The most recent report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (drafted on Aug. 7) emphasizes the susceptibility of global food security to changes in climate and land use. The report highlighted that adaptive strategies to reduce total carbon production and preserve natural ecosystems are humanity’s best chance at[Read More…]
Science & Technology
The latest in science and technology.
Hippocampus research introduces a new understanding of stress
In Aug. 2019, a team led by McGill professor and researcher Tak Pan Wong published a new study about the hippocampus and its ability to retain memories of stressful experiences. Published in the Journal for Neuroscience, the study detailed new connections to mental disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress[Read More…]
Science podcasts to start the semester
Whether you’re folding laundry or walking to campus, podcasts are a great way to pass the time and learn some obscure information to impress your friends. They can also be a wonderful way for science and non-science students alike to engage in a subject that they would like to explore.[Read More…]
Discarding waste in McGill labs
During the relocation of Macdonald Campus in 1978, lab manager in the Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry Ebrahim Noroozi was tasked with the transfer of thousands of chemicals. That year, the campus was moved from its old buildings in the John Abbott College complex to its current location.[Read More…]
Yoshua Bengio on the future of AI
Turing Award recipient and McGill alumnus Yoshua Bengio, best known for his seminal work on artificial intelligence (AI), is the latest recipient of the Killam Prize, a $100,000 award given to outstanding scholars. Bengio is the founder of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (Mila), a world-renowned AI research institute. [Read More…]
World Oceans Day highlights pressures on marine environments
On June 8, humans dumped 13,000–15,000 pieces of plastic into the ocean. At the same time, we were celebrating United Nations (UN) designated World Oceans Day, which raises awareness about oceans’ importance to humanity. It also connects people worldwide through social media, encourages participation in partner organizations, and inspires year-round[Read More…]
HIV in East Africa: An ongoing struggle
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 19.6 million people are living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in eastern and southern Africa as of 2017. As part of McGill’s Africa Field Study Semester (AFSS), students had the opportunity to interact with local individuals and public health practitioners that deal with[Read More…]
Biological crisis forces species to adapt or go extinct
An extensive report released last month warns that unsustainable human activities, such as agricultural expansion and marine pollution, are accelerating species extinction rates and causing the fastest loss of biodiversity in human history. Authored by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the foremost body for issues[Read More…]
The fatal consequences of turning the clocks back
Every spring, millions of sleep-deprived Canadians are prompted to wake up an hour earlier, all the while cursing the person who invented daylight saving time. Few people probably imagine that one man’s love of bugs could have disturbed the life of so many individuals on an annual basis. In 1895,[Read More…]
Cargo ships contribute to spreading alien species
In 1988, the arrival of the zebra mussel irreversibly transformed the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. The introduction of the species was, and continues to be, a disaster for North American waterways. By 2009, the species had spread as far as Manitoba and Texas, driving out local species and costing[Read More…]