Jake Wray News Editor

January 9, 2088 New Westminster

Daz: College will offer a new asteroid mining program this fall semester, according to a press release issued by the college this past week.

Asteroid mining is a competitive new profession, according to the press release, and Douglas College is dedicated to training anyone who wants to work in space.

“We're very excited to add this program to our lineup. It will nicely complement our extraterrestrial colonization, deep space exploration,

lege announces new asteroid mining program

> Students will learn about rare minerals, how to stay safe in cold vacuum of space

and lunar politics programs,” Arvin Singh, chair of the spacefaring department, said in the press release. “The asteroid mining qualification will provide our students with the job-ready skills required of asteroid miners.”

The program will feature chemistry and geology courses, one of which will focus on materials and chemicals that are not found naturally on Earth, including iridium, kamacite, and taenite, as well as materials that used to be found naturally on Earth but are now depleted, such as helium, tellurium, neodymium, and dysprosium.

Additionally, students will learn how to operate mining equipment, including space excavators, space drills, space haul trucks, death lasers, space dynamite, and demoleculizers.

Wild salmon extinct

> Tenacious farm salmon live on

Jake Wray News Editor

January 9, 2088 New Westminster

o fish.

The last remaining species of wild salmon in BC is now extinct, the ministry of fisheries and oceans has announced.

Ken Fry, a wildlife biologist with the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans, said he and his team were holding the last surviving Coho salmon, named Cinderella, in captivity as they attempted to clone a mate for her using stem cells. Sadly, he said, Cinderella contracted an infection in her gills and died. “Everyone in the lab was absolutely devastated,” Fry told reporters during an emergency press conference Friday. “Reviving the Coho species was always a long shot, but just before Cinderella died, we had made a major breakthrough and our hopes were high.” Suki Haya, president of salmon conservation non-profit Skeena Wild, said that wild salmon have only existed in captivity for the past decade, so there won't be any impact on the ecosystem as a result of Cinderella’s death. “For decades Skeena Wild has warned about the extinction of wild salmon,’ she said in a VidLink interview with the Other Press. “As wild salmon populations

dwindled and they were sequestered into captivity by the ministry of fisheries and oceans, their absence from wild waters crippled the coastal ecosystem.”

Nevertheless, Haya said, Cinderella’s death is symbolic.

“Now that we have wiped out every single species of wild salmon, I hope Canadians take a hard look at their way of life,” she said. “We should have stopped commercial fishing 100 years ago.”

Dave Michell, a Wet’suwet’en fisherman from the City of Witset, said he has never seen a wild salmon before, though he has heard stories

The program will also include courses on space safety, including a two- part, six-credit course on what to do if you get sucked into a black hole, a course on giant parasitic asteroid worms, and a course on emergency space suit repair.

Asteroid miners have an 83 per cent chance of dying on the job, according to a report released by Statistics Canada August 29.

Ron Weeb, a second-year dust farming student at Douglas College, said he is considering switching his major to asteroid mining.

“I chose dust farming because that’s what my dad does, but there’s no money in it anymore,” Weeb said in an interview with the Other Press. “I got nine kids.

At the end of the day, all that matters to me is putting food on the table, and

about them from his father and grandmother. Instead, he fishes for farm salmon, which have evolved in startling ways over the past century. “They're absolute mother fuckers. They're hyper-intelligent, like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park 47, and they have long, barbed venomous teeth,” he said. “My ancestors used to simply string a net across the river to catch fish, but I have to use a rifle and drones.” Michell said fishing farm salmon is a high-risk, low-reward occupation. “T’ve lost four cousins to farm salmon,” he said. “The craziest part is

asteroid miners make a lot of money.”

Tamara Mbebo, an asteroid miner who grew up in New Westminster but now lives on Luna, said she doesn’t believe a college education is necessary for asteroid miners.

“A chimpanzee could do it,” she said in a VidLink interview with the Other Press. “You basically just float there and smash, scrape, or blast the rock.”

Bernard Bae, a geneticist at UBC, said chimpanzees currently lack the intelligence necessary to be an asteroid miner, but he recently invented a genetic engineering method that can boost a chimp’s intelligence.

“We'll have chimps working in space by this time next year,” he said.

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that farm salmon meat is disgusting. It’s chewy as hell and tastes like rotten eggs.”

BC farm salmon is considered a delicacy among society’s elite in places like New York, Dubai, and Winnipeg.

Fry said his team will continue working in the hopes that they can still create a clone of Cinderella and revive the species.

Only one species has been successfully revived: The dodo bird, two of which were cloned by Filipino scientists in 2054. The two birds slaughtered 459 people and had to be destroyed, according to reports in the Manila Times.