Newswise — WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2026 — Arctic sea ice has large effects on the global climate. By cooling the planet, Arctic ice impacts ocean circulation, atmospheric patterns, and extreme weather conditions, even outside the Arctic region. However, climate change has led to its rapid decline, and being able to make real-time predictions of sea ice extent (SIE) — the area of water with a minimum concentration of sea ice — has become crucial for monitoring sea ice health.

In Chaos, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom reported accurate, real-time predictions of SIE in Arctic regions. Sea ice coverage is at its minimum in September, making the month a critical indicator of sea ice health and the primary target of the work.

“Indigenous Arctic communities depend on the hunting of species like polar bears, seals, and walruses, for which sea ice provides essential habitat,” said author Dimitri Kondrashov. “There are other economic activities, such as gas and oil drilling, fishing, and tourism, where advance knowledge of accurate ice conditions reduces risks and costs.”

The researchers’ approach treats sea ice evolution as a set of atmospheric and oceanic factors that oscillate at different rates — for example, climate memory at long timescales, annual seasonal cycles, and quickly changing weather — while still interacting with one another. They used the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s average daily SIE measurements from 1978 onward to find the relationships between these factors that affect sea ice.

Testing their prediction method live in September 2024, and retroactively for Septembers of past years, the group confirmed their technique is generally accurate and can capture effects from subseasonal to seasonal timescales. They predicted SIE ranging from one to four months out and found their predictions outperformed other models.

In general, long-term climate forecasts tend to be easier and more reliable than short-term predictions. However, by incorporating regional data into their model, the researchers were able to improve short-term ice and weather estimates.

“The model includes several large Arctic regions composing [the] pan-Arctic,” said Kondrashov. “Despite large differences in sea ice conditions from year to year in different regions, the model can pick it up reasonably accurately.”

The group plans to improve their model by including additional oceanic and atmospheric variables, such as air temperature and sea level pressure. These variables can cause fast changes and short-term fluctuations that are not currently reflected in the model, and the researchers hope these additions will further enhance the predictability of summertime Arctic sea ice.

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The article “Accurate and robust real-time prediction of September Arctic sea ice” is authored by Dimitri Kondrashov, Ivan Sudakow, Valerie N. Livina, and QingPing Yang. It will appear in Chaos on Feb. 3, 2026 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0295634). After that date, it can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0295634.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Chaos is devoted to increasing the understanding of nonlinear phenomena in all areas of science and engineering and describing their manifestations in a manner comprehensible to researchers from a broad spectrum of disciplines. See https://pubs.aip.org/aip/cha.

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This Colorado Avalanche team with a multi-goal lead remains the safest bet in sports, but this one didn’t come easy.

The Avs coughed up a two-goal advantage early in the third period, but still defeated the San Jose Sharks, 4-2, Wednesday night at Ball Arena. Colorado reaches the NHL’s break for the 2026 Winter Olympics atop the league standings with 83 points. The 37-9-9 record includes a 32-0-0 mark when leading a game by two or more goals at any point.

Josh Manson’s blast from the top of the offensive zone gave the Avs the lead with 7:16 remaining. Valeri Nichushkin set him up with his third assist of the night.

“If we’re up by two, it’s because we’re playing well and it’s hard for teams to come back on us,” Manson said. “Our game is just kind of smothering. We we get up and teams get desperate to come back, we can kind of turn it on and make them pay for their mistakes.”

Nathan MacKinnon collected his second assist on Manson’s goal, which were career Nos. 700 and 701. MacKinnon wasn’t credited with a third assist, but his battle with Macklin Celebrini in the neutral zone helped create an empty-net goal for Brock Nelson with 1:17 remaining.

San Jose struck twice in the opening four minutes to erase a two-goal deficit.

Alexander Wennberg carried the puck into the Colorado zone on the right wing and all the way below the goal line. He turned and set up defenseman Timothy Liljegren trailing the play for a one-timer from the right point. The puck went off Parker Kelly’s stick and deflected past Mackenzie Blackwood just 43 seconds into the third.

Philipp Kurashev evened the score at 3:34. Samuel Girard turned the puck over at the offensive blue line, which led to an odd-man rush for San Jose. Kurashev kept it himself and fooled Blackwood with his shot.

The Avs bent early in the third, but did not break.

“I loved our first two periods,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a dip at the start of the third, but it was a lucky play. We were doing the right things. Then we make a couple mistakes and they capitalize on one.

“You’ve got to regroup. You’ve got to find a way to dig in and get back your game as quick as you can. I thought we did that, and ended up winning the hockey game.”

Artturi Lehkonen opened the scoring 65 seconds into the second period. It was a wild scramble in the Sharks crease, and Lehkonen was credited with the goal. Yaroslav Askarov had lunged forward trying to make a save, and by the time the puck crossed the goal line two San Jose players were laying in the blue paint and all three Colorado top-line forwards were digging for it.

The Finnish forward made it a 2-0 lead at 15:47 of the second. Nichushkin tried to get the puck to MacKinnon during an odd-man rush. His first attempt didn’t get there, and the second was too late for MacKinnon to shoot. He collected it, curled around to the right of the goalie and found Lehkonen in the right circle for a one-timer.

Newswise — Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have co-developed a new way to precisely control the internal structure of common plastics during 3D printing, allowing a single printed object to seamlessly shift from rigid to flexible using only light.

In a paper published today in Science, the researchers describe a technique called crystallinity regulation in additive fabrication of thermoplastics (CRAFT) that enables microscopic control over how plastic molecules arrange themselves as an object is printed. The work opens new possibilities for advanced manufacturing, soft robotics, national defense, energy damping and information storage, according to the researchers. The team includes collaborators from Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), the University of Texas at Austin, Oregon State University, Arizona State University and Savannah River National Laboratory.

The team demonstrated that by carefully tuning light intensity during printing, they could dictate how crystalline or amorphous a thermoplastic becomes at specific locations within a part. That molecular arrangement determines whether a material behaves more stiff and rigid, or as a softer, more flexible plastic — without changing the base material. CRAFT builds on that principle by allowing researchers to control crystallinity spatially during printing, rather than uniformly throughout a part.

“A classic example of crystallinity is the difference between high-density polyethylene —picture a milk jug — and low-density polyethylene, like squeeze bottles and plastic bags. The bulk property difference in these two forms of polyethylene stems largely from differences in crystallinity,” said LLNL staff scientist Johanna Schwartz. “Our CRAFT effort is exciting in that we are controlling the crystallinity within a thermoplastic spatially with variations in light intensity, making areas of increased and decreased crystallinity to produce parts with control over material properties throughout the whole geometry.”

A key challenge, however, was translating this new materials capability into practical manufacturing instructions that could be used on real 3D printers, according to LLNL engineer Hernán Villanueva. Villanueva joined the project after early discussions with Schwartz and former SNL scientists Samuel Leguizamon and Alex Commisso identified a missing link: a way to convert any three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) into the detailed light patterns needed to print parts using the CRAFT method.

Villanueva said he drew on prior work in a multi-institutional team focused on lattice structures and advanced manufacturing workflows. In that effort, he developed software that rapidly converted complex, topology-optimized designs into printing instructions by parallelizing the process on LLNL’s high-performance computing (HPC) systems — reducing turnaround times from days to hours or minutes.

Applying that same computational approach to CRAFT, Villanueva adapted the workflow to encode “changes in light” rather than changes in material. He was soon able to convert 3D CAD geometries directly into CRAFT printing instructions, cutting instruction-generation time from hours — or even a full day — down to seconds, making rapid design iteration and demonstration of the method practical.

“This work is a natural extension of the Lab’s strengths in advanced manufacturing and materials by design,” Villanueva said. “As part of the CRAFT effort, we have evolved a tool that connects materials science with computational workflows and advanced printing, enabling us to move directly from a 3D design to a part with spatially varying properties.”

The team’s method relies on a light-activated polymerization process in which exposure level governs the stereochemistry of growing polymer chains, researchers said. Lower light intensities favor more ordered crystalline regions, while higher intensities suppress crystallization, yielding softer, more transparent material. By projecting grayscale patterns during printing, the team produced parts with smoothly varying mechanical and optical properties.

The demonstrated ability to tune properties by changing a light’s intensity rather than swapping materials could significantly simplify additive manufacturing (3D printing), Schwartz explained.

“If you can get many different properties from one vat of material, printing complex multi-material or multi-modulus structures becomes much easier,” she said.

The researchers demonstrated the CRAFT technique on commercial 3D printers, fabricating objects that combine multiple mechanical behaviors in a single print. Examples included bio-inspired structures that mimic bones, tendons and soft tissue, reproductions of famous paintings, as well as materials designed to absorb or redirect vibrational energy without adding weight or complexity. Among the most striking demonstrations was the ability to encode crystallinity through transparency differences, according to Schwartz.

“Being able to visualize the differences easily spatially, to the point of generating the Mona Lisa out of only one material, was incredibly cool,” Schwartz said.

LLNL’s Villanueva said the work reflects the Lab’s long-standing investments in HPC and in integrating modeling, design tools and novel manufacturing processes. He added that future work could integrate topology optimization directly into the CRAFT framework, enabling researchers to optimize light patterns themselves — rather than material layouts — to achieve desired performance.

Because the process works with thermoplastics — materials that can be melted and reshaped — printed parts remain recyclable and reprocessable, an important advantage for manufacturing sustainability. The findings suggest a future where 3D-printed plastic components can be tailored at the molecular level for specific functions, bridging the gap between material science and digital manufacturing.

From an applications standpoint, Schwartz said the technology could have broad and near-term impact.

“Energy dampening and metamaterial design are the most exciting use cases to me,” she said. “From space to fusion to electronics, there are so many industries that rely on energy and vibrational dampening control. This CRAFT printing process can access all of them.”

The final game before the Olympics break for the Montreal Canadiens was in Winnipeg, 21 days before the next contest, so the Canadiens wanted to finish on a high.

The Jets are at the bottom of the standings, but playing better recently. After a weak first 10 minutes, the Canadiens rolled to a 5-1 win.

Wilde Horses 

It’s truly hard to believe that Lane Hutson did not make the USA Olympic team. The statistics in his favour could not be more convincing. When Hutson took a pass from Josh Anderson, streaked toward the goal and roofed it from inside three feet, it was his 10th goal of the season.

Goals are far from his specialty, but he’s  top 15 in the league in that category. Assists are where he shines, and in that discipline, Hutson is second behind only Quinn Hughes with 48 on the season.

In points, Hutson is at a sparkling 58 points in 57 games. He’s blowing away his rookie season of 66 points. Hutson is third in the league among defenders in points.

The counterargument to his inclusion for the Olympics is that there are two sides to the ice, and it’s imperative that a defender can also take care around his own goalie.

Hutson is a plus-21 on the season. He is 12th in the entire league. It’s easy to doubt that the man who made the choices Bill Guerin is not an analytics lover, but if he were, Hutson is 19th in the NHL in Corsi. There simply is not a single metric where Hutson is not elite. That is, except his height where he is listed as five-feet-nine-inches tall.

If Hutson could practice being taller, he would be seven feet by the morning.

The Canadiens got off to a horrible start. They were dominated by the Jets, but Samuel Montembeault was strong in the first period. Impressive from Montembeault, considering he hadn’t played in 11 days.

If not for Montembeault being strong early, it could have been a vastly different night. Montembeault stopped 36 of 37 on the night.

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His excellence allowed the Canadiens to find their game eventually. Oliver Kapanen had a goal-scorer’s touch for his 18th of the year. If Kapanen would have panicked, he would have simply whacked it in the goalie’s pads. However, he calmly curled the puck away from Connor Hellebuyck, backed out of the melee, and then flipped it upstairs for what looked like an easy marker, but wasn’t.

The Phillip Danault, Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher line had a strong contest. Anderson set up Hutson, and he scored himself on a deflection for his 12th of the year.

Gallagher had two helpers early, and then he wrapped up the game midway through the third with a tap in tally on a gorgeous pass from Kirby Dach.

Dach certainly has his patterns. Every time it starts to feel like he is done, he rises up, and then when he looks like he could find stardom after all, he breaks something. There’s an outstanding player in there somewhere, if he could only stay healthy enough to keep his momentum going.

Wilde Goats 

For the first time this season, the Canadiens are 15 games over NHL .500. They have played 57 times and have lost in regulation only 17 games. That’s a lot of entertainment for the long-suffering best fans in hockey.

Before last season, oddsmakers in Las Vegas set the Canadiens over/under for 75 points. They finished with 91. This season, the oddsmakers set the line at 91 points. They are on pace for 104 points. Montreal is eighth in the entire league.

No goats for this level of excellence heading into the break.

Wilde Cards

As expected, the trading deadline in the NHL passed with no trades for the Canadiens. The Olympics trade embargo will be in effect until Feb. 22.

There was only one trade on the final day. Rumour was the New York Rangers were asking the San Jose Sharks for Will Smith, or the Washington Capitals for Ryan Leonard in order to release Artemi Panarin.

What the Rangers got was considerably less, quite naturally. Asking for one of the great young players in the league in return for a 34-year-old making over $11 million is laughably inept. The Rangers are in for a long rebuild, if GM Chris Drury thought that was gonna fly.

The Rangers acquired Liam Greentree instead. He is a mid-level prospect who is in his fourth season at the Windsor Spitfires.

The Canadiens were not in the running for Panarin. An aging player, on the clock, isn’t what a club early in their rebuild needs, unless that player is Sidney Crosby.

The only Montreal rumour taking flight, and it makes sense as logical, is Patrik Laine could be on the move with the Canadiens keeping salary to facilitate the trade. Laine has been wearing a contact jersey at practice for the last two weeks. He is ready to play as soon as the Canadiens want him to.

Apparently, they don’t want him to.

The Canadiens rebuild has gone so well they didn’t envision that they would already want some salary cap space to add more talent to a winning hockey team.

One factor that isn’t being considered is that Laine was not healthy for his entire time in Montreal, playing on a bad knee that he hurt at his first training camp. Laine is now healthy, and he does look faster as he continues to skate with the club. However, now Laine can’t win a chance to prove himself that, if healthy, he can be better.

It doesn’t seem illogical to give Laine another look to see if he can provide more. There’s no downside to playing him, considering the Canadiens are attempting to unload him with no return, and paying half of his salary.

The worst that can happen is he plays poorly. That’s great news for the club that picks him up trying to lose more games for a higher draft pick.

To be continued. But not until after the Olympics when trades will be allowed until March 6.

Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.

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Multiple police forces in Quebec and New Brunswick are conducting a series of raids Wednesday targeting a criminal organization with links to the Hells Angels, according to the Sûreté du Québec.

The Quebec provincial police force said in a release that more than 160 officers have been working since early in the morning in municipalities in both provinces.

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“The ongoing investigation demonstrates that the organization in question is active in cocaine distribution and territory management for the benefit of the Hells Angels of the various chapters in Quebec,” the release added.

“The results of this operation will follow in the coming days.”

The operation is a collaboration between Escouade régionale mixte (ERM) Rive-Nord — a specialized Quebec police unit that targets organized crime — and the National Organized Crime Enforcement Squad (ENRCO), along with RCMP and local municipal forces.

An Alberta junior hockey team is set to take the ice this weekend for a memorial game honouring three of its players who died in a highway crash.

The Southern Alberta Mustangs are set to take on the Stavely Spurs Alumni team Sunday night at the arena in Stavely.

It’s one of several fundraisers started since the crash Monday in the small town south of Calgary.

JJ Wright and Cameron Casorso, both 18, from Kamloops, B.C., and Caden Fine, 17, from Alabama, were heading to a Mustangs practice and crossing a highway when their car collided with a semi truck hauling gravel.

WATCH | Towns of Stavely, Nanton mourn loss of 3 teen hockey players:

An ‘immense loss’: communities mourn 3 teens killed on Alberta highway

The small towns of Stavely and Nanton are mourning the teens’ deaths, while the RCMP say it’s unlikely the driver of the semi involved in the crash will face charges.

The team plays in the U.S. Premier Hockey League’s Premier Division.

“We’re really hoping to maximize that amount of money that we can get to Caden’s family to help relieve any financial burden that they may be facing right now,” said Savannah Rumsey, general manager of the University of Alabama’s men’s ice hockey team.

Nicknamed the Alabama Frozen Tide, the team is auctioning off nearly two dozen specialty jerseys for the Fine family. A portion of ticket sales from its game on Saturday is also going to the family.

The Cremona Coyotes senior hockey team in Alberta, where Wright played a pre-season game last fall, said ticket sales from its next home game will be donated to the families of the Mustangs who died.

By Wednesday afternoon, donations to a GoFundMe page for the three families had nearly reached its $50,000 goal.

“From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for standing with us,” the Mustangs said in a Facebook post Wednesday after getting video messages from members of Edmonton Oilers.

“The Oilers took time to send personal messages to our team, reminding our players, families, staff and community that the hockey world stands together — especially in moments like these,” said the post.

“Their words mean more than we can ever fully express, and we are beyond grateful for their compassion and support.”

Ontario Provincial Police have charged a 16-year-old from Norfolk County with second-degree murder in the death of an infant last fall at a home in Port Rowan.

Police said officers responded to a home on Front Road in the lakeside community around 1:50 p.m. on Nov. 4, 2025 for a sudden death investigation.

At the time, officials said police had located one person dead at the residence. On Wednesday, it was revealed the deceased was an infant.

The 16-year-old accused, whose identity can’t be released under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was arrested on Jan. 28 and will appear in Simcoe court “at a later date,” police said.

Provincial police say their investigation is continuing in collaboration of the Office of the Chief Coroner and the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.

Winkler’s mayor is calling for respect after his southern Manitoba city was been chosen as the site for a Pride march for the first time.

Henry Siemens said in a Facebook post he’s fielded many comments about the event, after Pembina Valley Pride announced on social media its Pride march this year will be held in Winkler, the largest community in the Pembina Valley region.

Siemens stressed the event isn’t being hosted by the city, but rather a private group.

He wrote that while he and council “don’t personally support all of the beliefs or ideologies of the various groups or events that might take place in Winkler,” they do support “individual freedom to plan and host their own events.”

“It is my sincere prayer that we, as a community, find a way to respect one another’s freedoms and pray that no one event would define who we are.”

In an interview, Siemens said he wanted to clear up any confusion, including from people who thought the event is being hosted by the city.

“I believe that it is important, as I mentioned in my [Facebook] post, that people are able to speak freely and if there are people who have a concern, they should be able to share it. If there are people who are supportive, they should also be able to share it.”

Pembina Valley Pride president Pauline Emerson-Froebe knows many people are excited Winkler will be hosting the June 13 march.

The group puts out a survey after every Pride, and when people were asked where they wanted the next event to be, Winkler was the top choice.

Winkler’s population was nearly 14,000, according to the 2021 census, but has grown since then.

Pride shows ‘you’re not alone’

Emerson-Froebe said it’s important to bring a Pride event to a city that is often regarded as a highly religious and conservative community.

“Sometimes, especially in rural areas, a lot of the queer community can feel like they’re the only one, and that really creates a sense of loneliness and isolation for a lot of people,” Emerson-Froebe told CBC Manitoba’s Radio Noon on Wednesday.

“Having a Pride really sends a clear message that you’re not alone.”

The reaction she’s seen on social media has been largely supportive, she said.

“In our experience, the most hateful and hurtful voices are often the loudest, and they don’t always represent the larger community of quieter supporters in the community.”

She said people who don’t like the event don’t need to attend.

Emerson-Froebe considers the Facebook post from Winkler’s mayor to be a “lovely response.”

Siemens eventually closed commenting on his post.

Pembina Valley Pride has been organizing annual in-person events for the 2SLGBTQ+ community since 2019, excluding a two-year absence owing to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

It’s been hosted twice in Morden, twice in Altona and once in Carman.

Emerson-Froebe expects this year’s event to include a rally, a march, a rainbow church service, drag performances and an afterparty at Carman 5 Pin Bowl.