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Science & Technology, STEM EVENTS

Lava planets: Where oceans of magma rage and wind breaks the speed of sound

by Leanne Cherry on

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One side of these planets sits at temperatures hot enough not only to melt, but to vaporize their solid rocky surface, creating oceans of molten lava and an atmosphere of vaporized rock. On the other side, the cold is unrelenting—temperatures reach well below -200 degrees Celsius, allowing its surface to remain solid. These extremes are among some of the strange features of lava planets. 

On Sept. 19, at the third Physics Society Colloquium of the 2025-2026 academic year, Nicolas B. Cowan, associate professor of Physics and Earth & Planetary Sciences at McGill, gave a lecture on the physics of lava planets. Lava planets are a kind of exoplanet—a planet outside of our solar system—that have permanent oceans of liquid hot magma raging at the surface. Cowan began by describing just how hot lava planets get—somewhere around 2,700 degrees Celsius, or 3,000 degrees kelvin.

“To put that in perspective, 3,000 kelvin is actually the median surface temperature of stars in the galaxy,” Cowan said. “That’s like your run-of-the-mill average star, [which] is a mid-M dwarf star, and it’s got a surface temperature of 3,000 kelvin, so the surface of this planet is actually that temperature. It’s pretty hot.”

As with any planet orbiting a star, lava planets have day and night sides, with the former directly facing the star and the latter facing the cold, dark void of space. They orbit so closely to their star that they can complete a whole revolution in a mere few hours—something which Earth takes 365 days to achieve. 

Similarly to our moon, lava planets are tidally locked, meaning the same side is always facing its star: It is on this day side where magma oceans rage. 

Cowan noted that magma oceans have been a topic of discussion long before they were discovered on existing planets.

“Magma oceans are not some [newly] made up thing. People talked about magma oceans before lava planets, and that’s because we think that all rocky worlds, including the Earth, the moon, Mercury, whatever, all the planets start off molten.”

Rocky planets go through a period of being molten as a result of the energy dissipated when they first form. As layers of space dust and particulate matter come together, the pressure increases, thus increasing temperature and creating a molten state. The difference between planets like Earth and planets like K2-141B—a known lava planet—is that the latter’s molten lava ocean is a permanent fixture. On planets like Earth, the lava ocean eventually solidifies.

Cowan then went on to describe the atmosphere of lava planets. In every atmosphere—whether it surrounds Earth or K2-141B—winds are caused by air moving from areas of high to low pressure. Temperature and pressure are directly proportional; thus, the stark temperature difference between the day and night sides of lava planets results in abnormally fast winds emerging from the day side, in some cases travelling 1.75 kilometres per second—or five times the speed of sound. 

Coming down from the atmosphere, Cowan then discussed lava planets’ interior. Rock—which makes up a lava planet’s outer layer—is composed of a variety of chemical substances, the most abundant of which is silicon dioxide. Because of its complex chemical make-up, the rocky surface does not melt and solidify uniformly. The section between the approximately 100-kilometre-deep magma ocean and the planet’s solid iron core is in a state scientifically known as ‘mush’—a mixture of solid and liquid phases. 

Cowan concluded his lecture by explaining why lava planets end up orbiting so closely to their star. These planets could not have formed in such intense heat, as the temperatures in these close orbits would have vaporized any rocky material, thereby preventing it from solidifying and forming a planet. Cowan instead proposed that lava planets obtained their orbit by way of high eccentricity migration—a process by which a space body’s orbit shrinks and circularizes because of the effects of a nearby space body. In other words, these planets likely formed farther away and moved inward over time. 

Ultimately, the study of lava planets improves our understanding of the universe and the processes of planet formation and development, both within and beyond our solar system.

Commentary, Opinion

Maple-washing by grocery giants threatens the Canadian domestic market

by Julie Raout on

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed 12 cases of ‘maple-washing’ between February and May 2025, a marketing tactic that exploits Canadian patriotism to encourage sales of imported goods. The agency caught multiple grocery chains promoting non-Canadian products using “Product of Canada” and “Made in Canada” labels, as well as a maple leaf symbol, thus threatening consumer trust, harming local businesses, and disadvantaging the domestic market in the process. 

The CFIA can fine offenders up to $15,000 CAD when they jeopardize access to Canadian goods on the market. Yet, the agency issued no fines over the recently observed cases of maple-washing, despite their clear violation of Canada’s advertising laws. The CFIA’s reasons for the lack of fines stay vague; it states that labels had been corrected and issues therefore settled. Grocers receiving complaints have tagged false labelling as mere errors—and the CFIA seem more than willing to ignore the corporations’ plausibly calculated intentions. 

However, incidents of false advertising deemed ‘simple mistakes’ have not gone away nor settled following the issuance of complaints. In fact, maple-washing saw a recent increase: The CFIA observed more than 70 complaints in July and August. Maple-washing’s rise in prevalence represents a strategic ploy by non-Canadian corporations. As Canadians attempt to promote the domestic market amidst tariff disputes and tensions with the White House, maple-washing offers a sly way to boost sales of boycotted imported goods. 

President Trump’s reiterations—in March and June—of his wish to colonize Canada as the U.S.’ 51st state, combined with new 35 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods implemented on Aug. 1, galvanized Canadians into promoting domestic industry. The ‘Buy Canadian’ movement emerged as consumers began to prioritize buying local: 45 per cent of Canadians state they actively boycott U.S. goods in response to tariffs, choosing instead to purchase Canadian substitutes. McGill students shopping around campus at Provigo and Metro may have been impacted by maple-washing, as they have an incentive to buy Canadian as a statement against Trump’s policies. 

Aware of these changes in consumer preferences, corporations have used maple leaf logos or “Made in Canada” labels to avoid market share decline. Riding the wave of Canadian patriotism to promote international products is a clever marketing strategy. However, it becomes an unethical one when companies weaponize nationalism for profit by lying to their customers about their products’ country of origin. 

The CFIA led a four-month investigation against Canadian grocery store Sobeys over imported avocado oil marketed as “Made in Canada,” but closed the case without issuing any penalties. The CFIA’s failure to act on recognized maple-washing pushes aside customers’ concerns and rights to accurate, truthful advertising. Consumers who have reported maple-washing cases say grocers have eroded their trust and demand punishment for misleading marketing patterns. 

Montreal lawyer Joey Zukran took matters into his own hands in mid-September by seeking court approval to sue Provigo, Metro, and Sobeys, among other companies. After witnessing the CFIA’s inaction, Zukran aims to show that systemic false advertising cannot go unpunished. 

As a result of maple-washing, Canada is losing an opportunity to benefit from its tariff war with the United States. By fearing a loss in capital, corporations have selfishly squandered Canada’s chance to capitalize on nationalistic momentum transparently and without threatening long-term market development. Instead, local companies remain overshadowed by imported goods even when citizens express a strong commitment to strengthening the national economy through their individual consumption choices. 

Labelling inaccuracies, when recurring and consistently made by multiple commercial corporations, are not mistakes. Companies falsely promoting products as Canadian should suffer a penalty: Normalizing incorrect labelling allows misleading advertising to secure its position in the food-selling industry. Until fines follow from fraud, the maple leaf risks regressing from a national emblem to a mere marketing gimmick.

Off the Board

Make libraries cool again

by Sahel Delafoulhouse Williams on

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On Monday, as I was parting ways with a friend, she casually mentioned, “I’m going to the library to pick up a book for my research.” This phrase stuck with me—not because of what she said, but because of how rare it is to hear someone, especially a student, talk about going to the library not to study or kill time between classes, but to find a book that aids their current research interest.

The next day, when another friend of mine suggested we visit Westmount Library, I spontaneously agreed. After wandering through the greenhouse and settling into a cozy spot, I began drafting this piece. Writing in a beautiful, hushed corner reminds me that these library spaces are more than just quiet rooms with Wi-Fi and outlets.

As I enter my second year of university and transition out of introductory courses, I’m realizing that deep, rigorous research isn’t just about gathering sources; it’s about knowing where to look and how to think. With the convenience of the Internet at our fingertips, we’ve come to rely on quick answers—but at what cost? Have we sacrificed the ability to critically evaluate sources in favour of speed? In this digital age, libraries push us to slow down in our research, ask better questions, and dig beyond an article’s introduction.

But these questions also lead me to wonder: Have we collectively forgotten how to use libraries? Or worse—do we not value them anymore?

With the rise of online databases, academic search engines, and, most recently, AI tools like ChatGPT, the role of the library as a physical epicentre of reference sources and research materials is fading. Why trek across the city or even across campus when information is just a few clicks away? But, in our convenience-driven approach to knowledge, we don’t just fail to take advantage of free, physical books; we also miss out on the library’s ecosystem of services designed to help us in our quest for knowledge. 

Libraries are not just buildings that store books or offer an aesthetic place to study. They are the beating heart of research and scholarship. 

Beyond storing the books themselves, libraries are staffed with trained research experts—human search engines, if you will—who can point you toward resources you didn’t know existed, offer perspectives on a thesis you hadn’t considered, or guide you through citation databases you’ve never used.

With 10,834,072 physical and digital items at our disposal in the collection of the McGill Libraries, members of the McGill community have access to a vast range of materials from rare manuscripts to cutting-edge research journals. Beyond this impressive collection, McGill’s libraries also provide workshops such as the Introduction to Zotero workshop, teaching crucial skills for writing and managing citations. Or, if this article has re-ignited your interest in the library, the McGill library also offers a “Library Research Skills” workshop.

It is clear to me, as I sit in a library to write about libraries, that we need to shift the narrative surrounding these essential institutions. Libraries are not outdated—they are underutilized. If we, as students and emerging researchers, can reframe libraries as active tools in our academic lives, we’ll not only write better papers—we’ll become better thinkers.

So, let’s make libraries cool again. Not by plastering them with neon signs or turning them into Instagrammable study spots, but by using them, valuing them, pondering in the stacks, and remembering what they’re really for.

Editorial, Opinion

True nation-building is rooted in our environment

by The Tribune Editorial Board on

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A wave of reinvigorated commitment to infrastructural expansion is sweeping the uppermost echelons of Canadian government. On Sept. 10, as an extension of the Building Canada Act, Prime Minister Mark Carney released a list of five major ‘nation-building’ projects aiming to “turbo-charge” the Canadian economy and create jobs. Meanwhile, Quebec Premier Legault is calling to suspend environmental goals to make economic development the province’s top priority. Instead of prioritizing the environment and its inhabitants, powerful political leaders like Carney and Legault are promoting an image of national development rooted in spectacle and glorified extraction.

While Carney claims his proposed nation-building projects are geared towards “protecting Canada’s rigorous environmental standards,” their environmental impacts will be undoubtedly detrimental—an outcome Legault is eager to ignore. One of these five projects, for example, aims to double the production of liquified natural gas (LNG)—a greenhouse gas which is 80 times more potent than CO2 in the short term, and 30 times more potent in the long run. Two other projects aim to expand mines in Saskatchewan and northwest BC—an endeavour that destroys land, uproots ecosystems, and contaminates water and air with harmful sulfuric acid. 

Normally, such projects would undergo strict environmental assessment to ensure their alignment with Canada’s national sustainability standards and climate plan, such as reducing national carbon emissions by 40 per cent below the 2005 levels by 2030, and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. However, Legault’s demands to speed up these assessment processes threaten to break this promise and reverse the decisive progress Canada has made in reducing CO2 emissions over the past several years.

Additionally, though Carney advertised the inclusion of Indigenous leaders in the planning process, the burden of ecological damage from these projects falls heavily on the shoulders of Indigenous and rural communities. Such damage reflects a long history of eco-racism against Indigenous Peoples in Canada who are already disproportionately harmed and displaced by extractive mining and the production of oil and gas. Rewriting ecological guidelines to enable destructive ‘nation-building’ projects does not uplift Canada’s national image—it corrupts it by uprooting Indigenous land, polluting public air and water with toxic sulphur, and eschewing Canada’s uniquely low carbon footprint.

A ‘nation-building’ agenda whose success relies on environmental destruction is neither people-first nor, in the long run, profit-first. A people-first agenda would not pollute or uproot the environments in which people live and upon which they depend. An agenda committed to long-term profit would not raze ecosystems irreversibly to the ground.

In fact, a truly people-first—and, in the long run, profitable—agenda is one that starts with an eye toward the environment. In the past ten years, the damages of climate change have cut $25 billion CAD off of Canadian GDP—a deficit which will compound over time if the country does not commit to nature-based climate solutions and damage control. Investing in the environment is the smartest choice Canada can make if it seeks to be truly nation-building, rather than risking its future for the allure of immediate profit. 

Despite the federal government’s demonstrated disregard for Canadian ecosystems—and thus Canadian people—McGill has risen to the occasion as a leader in sustainability, setting a crucial precedent for other institutions. Not only is the university publicly committed to the goals of zero-waste, carbon neutrality, and increased climate resilience, but it has taken tangible steps towards these goals. 

As students, we must familiarize ourselves with McGill’s sustainability plan and adopt actionable steps to push it forward. As an institution, McGill must not settle into complacency, but continue to be proactive in revising, adapting, and expanding its sustainability goals. 

At the federal level, Canada’s political leaders must reconceptualize the kind of nation they want to build, beginning with a reaffirmation of Canada’s legally-bound commitment to the Paris Agreement. Right now, Carney and Legault are sending a clear message that economically successful nation-building is, by design, in opposition to environmental sustainability. It is only when our leaders abandon this conviction that Canada can abandon nation-branding for true nation-building. By reassessing the relationships between human, environmental, and economic prosperity—beyond those assumed by capitalist political rhetoric—we find that, in fact, it is not hard to imagine a world in which the three are mutual beneficiaries, where the improvement and strengthening of one brings the same prosperity to the others. 

Features

Bills, borders, and breaches

by Helene Saleska on

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Subhead: An investigation into the militarization, surveillance, and foreign influence behind Canada’s ‘Strong Borders Act’

Author: Helene Saleska, News Editor

In December 2024, the Government of Canada announced a $1.3 billion CAD plan to expand militarization and surveillance along the U.S.-Canada border. The plan includes the deployment of drones, helicopters, and mobile surveillance towers as part of a new Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Aerial Intelligence Task force, along with a commitment to 24-hour aerial surveillance. Nicknamed the ‘Strong Borders Act,’ the project is now part of Bill C-2, introduced in the House of Commons in June. 

By increasing border surveillance, imposing new immigration and visa restrictions, and expanding law enforcement powers, Bill C-2 is a direct attack on human rights. It limits migrants’ abilities to claim refugee status and broadly revokes many resident and work visas. The bill also undermines the rights of all Canadians by expanding private, military, and police surveillance capabilities, while allowing broad international data sharing. To many, Bill C-2 is an effort to appease U.S. President Donald Trump, who repeatedly accuses Canada of allowing undocumented migration as well as gun and drug smuggling into the U.S. 

Consequently, this bill begs the question of whether Canada, in the name of security, is pursuing the same political path of racist exclusion, surveillance, and human rights abuses as the United States. 

Canada’s recent trend towards increased security and militarization demonstrates how Western settler-colonial states reinforce each other’s ability to oppress and control certain groups by sharing tactics, technology, and information, particularly in the realm of border security and surveillance. While Canada is often perceived as the United States’ friendly next-door neighbor, Canada’s reciprocal relationship with the United States and Israel perpetuates the narrative that the need for increased ‘security’ justifies violating necessary protections of human rights. 

U.S. Immigration: A template for Canada?  

Since January, the world has watched Trump’s escalating use of inhumane migrant detention centres for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers, illegal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on both public spaces and private homes, broad interpretation of immigration law, and increased militarization. 

Arizona State Senator Analise Ortiz told //The Tribune// in an interview that ICE agents sometimes wait for days outside schools and hospitals—places once considered ‘sensitive locations’ where people should feel safe. 

“There are very clear constitutional concerns about how ICE is policing and surveilling people in our communities,” she said. 

ICE Agent Howard Bolick, who refuses to go back to the job under the current leadership, also spoke to //The Tribune// about the blatant human rights abuses the agency is committing. 

“[The border patrol under Trump] is constantly trying to expand their mission, they get into investigations that they don’t know how to do, and civil rights to them is just something to be worked around,” Bolick said. 

He explained that even his ICE unit, Homeland Security Investigations, which is charged with handling only high-level criminal investigations, is now doing raids of places like Home Depot, explicitly racial profiling by using “brown skin” or “speaking Spanish” as a justification for arrest. 

Bolick emphasized that these practices do not make the country safer; in fact, they do the opposite. He fears that the critical investigation into organized crime and trafficking executed by agents in his time is now being abandoned in favour of indiscriminate arrests and imprisonments, targeting ethnicity while disregarding due process. 

U.S. border militarization is not new, nor are the inadequacies of U.S. immigration policies for migrants. But Trump has escalated enforcement to unprecedented heights—increasing ICE surveillance and deploying the National Guard on civilians—under the auspices of public safety. 

These developments serve as a warning for Canada, where a similar pattern is emerging: Bill C-2 threatens to upend the lives of migrants and breach the privacy rights of all Canadians. And this is not an anomaly. Like the U.S., Canada receives much of its military and surveillance technology from Israel, making the parallels between these two nations overwhelmingly stark.  

A shared infrastructure of surveillance

In July, Canada approved $37.2 million CAD in exports of military aid to Israel—but the aid flows in the other direction too: Canada imports Israeli military and surveillance technology. Just as Canadian aid to Israel supports the enormous surveillance apparatus and militarization of Palestine, the technologies made in Israel with Canadian money go to increasing surveillance on Canadians. 

Israel is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and exporters of high-tech military and surveillance technology, often testing spyware and AI surveillance on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank before exporting them, where they are used to oppress other groups of people around the world. 

As of August 2025, Electronic Frontier Foundation mapped 579 surveillance towers across the U.S.-Mexico border, creating what they call a ‘virtual wall.’ Most were developed and installed by Elbit Systems—Israel’s largest military and surveillance contractor. 

In my home state of Arizona, 55 Elbit Integrated Fixed Towers now stand on and around both the U.S.-Mexico border and the Tohono O’odham Indigenous Nation’s border. The towers increase the mortality risks of migrants crossing the desert from Mexico into the south of the U.S. by pushing them towards more dangerous desert routes.  

But Canada is not just a bystander in this system. It plays a role in enabling the U.S.’s application of this technology and maintains its own secretive technology-sharing agreements with Israel. Public information about Canada’s military trade deals, purchases, and production cooperation partnerships is detailed by the Database of Israeli Military and Security Export. This details Canada’s purchase of Israel’s Iron Dome radar technology, frequent deals with Elbit Systems, and annual military imports from Israel of up to $100 million CAD. 

Concerns about Israeli surveillance technology in Canada extend beyond the military, with researchers uncovering possible use of spyware by provincial police on Canadian citizens. In March, Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto discovered evidence of a sale to Canada from an unknown vendor of an Israeli ‘mercenary spyware’ technology called //Graphite//, developed by Paragon Solutions. Researchers believe it was used by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) in investigations against citizens, which the OPP neither confirms nor denies. The spyware from Paragon Solutions has also been found on the cell phones of journalists and human rights activists around the world.

Lack of oversight

Canada is sacrificing its commitment to privacy in the name of expanding surveillance. 

Kate Robertson, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, explained in an interview with //The Tribune// that although Canada has historically been much more forceful in protecting citizens’ privacy than the United States, its privatization of surveillance systems and increasing use by police forces is going unchecked. 

“We’re now seeing gaps in laws that are growing into, frankly, chasms about the privatization of surveillance, and the shift to […] policing that [is] increasingly distant from oversight and meaningful controls by privacy regulators in the courts,” Robertson reported. 

She also stressed the need for increased parliamentary oversight of new surveillance technology. 

“We have pointed to the need for Parliament to play its critical function in regulating and overseeing surveillance systems that include the growing adoption and use of mercenary spyware, but also other forms of algorithmic or AI-fueled surveillance systems that are currently falling through the cracks.”  

Datasharing: Is Canada complicit in the U.S.’s disregard of migrant rights?

With the U.S. expanding its control over immigration, Canada is preparing to grant the U.S. further access to personal information about migrants and Canadians. The two countries are currently negotiating the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use Of Data (CLOUD) Act Agreement, which proposes to allow any U.S. law enforcement officer to receive personal data from any electronic communication or computing service in Canada, all without Canadian judicial oversight. 

According to Citizen Lab, Bill C-2 is a precursor to this law enforcement data-sharing agreement between the U.S. and Canada. The agreement could outright assist the U.S. in committing more atrocities against migrants and people of colour. 

As stated in Citizen Lab’s report, the sharing of this personal data, especially under the current U.S. administration, could make “the Canadian government and technology sector complicit in the data-fuelled criminalization and persecution of historically marginalized groups in the U.S. —groups whose equality and human rights, if they were in Canada, would be constitutionally guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Kate Robertson described how this agreement opens the floodgates for privacy breaches and human rights abuses by the U.S. 

“When we’re talking about a new data sharing agreement under the CLOUD Act, we’re actually talking about […] Canada ceding sovereignty to the law enforcement authorities across the border to directly issue surveillance orders on companies or entities in Canada, without the involvement of the Canadian courts.” 

Robertson also expressed concern about how this shared data could be used by the U.S.

“There’s a high potential that some of the surveillance and information collection will be targeted towards migrants and refugees on both sides of the border, and with potentially significant consequences leading to family disruption or persons being deported to countries where they have fewer rights,” she said. 

This is yet another example of how a vast expansion in security and surveillance by the U.S., funded and militarized by Israel, encourages Canada’s disregard for migrant rights. 

Canada’s longstanding history with the U.S.  

Although the proposed CLOUD Agreement is much more extreme, Canada’s complicity in U.S. efforts for global domination is not new. For decades, Canada has participated in data sharing efforts, military alliances, and restrictive immigration agreements with the U.S.

According to a report from Queens University, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Canada and Israel worked together in pioneering the new market for developing ‘counter-terrorism’ military technology and aid for the U.S.’s ‘War on Terror.’ 

In an interview with //The Tribune//, François Crépeau, McGill professor emeritus in the Faculty of Law, explained how the Canadian border has been used by the U.S. for greater military power.

“This border has been a testing ground for American surveillance, with drones being deployed ten years ago, which then served in wars. But at the time, they were tested on the Canadian border,” Crépeau said. 

He also spoke to the lack of oversight in data surveillance and data sharing when it comes to the Canada-U.S. border, even now, before any potential consequences of Bill C-2 or the CLOUD Agreement have come into effect. 

“Databases, including those that contain personal information of migrants, are exchanged between countries easily. When 9/11 happened, Canada accepted within weeks to transfer all passengers’ information to the U.S. for flights going from Canada to the U.S., without restriction. The U.S. could even publish all that information online,” Crépeau said. 

He explained the tightening of the already very restrictive immigration policy for refugees coming through the U.S. from a third country under the later stages of the Trudeau and Biden administrations. 

“[As a result of this renegotiation], there is no possibility to come across the terrestrial border from the U.S. to claim asylum in Canada, unless you are a U.S. citizen. You will be returned automatically.”

The foundation of xenophobic policy, privacy violations, and data sharing that was built before Trump—and thus before Bill C-2—is now allowing both governments to easily push these policies to their extremes. These policies, like the rhetoric of ‘security’ that governments use, were built for exploitation, not protection.  

Bigger than a Bill

McGill students and anyone calling Canada home must advocate against Bill C-2 to prevent its passage in Parliament. Through Bill C-2 and the CLOUD Agreement, Canada is set to facilitate a breach of privacy rights and deepen its complicity in violence against marginalized and colonized people all around the world—from Gaza to the U.S. to Mexico, and beyond. 

But we must remember that this is also bigger than any bill or presidential administration, that every struggle against pervasive state oppression is both ideologically and quite literally materially connected. Canada is working together with the U.S. and Israel to increase the use of the border as a tool for state surveillance and, therefore, for racial oppression and exclusion. Addressing these underlying issues will require institutional changes to dismantle the military industrial complexes, which fuel narratives and systems that call for increased ‘security’ while trampling human rights. 

Science & Technology

Unraveling the painful mysteries of dyskinetic cerebral palsy

by Guillaume Delgado on

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Dyskinetic cerebral palsy is the second most common subtype of cerebral palsy (CP). Children with DCP usually experience serious motor impairments along with comorbidities such as cognitive deficits, communication challenges, seizure disorders, and sensory impairments. 

Despite its severity, very little is understood about DCP. McGill MD student Victoria D’Amours and her colleagues, representing prominent pediatric institutes across Canada, attempted to address these critical research gaps by conducting a large sample study on DCP, which was published in Pediatric Neurology. 

“People tend to believe that cerebral palsy is just associated with a baby that lacked oxygen at birth. But actually, that’s not it,” D’Amours said in an interview with The Tribune. “You have kids that grew up without CP and can develop CP as long as there is a certain insult to the brain. And to know there are certain factors that can either cause or increase the severity of cerebral palsy.” 

In their study, D’Amours and her colleagues evaluated the prognostic significance—how much a particular factor can be used to determine the outcome of a disease or disorder—of two potential early markers: Gestational age (GA) and neonatal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings. GA is the time period between conception and birth, whereas neonatal MRI involves scanning a newborn’s brain to detect any abnormalities. Both methods are routinely available in early life care and have been proposed as predictors of developmental outcomes in other forms of CP, yet their use in DCP remains under-researched.

D’Amours’s analysis draws on data from a sample from the Canadian Cerebral Palsy Registry of 170 children diagnosed with DCP. This study’s large sample size is especially vital considering that the majority of previous research on DCP used relatively small convenience samples. 

D’Amours and her colleagues compared the effectiveness of GA to MRI as early indicators of DCP. Based on their findings, they concluded that GA analysis was a more effective indicator for properly diagnosing DCP. Specifically regarding GA, D’Amours found that 60 per cent of the infants with DCP included in the study were born at term. 

“I don’t think MRI is necessarily inconclusive. I just think when we do compare MRI to gestational age, gestational age is a better predictor of future DCP severity,” D’Amours said in an interview with The Tribune.

These results could help alleviate the delays in diagnosing DCP in children. If certain patterns of brain injury from MRI or thresholds of maturity in GA are found to reliably predict worse outcomes, then children exposed to these methods might benefit from earlier diagnoses and more intensive support. This could, in turn, help to improve the overall quality of life for children afflicted with DCP.

Although D’Amours’ work provides tremendous insight into this subtype of cerebral palsy, DCP remains a critically underexplored subject. Researchers have yet to understand why children born at term are more likely to have DCP than others. Investigating the root causes of DCP is the next step in uncovering these mysteries. 

“We found that there are more kids with DCP that were born at term, but we also don’t know why,” D’Amours said. “So I think the future is in digging deeper and understanding the causal relationships between things, and also seeing where genetics actually plays a role.” 

Science & Technology

Shop talk: We need to have a word about jargon

by Ella Paulin on

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A 2020 study on jargon published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology found that not only did using more jargon harm levels of understanding among lay people, but it also decreased their engagement with the material and their subjective sense of identification with the scientific community at large. Interestingly, it appears that jargon is not just a barrier for the general public: A 2021 study on citation patterns across 21,486 biology papers found that the amount of jargon in a paper’s title was negatively correlated with the number of citations it received. Taken together, it is clear that jargon may be a barrier to communication for both experts and lay people. Consequently, there is a growing movement to make scientific writing more readable—for example, by developing ‘lay summaries’ for new research in addition to abstracts. 

However, here in the ivory towers of the McGill campus, scientific jargon is not going anywhere anytime soon. In the meantime, let’s take a look at how different fields choose their jargon—and see if we can find some disciplines that fare better than others…

“Conformally covariant boundary operators and sharp higher order CR Sobolev trace inequalities on the Siegel domain and complex ball”

Mathematics

At least mathematics makes things simple for students: If you forget the name of a formula, theorem, or identity, there is a good chance it is named after a dead white guy, and there is a good chance that dead white guy is Euler. To be fair, they do often have fun names—Bernoulli was always a personal favourite, not to mention Cauchy and Schrödinger—but it can get hard to keep track of them all after a few years. When in doubt, though, guess Euler. 

“Vestigial ergativity in Shughni: At the intersection of alignment, clitic doubling, and feature-driven movement”

Linguistics

Ah, linguistics—as the only discipline on this list whose experts should theoretically be able to use human language to communicate with others, you would expect this to be an easy victory. Nowhere is the linguist’s mantra, “we study languages, we don’t speak them,” more on display than in their technical terminology. On the one hand, there’s an overflow of extremely precise, opaque concepts: Welcome to the study of specificational copular sentences, overgeneralizations of dative altemation, and early left-anterior negativity. On the other, we step out of the office and into a place of surprising, wanton sex and violence. Here we have bleeding and counter-bleeding, sisters dominating sisters, clauses binding poor, defenceless pronouns, and PPs—prepositional phrases—searching for verbs to “fill their slots.” Despite the professional shell of linguistic terminology, the inner world of a syntax tree is a dark and dangerous place.

“RobusTAD: reference panel based annotation of nested topologically associating domains”

Biology & Anatomy

As a Classics minor, I have always appreciated life science’s penchant for Latin names, even if they are the bane of every first-year biology student as they frantically memorize body parts and taxonomical kingdoms the night before their final exams. At the same time, these Latin terms are part of a legacy of an elite, patriarchal approach to life sciences that has only begun to change in the last fifty years. Look no further than the jargon for the female body—the fallopian tube and the G-spot are just two examples of many of male doctors’ names that remain attached to female anatomy. 

“On Learning Whittle Index Policy for Restless Bandits With Scalable Regret”

Computer Science

Although it was somewhat of a dark horse in this competition, computer science, and in particular algorithm studies, has an unexpected knack for finding vivid metaphors for thorny abstract concepts. Restless bandits? Regret? We are more in the realm of a fantasy novel than an academic paper, and after the other fields, it is a welcome break from the slew of four-syllable Latinate terminology. Do I know what any of it means? Not at all—but colour me intrigued. 

Student Life

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer!

by Jamie Xie on

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They walk among us, disguised as men. They whisper in accents you don’t recognize and laugh at jokes no one finds funny. Rumour has it that McGill students have superior, bigger ears for listening, while Concordia students have pointier elbows indicative of too much time spent doing studio art. 

McGill x Concordia is the only truly convincing love story of our generation—enemies turned lovers of Montreal’s dark-academia sphere. Both are anglophone, both victims of tuition hikes. As two schools with highly international student populations, they are the highly unlikely downtown darlings of the Montreal imagination. 

Welcome to Concordia 101—The Tribune’s crash course for McGill students looking to co-opt the best Concordia has to offer!

Studying Surrounded by the Enemy

You would need an extra pair of hands to count the number of times a Concordia student has complained about a McGillian using their libraries. Open to the public everyday from 7:00 a.m.-11:00 p.m., both the Webster and Vanier Libraries have quickly become popular spaces for McGill students looking to study. What many people don’t know is that Concordia’s online event calendar lists many drop-in offerings that don’t require a Concordia ID to register; nearly once a month, the Vanier Library on Loyola hosts Therapy Dog drop-in at VL-101 from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and VR gaming on the third floor. The Webster Library on the Sir George Williams Campus hosts the Fibre Arts Technology Club every Tuesday afternoon from 2:00 p.m.-4:45 p.m. at the Technology Sandbox room, for those interested in knitting, crocheting and “integrated work with wearable technology.”

Though currently closed, the Concordia Greenhouse in the Henry F. Hall rooftop is another study space option that brings a touch of greenery even in winter, with a grand reopening anticipated by the end of Winter 2025. 

Creativity without a Prerequisite

Looking for a space to get creative? At two permanent Concordia Art Hive studios, a pair of creative art therapists host four weekly free walk-in non-directed art sessions. Alongside these time-slots, they offer approximately ten pop-up events per term at varying spaces on Concordia campus to facilitate community bonding. 

For those who would rather admire than create art, the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery offers free contemporary exhibitions, while the Concordia Film Festival hosted by the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema is the longest running student film festival in North America, also free to attend. 

You Aren’t What You Eat

If you’re looking for a quick meal, the People’s Potato Kitchen is a vegan soup kitchen at Hall building H-700 that offers donation meals from Monday to Thursday from 12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m., as well as a food bank every second Friday. On the Loyola Campus, the Hive Cafe Co-op has a similar free vegan meal offering on Fridays from 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. on the SC building’s second floor.

Though initiated in 2015 by two McGill psychology students, Vent over Tea has since become a Concordia-run service, offering one-hour anonymous, non-judgemental listening sessions with trained volunteers at a cafe of your choice. The service is free—you just need to cover the cost of your own drink. Whether you prefer to meet downtown, in the West Island, or online, Vent over Tea offers a safe space to feel heard and serves as an example of the meaningful collaboration that can emerge when McGill and Concordia are able to realize their responsibilities to a shared Montreal community.

A school by any other name would smell as sweet. Beneath the banners and rivalries which obscure what unites us, we are all struggling students trying to navigate the unfamiliar, hostile environment of being young dreamers. Though there is comfort in school pride, there is shame in personal apathy. University is an opportunity to discover yourself, and that journey begins with fostering an understanding of the shared challenges that every student faces. One person’s success is never another’s failure. To share resources, spaces, and support is more than an act of generosity; it is an act of student solidarity—a respectful acknowledgement of our mutual struggle which spares no one. It’s time that we ask not what we can do for our schools, but what our schools can do for us. 

Student Life

Refreshing third spaces in Montreal that decenter alcohol 

by Mairin Burke on

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After weeks of OAP, McGill Frosh, working your way through Piknic Électronik’s 2025 lineup, and filling university friends in on your summer drama over drinks, your start to September may have been drenched with alcohol. Getting back to Montreal, it can be hard to escape the pressure to enjoy the city’s liquored-up nightlife and McGill’s drinking-centric events. In case you’ve been needing a reset, The Tribune is here to offer you a list of third spaces not focused on alcohol consumption. Ordered from lowest to highest in price, these venues and activities around the city offer a refreshing alternative to drinking, for individuals and groups alike.

Page Break at De Stiil Booksellers

Every Wednesday, regulars of the Plateau’s beautifully curated English bookstore, De Stiil, find themselves eagerly lining up at the shop’s checkout counter to dispose of their cellphones. This is Page Break—hosted weekly at 7:00 p.m., though the seasoned attendee knows to get there for 6:30—a rare and precious opportunity to cuddle up with a good book, all distractions circumvented. For $5 CAD, De Stiil’s staff will confiscate your devices and point you to a corner of the store, where you can nest in cushions or a comfortable chair with your book of the moment. Once everyone is settled in with a glass of lemonade or water, the shopkeepers will lock De Stiil’s doors and turn on mellow jazz music. Page Break’s hour of total, communal immersion in your book flies by magically fast, after which you can mingle with your fellow technophobes and discuss what about your books most deeply engrossed you that evening.

Cinéma Moderne

Cinéma Moderne’s innovative, independent programming is always worth a watch. This cozy movie theatre offers a perfect escape from the gloomiest of days—both emotional and weather-wise. In any given week, the cinema’s programming will range from local and experimental films to cult classics and current fan favourites, making it hard to decide what to buy a $14 CAD ticket for first. Nevertheless, be sure to keep an eye out for the theatre’s monthly Queer Cinema Club, which hosts screenings of emerging and canonical 2SLGBTQIA+ films to spotlight and celebrate queer narratives and creators in the industry. While not the most conversation-appropriate activity, Cinéma Moderne’s Mile End location lends itself well to a post-movie snack with friends at ICONOGLACE—but don’t forget to enjoy the theatre’s popcorn sprinkled with paprika during your show.

Innocere Yoga

For a more introspective option, try a hot yoga or pilates class at Innocere. Tucked away up an unassuming staircase on the pedestrian stretch of Prince Arthur, Innocere’s beautiful space is expansive and full of sun. Their flow options range from beginner-friendly overviews of foundational yoga poses to dynamic vinyasa practice, all in a studio that grounds any level of session in high-intensity movement. After your class, lounge in Innocere’s cushioned, lamplit reception area and enjoy aromatic herbal tea while chatting with your classmates. Though typically a more expensive outing, Innocere frequently offers discounted class packages, and commonly hosts $11 CAD Community Classes taught by newer instructors—cheaper than the average Montreal cocktail.

Late-night ice skating and dim sum
A big group of friends on a Friday winter’s evening can never go wrong by heading to the Quartier des spectacles at Place des Arts. With no cover-charge, you just need to bring your own skates—or rent a pair there for $15 CAD—to enjoy the city’s largest refrigerated ice rink, alongside skaters of all ages and experience levels. With digital art illuminating its surface and hot chocolate sold right beside its locker rooms, the Esplanade Tranquille offers skaters a relaxed, social, and quintessential winter experience as they work up an appetite skating laps around the rink. Enter a post-skate dim sum date in nearby Chinatown, where many delicious restaurants stay open past the rink’s mid-evening close: Late enough that you can get into your spot of choice without requiring a promoter to get you on the guest list.

Science & Technology

Exploring the role of virtual family participation in adult intensive care unit rounds

by Michelle Yankovsky on

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Family engagement in patient care is an essential aspect of adult intensive care unit (ICU) practice. The approach includes family members in multidisciplinary care rounds, allowing them to contribute to medical decision-making while being present for their loved ones—yet systemic and individual-level barriers often get in the way. But what if families of ICU patients could participate in rounds without ever stepping foot in the hospital? A virtual approach may overcome these issues while still benefiting patient outcomes.

In a recent publication in the Journal of Critical Care, Michael Goldfarb, associate professor and physician at McGill’s Department of Medicine and researcher at the Lady Davis Institute, investigated the feasibility of virtual family participation in adult ICU rounds. Motivated by the lack of measurable evidence demonstrating how family member involvement actually improves patient outcomes, Goldfarb aimed to advance this field of research by providing data that could ultimately persuade clinicians to alter their practice.

“There’s not a lot of quantitative evidence in this field,” Goldfarb said in an interview with The Tribune. “A lot of it has been qualitative, involving interviews and focus groups with family members in the ICU […] but what I set out to do was [quantitatively] measure how family member involvement in care actually improves outcomes, and that information will be much more persuasive to the people who work in the ICU.”

Goldfarb emphasized the pivotal role played by family members in patient care and outcomes. He explained that familial involvement can facilitate better communication with the healthcare team, thus creating more effective treatment plans, as well as helping alleviate patients’ fear through a sense of support.

“[The ICU] is more concerned about the best medical management, what medications to use, what therapies to do. But the family members are the integral part of the care team, and in many ways can actually contribute to the patient’s care and outcomes,” Goldfarb explained. “They know the patient best.”

To determine the feasibility of implementing virtual family participation in ICU rounding, 84 participants were given the opportunity to engage via videoconference during ICU rounds across five hospitals in Montreal. Feasibility metrics included recruitment rate, intervention uptake, technical issues, and follow-up rate.

“It allowed people who were at home and couldn’t come to the hospital for various reasons to be more involved in their loved ones’ care,” Goldfarb said.

The results showed that 72 out of 84 participants engaged in at least one virtual round, and they experienced no technical issues in 113 out of 132 rounds.

“We were able to have a high number of successful rounds with very few technical issues,” he noted. “The vast majority of the ICU health care team workers, physicians, nurses, and other allied health members, were willing to participate in rounds with family members virtually, so the overall finding was that it was feasible.”

Not only do these findings indicate that virtual participation by family members in ICU rounds is feasible, but more importantly, it is associated with improved family engagement and high satisfaction scores.

Goldfarb also highlighted that similar results were replicated across five hospitals, speaking to the study’s validity.

“Each centre has its own culture and own team dynamics, so the fact that we’re able to show [this finding] at several centres means it’s potentially generalizable to a larger number of [hospitals] and shows strength to the study,” he said.

Despite these findings, Goldfarb stressed the importance of reassessing these results by conducting a randomized control experimental study in order to determine causation.

“Everyone got the same intervention, which means that we really need studies where people are randomized to the intervention or to the usual [non-virtual rounding] care, to see that this [treatment] actually makes a difference in improving outcomes,” Goldfarb said.

Overall, Goldfarb’s study points to a promising future of virtual rounding in ICUs, where families can care for their loved ones no matter where they are, ensuring the patient receives comfort and support despite the distance.

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