Latest News

Science & Technology

Interstellar travel: Sending tiny spacecrafts to the stars

by Youssef Wahba on

More in Science & Technology:

Exploring what lies in the expanse of our universe has always been a topic of interest for scientists and engineers. This curiosity has shaped the field of space exploration and propelled nations to send astronauts to explore the cosmos. 

Experiments enacted beyond the confines of our planet have yielded a plethora of scientific theories, including Galileo’s law of free fall—which was eventually proven correct by the famed hammer and feather experiment on the moon. 

Although all crewed and uncrewed space expeditions were interplanetary missions that have taken place within the bounds of the solar system, the recent exponential surge in technological developments will allow scientists to explore other stars and planetary systems. One such mission could bring us to Proxima Centauri—the second-nearest star to Earth after the sun and one of three stars in the Alpha Centauri stellar system—located around 4.24 light-years, or 9.5 trillion kilometres, away from Earth.

“Proxima Centauri is only 12 [per cent] the mass of the sun, and much more dense,” Dr. Kirsten Dage, a postdoctoral fellow at the McGill Space Institute, wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “It’s also more magnetically active and so even though it is a lot smaller, it can have increased X-ray flaring activity that gets as bright in X-rays as the Sun. The good news is that even though it is smaller than the Sun, it uses up less of its fuel and will have a longer lifetime.” 

In 2015, cosmologist Philip Lubin proposed the idea of using a powerful laser to accelerate a tiny spacecraft, weighing only a few grams, to 20 per cent of the speed of light. A few months later, Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner donated 100 million USD to fund Lubin’s project, and Stephen Hawking endorsed the idea as well. The project, called Breakthrough Starshot, aims to send a nanocraft to Alpha Centauri. 

Just as boats need a sail for cruising, the proposed nanocraft will be equipped with a lightsail just a few atoms thick. It will also carry a SpaceChip the size of a postage stamp that will bear cameras, photon laser thrusters to propel the craft, communication equipment, and a power supply. Due to the wave-particle duality of light, photons possess the energy and momentum to power the spacecraft’s journey to Alpha Centauri. 

Lubin, a professor in the Department of Physics at UC Santa Barbara and director of the UCSB Experimental Cosmology Laboratory, explained how the nanocraft travels.

“Light (directed energy) carries energy and momentum,” Lubin wrote in an email to the  Tribune. “The light from a large laser array is directed at a reflector that reflects light and thus is pushed forward. It is like using water from a hose to push a ‘beach ball’ forward. The directed energy system is not on the spacecraft but is back home (Earth, Orbit-based or lunar-based, for example).”

Designing a spacecraft that will travel 4.24 light-years during our lifetime is a daunting task, but Lubin explains that new technologies are in the works.

“If we want to get to the nearest star systems in the span of a human lifetime, we have to achieve speeds vastly higher than are currently possible with chemical propulsion,” Lubin wrote. “This requires new propulsion technologies. There are only two technologies capable of achieving the speed required. These are matter-antimatter propulsion [and] directed energy (light) propulsion. Our NASA and Breakthrough programs are focussed on the second approach, namely using large-scale directed energy or light itself to propel spacecrafts at speeds that are above 10 per cent [of] the speed of light.”

Since the nanocraft requires immense energy to travel between stars, an array of lasers on Earth is needed to propel it. The various beams from the Earth-based array will merge to form one highly energetic laser beam that has enough power to accelerate the spacecraft to between 10 and 20 per cent of the speed of light, allowing it to reach Proxima Centauri in under three decades. If a spacecraft travelled at these speeds to Mars, it would arrive in a mere three days. 

In 1977, NASA launched two space probes—Voyagers 1 and 2—to study Jupiter, Saturn, and the largest moons of both planets. After taking photographs of these planets, the probes continued past the boundaries of the heliosphere and became the first two probes to enter interstellar space. 

Avi Loeb, who serves as the chair of the Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee, is also a New York Times best-selling author of Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth and the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University.

“It would take conventional rockets (like Voyager 1 and 2 and New Horizons) about 50,000 years to reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri,”  Loeb wrote in an email to the Tribune. “It should have been sent around the time when humans left Africa in order to get there today.”’

According to Dr. Andrew Higgins, a professor in McGill’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and the principal investigator of the experimental research group ‘McGill Interstellar Flight,’ the nanocraft’s lightsail must be made from durable materials capable of travelling light-years to reach Alpha Centauri.

“A promising material is dielectrics: An example of a dielectric is glass, and the glass used in fiber optics is a very promising candidate,” Higgins wrote in an email to the Tribune. “You don’t normally think of glass as reflective but layers of glass of different types can be combined together to make a very reflective mirror. The sail should have a very low absorption of the laser light. This is even more important than high reflectivity. If the sail were to absorb even a fraction of a percent of the laser light incident upon it, it would vaporize!”

In the 1970s, American astronomer Carl Sagan talked about the prospect of developing a spacecraft known as a Solar Sail that would use energy from sunlight to propel itself. Decades later, in 2010, IKAROS became the first spacecraft to employ this technology.

“Solar sails use the photons—particles of light—from the sun to propel a spacecraft without using propellant or onboard energy,” Higgins wrote. “An extreme solar sail that starts very near the sun might be able to get to one per cent of the speed of light, but at that speed, it would take 400 years to reach Proxima Centauri.” 

In Christopher Nolan’s science fiction movie Interstellar (2014), Earth has undergone a climate crisis, leaving humanity on the brink of extinction. The main characters embark on a quest in search of a habitable planet outside of the solar system. With the Breakthrough Starshot, such expeditions may soon become a reality.

The exoplanet, Proxima Centauri b, takes 11 Earth days to orbit the dwarf star Proxima Centauri. Future interstellar missions will provide scientists with more information on the geographical composition of such planets and allow them to conduct tests to figure out if they could sustain human life. 

Jim Peebles, a Canadian-American astrophysicist and the recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics, gave insight into this planet’s conditions.

“[Proxima Centauri b] is closer to [its] star than the Earth is to the sun, but [Proxima Centauri] is fainter,” Peebles wrote in an email to the Tribune. “So, the temperature on the planet is about the same as ours, water neither boils nor freezes.” 

Without a doubt, interstellar travel will decode the enigmas beyond the realm of our solar system and revolutionize the meaning of space exploration. 

Features

Solitary studies

by Sarah Farnand on

More in Features:

This school year has presented unique challenges to McGill students around the world. With remote classes, fluctuations of public health measures, and ongoing travel restrictions, many students have had to adjust their academic plans. Now, students attend class from all over the world, often making it difficult for these individuals to keep up with their courses and stay connected to the McGill community. solitary solitary

 

As someone who is currently attending their second year of university from their childhood bedroom, far away from the McGill community, I can attest to the simultaneous joys and challenges of online learning. One major struggle I have faced is the loneliness of being isolated from McGill and from Montreal. 

 

Studies have shown that attending classes remotely has had disastrous impacts on students’ mental health. Natalie Schwarz, U1 Kinesiology, spent the Winter semester studying from her home in San Antonio, Texas. In an interview with the //McGill Tribune//, she described feeling detached from her friends in Montreal.

 

“Especially with asynchronous lectures, I don’t talk to a lot of people in my classes,” Schwarz said. “I am not as close with [my friends] because they are so far away, so I definitely feel isolated.” 

 

Hamza Chikhaoui, U2 Engineering, who stayed in his hometown of Casablanca, Morocco this semester, emphasized that studying alone was the hardest thing about being home.

 

“I personally think the hardest [part] of studying from home is not having peers to study with,” Chikhaoui said. “So you are kind of responsible for a lot more stuff with regard to course material.”

 

This feeling of loneliness is especially present among first-year students who haven’t had the chance to make real friendships with their peers. Having only visited McGill once last year, Ella Vanderkop-Girard, U0 Arts and Science, explained that making friends remotely has been difficult.

 

“I have started talking to a few people,” Vanderkop-Girard said. “I have a study group for my linguistics class, but I definitely think it has been a lot harder with everything online.”

 

Time zone differences have made it particularly difficult for some students to stay on top of lectures and assignments. The inability to attend class can hinder one’s learning experience, with work piling up quickly due to the lack of synchronous lectures. Chikhaoui has also found these new circumstances to be especially challenging during exam periods.

Editorial, Opinion

McGill must chart a new course into its third century

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

More in Editorial:

On March 31, McGill will celebrate its bicentennial anniversary. The occasion, dedicated to commemorating the university’s 200 years of “impact,” will feature virtual conferences showcasing research, a digital time capsule containing professors’ visions for the future of their fields, and a massive fundraising drive. Although it is important at this critical juncture to acknowledge the institution’s growth and recognize the achievements of its research and graduates, these facets are only one part of McGill’s story. From the Black and Indigenous persons whom James McGill enslaved to the individuals subjected to 20th-century MK Ultra experiments, survivors of violence and oppression form much of McGill’s complex history. Moreover, chronic underfunding in key areas such as student services continue to undermine students’ experiences, overshadowing its rising rankings. This year’s bicentennial must not devolve into a pageant of institutional conceit: As McGill enters its third century, it is imperative that the administration reckon with the university’s failings and set a course toward inward reflection and change.

Over the course of its two centuries of existence, McGill has expanded and evolved into a major public research institution with an international student body. Nevertheless, it has always been an artifact of white settler colonialism: Established on land stolen from the Kanien’kehà:ka people, the university’s bicentennial also marks two hundred years of anti-Indigenous violence. It bears James McGill’s name because he used wealth from the fur and slave trade—as well as the money he accumulated by exploiting and enslaving Black and Indigenous people—to found the institution as his legacy. Although these facts have been brought to the surface through archival research, administrators have long resisted calls to confront them. Worse, they have cast James McGill’s merchant success as an archetype for the modern McGill student, even commissioning a statue of him in 1996. Administrators have resisted student campaigns to take down the statue memorializing McGill’s racist founder, either effacing history or implicitly worshipping the white supremacy that produced his success. 

McGill’s modern research history has been similarly polished free of historical wrongdoings. Consider the 1957-1964 Project MK-Ultra experiments, where McGill psychiatrists supported the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s efforts to devise mind control methods—subjecting hundreds of nursing students to inhumane forms of sensory deprivation in the process. McGill faculties have also been involved in weapons research at the behest of the U.S. and Canadian governments, rendering the institution complicit in geopolitical violence. McGill must honour the victims of its role in past and ongoing oppression even as it highlights the acclaim of its graduates. 

Students, however, have long challenged McGill to do better. From 2019 valedictorian Tomas Jirousek’s successful campaign that changed the racist men’s varsity team name to the “McGill RedBirds,” to the Summer 2020 “Take Down James” movement led by Black Students, courageous student activists have been at the forefront of tangible improvement at the university. 

Still, although administrators have eulogized students as “resilient”—not least for surviving remote learning during the pandemic—such rhetoric threatens to justify dysfunctional student services and unreasonable academic harshness. Just because students are determined enough to endure McGill’s many shortcomings, from an understaffed Wellness Hub to inaccessible academic advisors, does not mean that these issues should be ignored. In its next century, McGill must enshrine compassion and respect into its ethos, prioritizing its educational mission. It must also stop seeing students as a product to be “made.” McGill is not merely a factory of prestige; it is an institution that has benefited from the contribution of its faculty, staff, and students, but most importantly exploited labour.

It would be unreasonable to mindlessly praise the institution as though it has played no part in historical atrocities or present-day inequities. McGill’s faculty are still overwhelmingly white, and BIPOC professors battle discrimination and obstacles to advancement. McGill’s bicentennial is a moment to reflect on how far it has come, but it must also orient itself toward long overdue change.

Hockey, Know Your Athlete, Sports

Know Your Athlete: Jade Downie-Landry

by Adam Menikefs on

More in Hockey:

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on McGill varsity athletes, with nearly all competition and training brought to a complete stand-still the past year. Jade Downie-Landry, BA ‘20, U1 Education, was prepared for her fifth and final year of eligibility competing on the Martlets Hockey team, but the season was halted on Sept. 14 when the RSEQ announced the cancellation of all university sports. With many public health restrictions in place, Downie-Landry and her teammates found different ways to remain active and prepare for the 2021-2022 season. 

“With reason, our facilities have been closed for quite some time, and this has required us to adapt to the situation,” Downie-Landry said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Thankfully, the girls have been great at it, with some [players] outside of Quebec able to access ice and gyms. For those in Quebec, we utilized resources such as the outdoor rinks and the provided three home workouts per week.” 

As co-captain of the team, Downie-Landry has found creative ways to foster team bonding under these difficult circumstances. She is thankful the team has remained close despite the long period of isolation. 

“Although it has been challenging, I think it has been a great opportunity to be creative and it has served as an opportunity for us to grow as a team in the face of adversity,” Downie-Landry said. “I think the girls deserve a lot of credit considering the challenges that presented themselves.”

Downie-Landry appreciates having the support of fellow co-captains to help lead their tight-knit squad.

“The beauty of having a group of captains on the team is that we all share similar beliefs about our roles as leaders,” Downie-Landry said. “What is most important for the leadership group is to make those around us better leaders as well. It is great having a group of four to five girls leading a team, but having 25 girls better themselves everyday as people, athletes, students, and leaders is even more essential when looking at our team as a whole.” 

Juggling the responsibilities of team leadership, the rigorous varsity hockey training schedule, and McGill’s high academic requirements would prove challenging for anyone. Over the past five years, however, Downie-Landry said that she has grown as both a player and a student with encouragement from her teammates. 

“Learning how to manage my time meant learning some things about myself that I did not necessarily know before,” Downie-Landry said. “Throughout the years I have definitely noticed that I am very routine-oriented [….] Being surrounded [by] teammates who had struggled and experienced a heavy schedule was also nice because I got to experience what worked and did not work for me.”

Off the ice, Downie-Landry has been working diligently to complete her second degree at McGill after graduating with a degree in psychology in 2020. She is now completing a B.Ed in physical education. After she graduates, Downie-Landry hopes to stay involved with hockey.

“My plans are still up in the air,” Downie-Landry said. “One thing I am certain of is that I would love to continue within the hockey community, whether that is being involved with coaching or other opportunities that might present themselves.”

For now, Downie-Landry is looking forward to the possibility of playing hockey games next year. 

“I am fortunate enough to be coming back next year, but some players, regardless of university, are concluding their final years as a student-athlete,” Downie-Landry said.  “I tip my hat off to them. I cannot even begin to imagine how difficult this year must have been for them.”

Off the Board, Opinion

I could sleep wherever I lay my head

by Katia Lo Innes on

More in Off the Board:

During my undergraduate degree, I became a night-owl: The day was occupied by class or work, and I allotted my most academically and socially productive moments to the witching hours. Although I could never predict where I would sleep each night, I always found a place to rest if I did not return to my own apartment. Where I slept—and who I slept beside, in the literal sense—was often haphazard, but always created a cherished memory.

Over the course of my degree, I have slept in four of my own beds—including one rock-hard single bed in RVC—those of my friends, roommates, as well as a couple of courteous exes. I have slept in the metro after concerts, nodded off in the reclining Cinema du Parc seats, and fallen asleep face down on picnic blankets in the summer, burning my entire back. Starting birth control in my first semester of university induced a bout of chronic fatigue, causing me to fall asleep five minutes into lectures. Even though it was not the best for my sleep schedule—or my back—I loved sleeping in weird places; I even maintained an Instagram account to document the spontaneous naps that my fellow student journalist friends and I would take in our cramped, triangular office.

As somebody with hyperactive tendencies, McGill offered me the opportunities to keep my agenda packed full with places to be and things to do, fueled solely by Snax Coffee and depanneur Red Bulls. Unfortunately, McGill’s “work hard, play hard” culture conditions students to believe that over-exhaustion should be the norm. Because of Montreal’s current curfew and my general senioritis, I romanticize the freedom I had to stay up all night doing whatever I wanted, even if it came at the expense of my mental and physical wellbeing.

For the first three years of my degree, several campus spots became extensions of my bedroom. Amidst the stress of deadlines and papers, I was grateful to be able to close my eyes and catch a few moments of undisturbed rest. During this remote semester, I have missed basking in the Lower Field sun and impromptu sleepovers after a night out with my friends. I miss the solidarity that existed in the library during finals season when I could trust the person I waved at to watch over me and my belongings as I slept—a common bond between undergrads. 

I think fondly of my moments of rest, not because of the circumstances that made my sleep schedule irregular to an unbearable point, but because it showed how much students care to look out for one another. I am unsure if my university degree has taught me anything besides what the “Anthropocene” is; however, my unofficial education has taught me that in cutthroat, faux-elite settings such as McGill, the most impactful thing you can do is care for your peers, and look out for them when they sleep. 

My nights are now more predictable—gone are mascara-smeared pillowcases and dozing off on public transit. Rather than staying up for days on end, I sleep often and for long periods at a time. I relish in the ominous light that emanates from the Olympic Stadium and pours into my room. Though my nostalgia for library all-nighters and sketchy after-parties may be self-destructively misplaced, there was always a thrill in waking up in some alien place—whether it be a friends’ or a strangers’ house—and then the walk home that followed, where every block took me toward both greater lucidity and my front steps. Better yet was letting friends crash at my place, then waking up to share breakfast and laugh about whatever nonsense ensued the night before. I am sure that one day, I will wake up somewhere new again, but this time, without the rings of my notebook imprinted onto my face.

Arts & Entertainment, Internet

Escapism, identity, and the evolution of TikTok aesthetics

by Noma Mirny on

More in Arts & Entertainment:

Tweed peacoats, plaid dresses, corsets, and cutlasses found discarded in antique store basements have attracted a new group of buyers in 2021: Teenagers. 

“Aesthetics,” a branch of philosophy that studies the nature and qualifications of beauty, taste, and art, has been given a whole new meaning in the last decade by Gen Z social media users. The contemporary understanding of the term has completely changed to now align with a collection of visuals that represent a broad array of concepts ranging from historical eras, locations, genres of fiction, music, and even pre-existing subcultures. The most prevalent of 2021 aesthetics can be narrowed down to two categories: Cottagecore, an aesthetic that romanticizes cottage life, and Dark Academia, a style that engages in the eerie visuals of early 20th-century academia. As these two aesthetics—along with many other similar aesthetics—gain popularity in the online lives of young people, it becomes important to understand how they arose, what they are, and what their modern-day implications may be.

For starters, Tumblr might have a few answers. Created in 2007, Tumblr was the first image-oriented social media platform to go mainstream. Pinterest and Instagram, both launched in 2010, followed soon after. Unlike its other social media predecessors, the platform centered around users’ ability to create a distinct visual identity by curating their blog with an individualized colour scheme and font palette, along with the reblogging of content. Zoe Karkossa, U4 Science, has avidly tracked the development of Tumblr aesthetics since she started her blog in 2013.

“Tumblr was the first platform to really capitalize on the use of visual images as symbols,” Karkossa said. “You had Flickr [before], but that was […] meant to be photos that you took. [On] Tumblr, you had the option of curating […] images that other people have taken.”

Karkossa argues that Tumblr provided access to a huge database of pictures and GIFs, which made certain recurring images, products, and color schemes popular among users. Before the white, upper-middle class VSCO blogger aesthetic, there were “basic” bloggers who drank Starbucks, wore Uggs, and posted highly stylized inspirational quotes on Instagram. While older millennials were evolving from the Scene kids of MySpace into early 2010s Hipsters, younger millennials and Gen Z-er’s were building off of the styles on these online platforms to curate their own visual identities.

Beyond curating moodboard blogs, Tumblr was ultimately a fan-centric space. Teens on 2012-2014 era Tumblr created fandoms surrounding YouTubers, bands, shows, and even authors. With so many people discussing the same content—whether it was the Arctic Monkeys AM, Troye Sivan and Tyler Oakley’s “Boyfriend Tag” video, or the unforgettable Mishapocalypse—certain fashion styles also gained popularity on the website, like galaxy leggings and flower crowns. In turn, the mainstream “basic” aesthetic contended with a newer, though no less homogenous, fandom aesthetic.

Carrie Rentschler, an associate professor at McGill’s Department of Art History & Communication Studies who studies aesthetics through the lens of social media activism, noted that social media users must be aware of how different websites provide different avenues of expression for their creators. An aesthetic develops when certain visuals can move between different platforms, adapting in accordance to the new websites. 

“There is a kind of […] revision process that aesthetics are going through as part of the creative process,” Rentschler said. “You have this corpus of material on social media and cross-platform movement of […] emerging aesthetics and […] conventions. [Content creators have] a way of doing things that is not directly agreed upon [but rather, they] have chosen to make similar decisions.”

Whereas Tumblr provided anonymity through its reblogging function—allowing the creation of a visual identity to be developed sans ownership—Instagram shifted visual communication toward a form of individualized social signalling. Instagram users do not simply curate content, they create it. The images an individual posts on Instagram—like the Helvetica-filtered early 2010’s circle of shoes photo—signified, to some extent, the fashion that they subscribed to and the internet subculture they were a part of. Simultaneously, Pinterest users can curate their style by searching up images and creating boards. Not long after, Instagram pages with moodboards followed. 

It should come as no surprise, then, that the aesthetics that originated on Tumblr  and were popularized through Instagram have taken TikTok by storm. The significance of aesthetics, however, lies not in their existence, but in their unexpected mainstream appeal, global influence, and escapist nature. 

No aesthetic is perhaps as escapist as Cottagecore, a theme that originated on Tumblr in 2017—although arguably popularized by Marie Antoinette—and presents a romanticized version of rural life, complete with green-coated fields, airy dresses, flowers, woven baskets, self-subsistence, and frolics through mystical fields. While it is an undeniably beautiful and otherworldly aesthetic that has sprouted many offshoots of its own, Cottagecore also has complicated socio-political undertones. It upholds a conservatively traditional lifestyle, yet at the same time is championed by queer women who find sapphic appeal in a sustainable, unpreturbed, romantic pastoral life. Furthermore, it idolizes anti-capitalism in its pursuit of self-subsistence, but is inherently consumerist in its pursuit of a certain lifestyle—it takes money to be able to buy an array of vintage dresses, curate a charcuterie board, and to even have the time to frolic in a field.

Even so, the Cottagecore aesthetic holds no malicious intent, and provides the viewer a flower-spotted escape from a complicated and stressful world. Taylor Swift’s release of two Cottagecore-themed albums in 2020 has pushed the aesthetic into the mainstream. 

On the other end of the optical and atmospheric spectrum is Dark Academia, a  neoclassicist subset of the larger “Academia” aesthetic which focusses on a certain macabre, academically rigorous, elite university lifestyle, reminiscent of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Think studying in a coffee-stained sweater vest, hidden in the nook of a snowed-in library, while you pore over an ancient Greek text to the sound of Vivaldi far off in the distance. 

Jesse Smith, U1 Arts and TikTok content creator, delves into the details of their preferred aesthetic: Dark Academia.

“Whereas Cottagecore is Midsommar without the horror […], Dark Academia is very Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, [and] to an extent, Harry Potter,” Smith said. “A lot of the aesthetic has the undertones of nefariousness. You want to create a secret society with your friends and hide murder. That is not actually something you want to do, but that’s the vibe you’re going for.”

What both of these aesthetics have in common is that they provide young people a form of unique self-expression and a way to elude a world filled with death, disease, racialized violence, and political turmoil. Smith argues that Dark Academia ultimately boils down to self-expression and a growing opposition to the conventions and practices of the fashion industry. 

“We have a lot more of an opportunity, and a willingness to not conform,” Smith said. “A lot of the movement towards aesthetics is against the fashion industry [because] aesthetics can’t be mass produced in the quality people are looking for. Fashion aesthetics have moved the younger generations more towards thrifting and higher quality clothing [….] People care a lot more about how they feel in their clothing rather than how that clothing presents them to the world.” 

Maybe the emergence of these strange subcultures is for the best: Pushing against fast fashion, pursuing a unique sense of self-expression in lockdown, and looking for a fantastical form of escape are arguably some of the best things young people can be doing right now. When the world feels like it is on fire, there is nothing wrong with putting on a flowy dress, closing your eyes, and thinking of a life where a trickling stream, a bloom of lily flowers, and a homemade meal await you by a cottage on a hill. Maybe you will even find yourself along the way. 

 

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

‘CARNE y ARENA’ fuses uncanny simulation and intimate portraiture

by Atsushi Ikeda on

More in Arts & Entertainment:

Content warning: Graphic violence.

Dubbed a semi-fictionalized ethnography by director Alejandro Iñárritu, CARNE y ARENA, or Flesh and Sand, is a VR exhibition that immerses participants into the lives of undocumented immigrants in the United States. For 15 harrowing minutes, CARNE y ARENA takes participants across the U.S.-Mexico border, hounded by sirens, searchlights, and the desert wind. But the exhibition—on display at Arsenal Contemporary Art Montreal, a gallery housed in a former Lachine Canal shipyard—is not so much about border crossings as it is about what is left behind: Families that could not make it, shoes piled in detention rooms, and footprints in the sand.

The exhibition is divided into two parts. The first is an immersive seven-minute film experience where participants don headphones, a loaded backpack, and a VR headset. Accompanied by a group of 10 virtual immigrants, participants walk barefoot through a room filled with sand to simulate a desert. The threat of being caught by U.S. authorities is ever-present as one crosses the desert: At one point I ran—trying to find virtual cover from border patrol—into a not-so-virtual wall. All the gestures, dialogue, and character models are based on real stories with details cultivated from hundreds of interviews with immigrants. As Iñárritu says, the film is a slice of their nightmare. 

The second part of the exhibit begins once participants exit the “desert,” sans headset, into a dark hallway filled with 10 private viewing boxes, each containing a screen situated in a private alcove. Each screen plays a video profile of an immigrant as their stories unfold in text—from the trauma of being thrown into a freezing cell at the border, to the disorientation of a life in America marked by hope, fear, and sacrifice. During each video vignette, the camera shots widen almost imperceptibly to give a fuller picture of the people that risk being forgotten: Luis, who crossed the border at age nine, and years later was the first undocumented immigrant to graduate from UCLA Law School under the DACA policy; Lina, a maid from Guatemala, who had to work, wait, and pray for 20 years before seeing her daughter again. These may very well be the people you encounter in everyday life.

Once flung from the 360° immersion of a simulated desert trek, walking through the exhibit and engaging with each virtual person face-to-face feels like a personal encounter with each of their stories, down to the last haunting detail. From the helpless sounds of someone dying of heat exhaustion, to refugees packed like sardines into train cars or trailers with barely enough space to breathe, the exhibit invites participants to view each vignette individually. Together, they evoke a sense of compassion that is much more complex because it is cumulative. If the screens were displayed regularly—say, in horizontal Zoom grid fashion—participants would be liable to walking by them without absorbing their content. Through frantic immersion and slow intensity—the dizzying technical experiment and the intimate portrait that follows—Iñárritu’s project succeeds in turning the numbing statistics of immigration into real, human stories.

“VR is all that cinema is not, and vice versa; the frame is gone and the two-dimensional limits are dissolved,” reads Iñárritu’s artist statement, which touches on other binaries like spectator and participant, U.S. and T.H.E.M. Formal innovations aside, there is something uncanny about taking part in this VR exhibit when the entire world has been coated in an unreal sheen.

“Virtually present, physically invisible” has been CARNE y ARENA’s tagline since its 2017 Cannes premiere. Four years later, the phrase still sticks with you for many reasons, as you walk through Griffintown—with shoes on—after the exhibit.

 

CARNE y ARENA, co-produced and optimized for international touring by PHI Studio, is running at Arsenal Contemporary Art Montreal. Tickets are sold out until June 20, but extra dates have been added up to July 11.

 

 

Sports

Female athletes deserve equal treatment

by Sarah Farnand, Sophia Gorbounov on

More in Sports:

At the start of the NCAA March Madness tournaments on March 18, Stanford sport performance coach Ali Kerschner released photos comparing the training facilities for the men’s and women’s tournaments. Fans and athletes alike called out the NCAA for the vast differences between the men’s and women’s training facilities and merchandise. This inequity, unfortunately, is not a new problem: For as long as women have played sports, equal representation, as well as the salary and funding gap between men’s and women’s sports has been an issue. These disparities are caused by sexism and the stigma around women’s sports. Male athletes earn more in almost every professional sport, which is a discrepancy that must be rectified. 

Rikki Bowles, B.Ed. ‘10, is the interim head coach for the McGill Women’s Basketball team. In an email to The McGill Tribune, Bowles explained that she believed lack of publicity to be one of the main barriers women face in professional and collegiate basketball. 

“In my opinion, two of the main inequities are the promotion of the WNBA and their players’ salaries in comparison to those in the NBA,” Bowles wrote. “This is not unique to professional basketball but is a trend across many professional sports [….] With less investment, this affects ticket and merchandise sales, broadcasting deals, and in turn affects the […] ability to increase salaries.”

(McGill Athletics)

Men’s conferences in the March Madness tournaments receive over $1.6 million in funding from the NCAA, while the women’s conferences receive nothing.

The NCAA, which governs both the women’s and men’s programs, decides where to allocate funds. In the women’s “swag bags,” which are given to all teams who make the NCAA tournament, there is no  mention of March Madness or even “2021,” while the men’s gifts had all been labelled with the year and location of “the big dance.” 

Aside from the merch, however, it is the women’s training facilities that are receiving the most backlash. The women’s workout area consisted of a single dumbbell rack with six sets of weights all under 30 pounds, yoga mats, and one stationary bike for all 64 teams to share. The NCAA cited a lack of space as the reason for the lacklustre setup, but Oregon Ducks star Sedona Prince exposed the NCAA by releasing a video of large conference rooms filled with nothing but air. The NCAA is a nonprofit designed to help all of its athletes succeed, yet by treating women’s basketball as inferior, the NCAA has hindered the ability of female basketball players to develop and sharpen their skills. Even though the women’s tournament generates significantly less revenue than the men’s, primarily due to lack of promotion, the women players still deserve equitable treatment. 

The differences in support for men and women are also apparent in professional basketball, where WNBA players make an average yearly income of $80,000, compared to the NBA player’s average of $7.4 million. After players like Skylar Diggins-Smith called out the disparity, the NBA pointed to revenues as the reason for these vast differences, stating that the NBA draws larger audiences and secures more profitable broadcasting deals. Regardless of the amount of revenue, WNBA players receive only an estimated 20 per cent of their league’s revenue, whereas NBA players receive 50 per cent. If women were also paid 50 per cent of league revenue, they would make an average of around $200,000. 

The age difference between the NBA and WNBA is another excuse used to explain these discrepancies. Men’s professional basketball, which has been around for 50 more years than women’s basketball, has had more time to build a fan base. A larger fan base can generate more revenue which can be used to attract talent and more resources. If we choose to invest in the WNBA, they can also build themselves into a higher revenue organization.

There is a general stigma that women’s sports are less exciting and generate fewer ticket and merchandise sales. 

The systemic misogyny in athletics must be dismantled, and this process can start by adding structural and monetary support to women’s programs. Education and awareness at all levels of sport is also required to remove the stigma around the validity of women’s sports.

Evelyn Silverson-Tokatlidis, U3 Arts, is a wing for the McGill Rugby Team and the president of the McGill Varsity Council. She explained the disrespect she feels when compared to her male counterparts. 

“This lack of respect trickles through to the everyday life of a female athlete,” Silverson-Tokatlidis wrote to the Tribune. “We see it on social media, where nasty comments from people disrespect and hate female athletes.”

Silverson-Tokatlidis said she faced criticism for choosing a historically male-dominated sport. She recalled a friend telling her that she should stop playing rugby to avoid looking too masculine. 

“Through[out] my whole rugby playing career, I was constantly met with comments from people questioning why I play such an aggressive sport if I was a woman,” Silverson-Tokatlidis wrote. “Meeting strangers and telling them that I play rugby, I was always met with shock and surprise, as if others cannot comprehend that a woman can play a ‘men’s sport.’”

Silverson-Tokatlidis believes that advocacy for equity must extend beyond the world of athletes and toward all women. 

“I believe it is incredibly important to speak out about these issues so others can understand what we go through,” Silverson-Tokatlidis wrote. “We can ignite these conversations with non-avid sports fans by relating some of our aspects to barriers that [women] face in a non-sport context.”

Colette Beauvais, U1 Engineering and a member of the McGill Tennis Team, recalled feeling alienated by underrepresentation in her sport. 

“When I was growing up, I tried to join some club that was predominantly male,” Beauvais said in an interview with the Tribune. “It’s difficult going into that environment and feeling equal or represented.”

Julia Moskal, U2 Science, who also plays for the McGill Tennis Team, agreed with Beauvais that these feelings stem, in part, from the lack of funding and representation at professional levels of tennis. 

“The opportunity and the funding for professional sports once you reach [a high] level is a lot lower in women’s sports,” Moskal said in an interview with the Tribune. “When [young women are] picking out what they want to spend their time on, put energy into, it is a lot harder to get motivated.”

Women’s professional tennis also lacks funding and female tennis players are underpaid. In 1973 for example, Billie Jean King, a world-renowned tennis player with 39 Grand Slam titles, threatened to boycott the U.S. Open until men and women received equal pay for their wins. Along with eight other players and promoter Gladys Heldman, King started her own tour, the Virginia Slims Circuit, which later became the basis for the Women’s Tennis Association Tour. 

(Steve Flink / US Open)

The journey to end misogyny and oppression in sports, both at local and professional levels, is far from over. Nonetheless, athletes like Makena Moore, U3 Science and a captain of the McGill Tennis Team, are prepared to uplift the next generation of young women athletes and help break down the barriers they may face. 

“My hope is that I can inspire the [next] group of young girls,” Moore said in an interview with the Tribune. “I really do think that getting to a grassroots level of sport […] is really where you can start the inspiration, and let young girls know that they do belong in sport just as much as anybody else.”

Chill Thrills, Student Life

Graduating in the age of COVID-19

by Josephine Wang on

More in Chill Thrills:

For graduating students, the opportunity to don a cap and gown and stand on a podium while family cheers you on is an important rite of passage. For the class of 2021, commencement ceremonies will look different than they did pre-pandemic. Instead of celebrating graduation with friends and family, this spring’s graduates will be watching their names flash across the computer screen at home. But COVID-19 does not mean students cannot celebrate––for this year’s graduating class, here are a few tips to have the perfect celebration from the comfort of home. 

Celebrate your last final

It’s officially over. After doing nothing but cramming for finals, presentations, and research papers, you deserve a celebration. While all the bars, clubs, restaurants, and basically anything fun are closed, there are still ways to have fun: Instead of drinking alone indoors, move the party with family outdoors to enjoy the warmer weather.

Pick an outfit

Wearing your favorite outfit, doing your hair, and putting on makeup can make graduation feel more authentic. But let’s be real—doing all that would take too much effort, and the daily uniform of sweats and unbrushed hair is much more comfortable. So feel free to change up the graduation traditions this year, and do what you’ve been doing all semester and keep your camera off.

Host a virtual graduation party

The parties and celebrations leading up to convocation are perhaps the rosiest part of graduation, allowing students to reflect on their experience at McGill through rose-coloured glasses and forget about all the tears shed in McLennan. Of course, COVID-19 means no more Grad Balls, but who needs them when you can coordinate your own virtual graduation party. Nothing screams party like seeing your friends’ faces crowded into your computer screen. 

Show up on time

On graduation day, make sure to arrive on time to hear the commencement address. Unfortunately, if you live anywhere outside of the Eastern Time Zone, it may mean waking up at 4 a.m. to watch speakers try to figure out how to unmute themselves. If you find yourself busy on graduation day, you can always watch the recording later, just like how you’ve been doing for all of your classes. 

Have a photoshoot

Photos are undoubtedly the most important part of the graduation experience: Without a graduation picture on Instagram, did you even really graduate? But with no in-person ceremony this year, students will need to be creative with their pictures. If you’re a whiz at Photoshop, just insert yourself and your friends into some iconic McGill landmarks. Alternatively, you can take a more realistic grad photo. While you’re catching up on “Love is Blind,” throw on your cap and gown and take some portrait shots on your living room couch. After all, that is basically where you’ve attended school the past year. 

Post-ceremony

After the ceremony, grads typically go out to dinner with friends or family, where toasts are made, tears are shed, and drunken moments are shared on social media. There’s no reason why this year has to be any different. Make a toast to yourself in front of your bathroom mirror, cry at the thought of entering the workforce for the next 40 years of your life, and drink that wine, because you survived McGill.  

To say that this year did not go according to plan would be a gross understatement. Having missed out on many hallmark events and memories, it is only natural to feel a sense of sadness. Try and think about all of the things we gained from this unique experience, and share them with your friends, who might also be struggling to find the bright side. 

Congratulations to the class of 2021! We finally did it. 

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Exploring the microbiota of human breast milk

by Namrata Rana on

More in Research Briefs:

Until recently, scientists presumed that breast milk—the primary source of infant nutrition— was microbe-free. However, recent studies have found that breast milk contains a healthy dose of good bacteria. These microbes originate from the mother’s gut microbiota—the harmless micro-organisms that colonize the human digestive system. The microbiome performs diverse functions like warning the immune system of pathogens, strengthening intestine walls, and regulating metabolism. 

Infants, however, are not exposed to bacteria in the womb and only begin to establish their gut microbiota after birth. Breastfeeding is one way infants develop their immune systems. 

A new study published in Frontiers in Microbiology by researchers at McGill and the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment, Aging and Metabolism (CeSSIAM) reported significant differences in the bacterial composition of breast milk when comparing the initial and later months of infant development.  

“We observed several common bacteria over both samples of breast milk, but found some more aggressive bacteria in late-stage milk [breast milk at six months],” Dr. Emmanuel Gonzalez, co-author and metagenomic specialist with the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4), said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. 

Using high-resolution imaging technology, the researchers characterized distinct bacterial colonies found in breast milk. The most common commensal bacterial species found in early milk were Staphylococcus and Streptococcus, which are known to inhabit nasal passages and skin in adults. Sphingobium yanoikuyae, a bacterial species found in late milk stages, is also critical to soil bioremediation and can degrade hydrocarbons like oil and caffeine in the environment. 

In their study, the researchers recruited Guatemalan mothers who breastfed for at least six months and evaluated the long-term changes in the bacteria present in their breast milk. They also identified breastfeeding patterns common among low-income countries that are underrepresented in research. Cultural and economic disparities among countries also influence breastfeeding habits: Only four per cent of babies in low- to middle-income countries are never breastfed, compared to 21 per cent of babies in North America.  

“When we consistently pick participants from the same environment, we create biases in our results that can prevent us from understanding how much our own ecosystem is having an effect,” Gonzalez said.

The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding for six months after birth. However, the organization reported that globally, only 41 per cent of mothers adhere to these guidelines, whereas in North America, only 26 per cent of mothers breastfeed long term. This disparity is primarily due to increased maternal employment in North America, where only 10 per cent of full-time working mothers breastfeed for a full six months. 

“Our next steps to understand the complexity of breast milk is to look for other types of microbes like fungi, worms, and viruses, which can provide insight into the stability of the microbiome,”  Gonzalez said. “In previous studies on pain and its relationship with microbiota, we know that bacteria can sense and react to human hormones, which could be a potential factor that influences these changes.”        

While the benefits of breastfeeding are fiercely debated, breast milk does provide high nutritional value for babies, as it contains easily digestible vitamins, proteins, and fats, in addition to healthy bacteria. Immediately after birth, breast milk provides a source of microbial antigens that cause the immune system to produce defensive antibodies. A recent study on maternal microbiota reported that Lactobacillus reuteri, a common probiotic, can prime the most abundant antibody, Immunoglobulin A (IgA), for defence in infant mice. These results suggest that IgA is critical in preventing infections. 

Future directions for this research include developing artificial breast milk alternatives supplemented with probiotics to improve infant health.

“Just as billions of humans inhabit this planet, there are several millions of organisms inhabiting their own world [inside of] a human,” Gonzalez said. “A small portion of this world exists within human milk as well, which is shared from one human to another.”

1 … 338 339 340 341 342 … 1,363

Read the latest issue

Read the latest issue