Last Friday’s fantastic Pow Wow brought an explosion of native culture to McGill’s campus. The events of Aboriginal Awareness Week bring the discussion of First Nations issues to the forefront, and though the week has only just begun, it has already rekindled calls from students and faculty for McGill to[Read More…]
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Cheering for Israel in the World Baseball Classic? It’s not just my imagination
Benedict Anderson, political scientist and scholar of nationalism, defines a nation as an “imagined community”; a group of people too large to have all met but with bonds—including any or all of blood, language, a common history, specific territory, and so on—that allows them to believe that they are travelling[Read More…]
Where’s representation when you need it? In defence of a student-run café on campus
Last year, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) hurried to finalize plans for a student-run café project, both in response to the closure of the Architecture Café and due to high student interest. The Student-Run Café (SRC) has been highly discussed and anticipated in recent years. It first gained[Read More…]
Moral Superiority and Student Politics: on the sanctimoniousness of student radicalism
As this term progresses, many of the usual routines of the year are fast returning to focus. Due dates are beginning their slow, inexorable evolution from abstractions printed on syllabi to concrete time commitments and nights of lost sleep. Libraries are, again, beginning to fill with students, and class schedules[Read More…]
Letter to the Editor: Eliyahu Freedman
As a former SSMU Councillor, two-time meal plan holder, and frequent visitor of the Shatner Building, I was extremely disappointed to read of the current SSMU executives’ plan to delay the creation of a Student-Run Café in the Shatner building. A Student-Run Café is about social and environmental sustainability; it’s[Read More…]
Third annual Science and Policy Exchange
On Friday, Sept. 14, a group of graduate students, professors, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs gathered in the McGill Faculty Club ballroom to attend the third annual Science and Policy Exchange. The conference featured panel speakers from government, industry, and academia. The sessions covered three topics: sustainable policymaking, the 2014 health care[Read More…]
Some smokers’ genes make it harder to kick the habit
According to Health Canada, approximately 37,000 deaths each year in Canada can be attributed to tobacco use, racking up $4.4 billion in hospital bills. Although the adverse health effects of smoking are well-known—thanks in part to the government’s anti-smoking campaigns—many have difficulty quitting, despite a variety of available cessation drugs.[Read More…]
How social media is changing science
Early in 2011, Ichthyologist (fish biologist) Brian Sidlauskas led an expedition to catalogue biodiversity in a remote river in Guyana. His goal was to bring back over 5,000 fish. According to Guyana’s customs laws, in order remove specimens from the country, each must be documented and identified. This presented an[Read More…]
POP Montreal 2012 Photo Spread
(Photos by Simon Poitimolt, Anna Katycheva, & Mike King)
Student of the Week
Q: WHY ARE YOU AN ASSET TO MCGILL? A: Because I add to the culture on campus. Q: IPHONE OR BLACKBERRY? A: Blackberry. Actually, I have a flackberry. Q: WHICH NEW REALITY TV SHOW WOULD YOU RATHER WATCH—THE ONE WITH CLINT EASTWOOD’S WIFE, OR THE ONE WITH THE[Read More…]