A group of University of Manitoba researchers have received a multimillion-dollar grant to study how best to clean up in the event of an oil spill in the Arctic. The province and the federal government chipped in a total of $4 million in funding for GENICE Monday, a project that will use gene-analyzing tools to study how polar marine environments might be impacted by and recover from oil spills at the microbial level. 

Terry Duguid, member of Parliament for Winnipeg South, lauded the research, which he described as including the study of "little bugs that are going to eat the oil" in the event of a spill.  "We believe that the science of today is the economy of tomorrow," Duguid said. "The environment and economy go together and this is very, very important research for the future of our planet."  Read more...