For the holidays, The Decibel is sharing their favourite stories of the year, with the producers taking you behind-the-scenes on how the episodes were made, what inspired them and all the tidbits that never made it into the original airing.

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No one really knows what dark matter is. We just think it exists. And we believe it makes up 85 per cent of all mass in the universe. So how do you solve the mystery of something that is currently unknowable?

Enter SNOLAB. This underground, clean lab is located in Sudbury, Ontario, and researchers there are running experiments to try to solve this cosmic query. Decibel producer Madeleine White, along with Globe science reporter Ivan Semeniuk, go two kilometres underground to visit SNOLAB and bring you up to date on the lab’s quest to discover dark matter.

The hunt for dark matter, two kilometres under Sudbury

Context is everything. Join us Monday to Friday for a Canadian daily news podcast from The Globe and Mail. Explore a story shaping our world, in conversation with reporters, experts, and the people at the centre of the news.

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Open banking could eventually be available to Canadians, which would change how we access our personal finances. This style of banking is consumer-driven and would bring transparency to a customer’s information. but despite the talk, Canada is lagging behind other Western countries when it comes to implementing open banking.
The Globe’s personal finance reporter, Salmaan Farooqui, breaks down the inner workings of open banking – its benefits and concerns, why it doesn’t exist in Canada yet, and how this new development will affect the way Canadians manage their finances in the future.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com

What open banking could mean for you

Social media use among students is a big concern for schools across Canada. Ontario school boards and educators are taking matters into their own hands by suing social media companies like Meta, Snap and ByteDance for allegedly harming kids and disrupting education. And educators have had to devise creative methods to keep students engaged.

The Globe’s education reporter, Caroline Alphonso, explains how cell phones and social media use are affecting student learning, the details of the lawsuits, and what schools are doing to refocus student attention in classrooms.

How schools are dealing with the problem of phones in class

Recently we’ve seen a shift in the national conversation around how to deal with Canada’s ongoing opioid crisis. B.C. all but cancelled their decriminalization trial. And the federal government rejected Toronto’s request to decriminalize possession of drugs. Decriminalization is part of a harm reduction strategy which advocates argue is the best short-term solution to save lives.

Alberta is also moving away from a harm reduction model and it’s all because of Marshall Smith. He’s the man that’s overhauling the province’s drug policy with a plan that’s facing a lot of criticism.

The Globe’s Marcus Gee is a columnist focusing on cities and the opioid crisis, and he recently spent some time with Marshall Smith. He’s on the show to tell us how Smith became so influential, his plan to upend conventional wisdom on how to deal with the drug crisis and whether we might see it replicated elsewhere.

The man shaping Alberta’s controversial drug policy

The PWHL is wrapping up a successful inaugural season, with the three Canadian teams boasting big crowds for most games. The WNBA is adding a 14th team; this one’s in Toronto. And there’s a push from a group called Project 8 to launch a professional women’s soccer league in Canada by 2025.

There’s an undeniable momentum in the realm of women’s professional sports in Canada right now. Rachel Brady, a sports reporter for The Globe, explains what’s happening this time around that has changed the game.

The money behind the boom of women’s pro sports

When nature calls, you have to answer, and quickly. The last thing you’d want is to walk several kilometers to find a public toilet.. And yet, public bathrooms aren’t easy to find in many cities across Canada. Overall, Canada has 18 public toilets per 100,000 people, which puts it in 15th place globally. And for those facing homelessness or a medical condition, public toilets are crucial for their ability to move freely through urban spaces.

The Globe’s urban affairs reporter, Oliver Moore, explains why good public toilets are so hard to find, how the pandemic created a two-tier system of access, and what Canadian cities are doing to address the scarcity.

The hunt for dark matter, two kilometres under Sudbury

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