region. 'After a rather vicious lightning strike, we saw a ball of fire kind of … about 20 feet above the ground,' he recalled. 'And it kind of stayed there in a big round ball.' Melinda suggested capturing what they were seeing on video, and they were able to record about 23 seconds of the phenomenon until it seemed to disappear as quickly as it came about. Story continues below advertisement 'I was like, 'What is that?' It wasn't even the colour of fire,' she recounted, adding she wondered if it was some type of electric fireball. 'It was bluish in colour. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'I've never seen anything like that before.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I've never seen anything like that before." Ed described what they saw as a slowly moving 'bright orb of blue light' that he believes was about a metre or two metres in diameter. 'Before it went out there was a bit of a pop and the whole thing kind of disintegrated and went away,' he said. 'I was glad it was far away from our house.' Global News showed the video to Frank Florian, senior manager of planetarium and space sciences at the TELUS World of Science in Edmonton. He described it as 'an incredible video' of something 'very strange associated with severe weather conditions.' He said he believes it is possible the Pardys saw ball lightning. 'It could be ball lightning or it could be something that's more of an artifact of a lightning strike itself,' he explained, adding that some scientists are researching the phenomenon of ball lightning and trying to recreate such events in laboratory settings. 'Ball lightning is a really cool event, but it's not really well understood because it's such a rare event.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Ball lightning is a really cool event, but it's not really well understood because it's such a rare event." Story continues below advertisement Florian said the events are believed to unfold when there is plasma — a superheated gas — confined to a small area. 'Lightning itself is a plasma,' he said. 'You have an electrical path going through the sky from the cloud to the Earth, kind of meet up in the middle and it superheats the air really, really quickly, and it creates a plasma 'As that plasma expands very quickly, it creates the thunder that's associated with basically lightning strikes. But when you get plasma itself happening, being created by these lightning strikes, sometimes you can get that plasma itself — or region of plasma — to just linger for a little while. 'If it's in a ball shape, they call it ball lightning.' Florian noted that lightning itself is a dangerous phenomenon, and that ball lightning sightings are 'pretty rare events.' 'They do create a spectacle,' he said. When asked if what he saw frightened him, Ed indicated it hadn't. 'I was mostly curious,' he said. 'I like to see stuff like that.' –With files from Kabi Moulitharan, Global News
