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Science & Technology

Unravelling the engineering behind the Perseverance landing

by Youssef Wahba on

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On Feb. 18, physicists and engineers marked a new chapter in Martian history: A series of radio signals confirmed the touchdown of NASA’s Perseverance rover. Over seven months, the rover completed a 300 million mile journey to Mars, averaging a speed of about 12,000 miles an hour. 

The Perseverance Rover landed on the Jezero Crater, where it will search for signs of life by collecting samples of Martian soil. 

Montreal-born Dr. Farah Alibay is a NASA systems engineer who is part of the operations team for the Mars 2020 mission. The team was responsible for manufacturing, testing, and landing the Perseverance rover. 

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Alibay detailed the feats of engineering behind the mission, its main objectives, and how Perseverance differed from previous rovers sent to Mars.

“We think that about two billion years ago, Mars looked like Earth,” Alibay said. “It had an atmosphere, a magnetic field, [and] liquid water [….] About two billion years ago, Earth had microbial life. If there was life on Earth back then and Mars looked like that, there could have been life on Mars too, and that is what we are looking for.”

Perseverance shares many common technical features with its predecessor, Curiosity. Although Perseverance is almost 100 kilograms heavier than Curiosity, it cost almost 300 million dollars less to build. Other paramount differences between the two rovers include an upgrade in the number and quality of cameras on Perseverance. 

“Perseverance has an additional computer onboard and that is the Vision Compute Element, which allowed us to land on the Jezero Crater,” Alibay said. “The computer was taking images as we were landing, comparing them to a map, [and] allowing the rover to make decisions on board on how to divert the rover and to land.” 

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) also implemented a thicker aluminum wheel with a greater diameter, but a narrower width, allowing Perseverance to overcome the sharp Martian terrain. 

Perseverance is equipped with six more cameras than Curiosity and was designed to collect rock samples in a different manner. 

“Perseverance has a robotic arm that contains a set of instruments located on its end,” Alibay said. “One of which is a coring drill that will drill out a sample and transfer it to the Sample Caching System. Another robotic arm then inserts the samples into tubes and seals them.” 

One of the main goals of the mission is to test out a new technology: The Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE). 

MOXIE aims to take in Martian air rich in carbon dioxide and pass it through a series of pumps that carries the gas to an electrode that extracts the oxygen. 

“If we are ever to send astronauts to Mars, then they are going to need oxygen,” Alibay said. “Not just to breathe, but as a rocket fuel to bring them back home.”

Aboard Perseverance is Ingenuity, a four-pound helicopter set to carry out the first controlled flight mission on another planet. The 0.49 metre-tall helicopter is powered by solar energy and will have to overcome a plethora of obstacles, like low atmospheric pressure and rocky Martian terrain, to carry out a successful flight. 

“If you are having only one per cent of atmosphere then you are not getting as much lift, so we had to come up with a system that is both really light but also rugged to survive the Martian environment,” Alibay said. “We are currently looking for a site to drop off the helicopter and once we have done that, we will drop it off, do the initial commissioning and then fly it. I am hopeful that will happen within the next couple of months.”

It has been decades since humans last set foot on a celestial body. Without a doubt, the Mars 2020 mission brings us one trip closer to a human mission to the red planet.

Know Your Athlete, Sports

Know your athlete: Charlene Robitaille

by Sophia Gorbounov on

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For Charlene Robitaille, U3 Science, athletics are about the spirit of the team and the pure excitement of each game. Robitaille sits near the top of the women’s volleyball team leaderboards, ranking in the top five of every category. However, the esteemed middle blocker did not seriously pursue volleyball until late in high school. 

“At first, my big sport was soccer, but then my best friends were playing volleyball and they told me to come [join them],” Robitaille said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “In my fourth year [of high school], I [switched] to a school with a better trainer and a better team so I could learn more.” 

Robitaille played through her final years of high school, developing her skills and her strength. She remained committed to volleyball at CEGEP Edouard-Montpetit and competed in the 2014 Jeux du Québec tournament, where Robitaille and her team took the victory. 

Robitaille has played on McGill’s volleyball team for three years, although she has not competed yet this year due to the suspension of all university sports. Robitaille reminisced on the energetic atmosphere that came with being surrounded by fellow athletes and enthusiastic fans.

“[The in-person games] are the thing I miss the most,” Robitaille said. “All the people there, all the other sports [teams]. We are friends with a lot of the other [teams]. The Friday nights were my favourite, [with] all the energy and all the spirit.”

Robitaille especially enjoys the camaraderie within sports teams at McGill and the supportive atmosphere on and off the court. 

“I like the relationships between every sport,” Robitaille said. “We go to see all the other sports teams play, they [attend] our games, [and] we get all this publicity on [social media]. I really love the atmosphere this creates.” 

As heavy lockdown measures in Quebec continue, Robitaille emphasized the importance of creating a schedule and following it. 

“I am doing a lot of training by myself, every day or every two days,” Robitaille said. “I do upper body, lower body, and I have weights as well. Training at home has always been something very important [to me]. I am doing it for my sport but I am also doing it for myself.”

However, pandemic restrictions have also allowed Robitaille to focus more on her academics, especially in a year as mentally taxing as this one. 

“I’m really trying to focus on school,” Robitaille said. “I’m trying to be attentive in all my classes and avoid only watching recordings [….] I tried last semester to only watch the recorded lectures and it really did not work, so I’m keeping to my schedule.”

Robitaille explained how her major in sports nutrition has positively impacted her athletic performance as she progresses to more advanced courses.

“Before, [my classes] were very general, like food chemistry and learning about proteins and enzymes,” Robitaille said. “This semester, I feel that [what we are learning] are things that I can use myself.” 

Learning about the roles of macronutrients has helped Robitaille improve her eating habits.  She explained how she modified her protein and carbohydrate intakes to fuel her activity and training levels.

Robitaille admits, however, that she has room to improve when it comes to cooking. 

“I cook a little bit,” Robitaille said. “I like to eat, but […] I did not have much time [for cooking] and was a bit lazy, but now I am trying to do a little bit more [….] I am in sports nutrition, so I need to be able to cook.”

Although university athletics remain uncertain for the upcoming year, Robitaille expressed her excitement to return to in-person practices and games.

Science & Technology

Exploring the medical uses of recreational drugs

by Justin Galouzi on

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Rates of mental illness in youth have risen significantly in recent years. However, conventional treatments such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) do not work effectively for every patient. Recent research suggests that recreational drugs can treat mental illnesses such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While the use of recreational drugs as medicine has been met with controversy, new research on psychopharmaceuticals is redefining the limits of mental healthcare. 

LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a mind-altering substance that induces “trips”, which are characterized by hallucinations as well as time distortion. Discovered in the 1930s, LSD was widely used recreationally in the 1960s as an integral part of hippie culture. More specifically, the drug affects the serotonin receptors in the brain that are responsible for stabilizing mood and emotions. Disruptions in the functioning of these receptors are often associated with psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety. 

LSD has been shown to improve social behaviour, as measured by the number of interactions between individuals. According to Dr. Danilo De Gregorio, a postdoctoral fellow in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry, the drug could mitigate many psychiatric diseases, such as autism and social anxiety, of which symptoms include a lack of voluntary socialization. 

“Hallucinogenic compounds such [as] LSD being able to increase sociability may help to better understand the pharmacology and neurobiology of social behaviour and, ultimately, to develop and discover novel and safer drugs for mental disorders,” De Gregorio wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. 

However, De Gregorio’s research on LSD yielded no evidence of its efficacy as an antidepressant. The use of LSD in minuscule doses could alleviate social anxiety, but shows little potential as a treatment for depression. 

LSD targets serotonin receptors found in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), an area of the brain that regulates social information as well as memory. When studying the injuries to different areas of the mPFC, researchers found that lesions to the cortex led to social apathy. When administered to mice, LSD causes short bursts of activity in specific neurons that activate a protein complex called mTORC1, which may be blocked in individuals with social anxiety.

“We found that LSD exerts prosocial effects via a protein complex, the mTORC1, which we previously demonstrated to be dysregulated in pathologies with social deficits,” De Gregorio wrote.

Ketamine, a non-psychedelic drug used for anesthesia—and recreationally—was also shown to exhibit antidepressant effects through the activation of mTORC1.

Psilocybin

Psilocybin is a psychoactive drug that causes visual and auditory hallucinations. Like LSD, it is classified as a psychedelic and has similar mind-altering properties. As one of the main compounds in magic mushrooms, psilocybin has been studied since the 1990s for its ability to treat psychiatric diseases.

Psilocybin, like LSD, works by targeting serotonin receptors in the brain. More precisely, it increases the activity of specific serotonin receptors which are associated with somatosensory inputs and controls the way a patient processes sensory information. One study suggests that this alteration to sensory regions could help to mitigate substance abuse disorders. 

While psilocybin and LSD target the same receptors, they have different effects on mPFC neurons. LSD was found to control parts of the brain involved in emotional processing, including the mPFC-amygdala circuit. Psilocybin desynchronizes the activity between the mPFC and the posterior cingulate cortex, reducing their functional connectivity and contributing to different perceptions of reality. 

The drug can also rewire the brain by changing neural firing patterns, or the groups of cells that are transmitting information at a given time. 

“In parts of the brain that usually do not communicate together, [the neurons] will fire together [when psilocybin is given],” Dr. Natalie Gukasyan, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins’ Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, said in an interview with the Tribune. 

Psilocybin also changes the way the thalamus, the part of the brain responsible for relaying sensory information to different processing regions, responds to different inputs. While the substance can induce a “bad trip”, hallucinations about a physically uncomfortable or anxiety-inducing experience can assist patients in overcoming it. 

“In most cases […] it does not mean that the [patient] will have a negative long-term outcome [….] They might come out with a sense of mastery [of their experience],” Gukasyan said. “However, a challenging experience in the lab or in a clinic is different than [one] in a non-supported environment.”

When psilocybin is administered in a monitored, clinical setting, the results are promising. Without the support of healthcare professionals or dosage control, the drug can exacerbate a patient’s mental health problems. 

This treatment could alleviate conditions such as PTSD by dampening the fear response associated with traumatic memories.

Future research is needed to determine the appropriate dosing of this psychedelic. Too little does nothing to help the patient, yet too much could be dangerous for their health. Further studies are necessary to investigate the anti-inflammatory effects of the drug and how this property could be used to treat several inflammatory and auto-immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis. 

Cannabidiol (CBD)

Cannabidiol, better known as CBD, is a derivative of the Cannabis sativa plant that has been shown to affect serotonin transmitters and reduce anxiety symptoms in rats. Unlike tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the psychoactive component of cannabis, CBD does not induce paranoia or hallucinations. It is currently commercially available across Canada.  

One study found that CBD blocks receptors that mediate pain sensations. CBD made the serotonergic neurons less likely to be activated and produced an anti-anxiety effect on the model rats. 

Much of the research on CBD, however, has only been performed using animal models. Dr. Irina Kudrina, assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Family Medicine, notes that it is difficult to parse out CBD’s specific effects on humans. 

“Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of many plant-derived biologically active molecules that, when a cannabis-based product is used, act synergistically,” Kudrina wrote in an email to the Tribune. “This synergy makes a ‘pure’ CBD effect difficult to discern. As cannabis research in humans is still in its infancy, our understanding of how this specific plant molecule interacts with the animal neurochemical system is quite limited.”

One study suggests that single, high doses of CBD have little effect on anxiety, depression, or psychosis, but if given at low doses for a limited period of time, it could have therapeutic properties. 

In a different study, CBD was also shown to decrease the stress response symptoms of PTSD by blocking the reconsolidation of traumatic memories and modulating the endocannabinoid system, which contains built-in receptors to CBD and regulates memory and anxiety. 

“[O]ur endogenous cannabinoid system constitutes one of the biggest and complex neuro-endocrine systems playing an important role in the development and further functioning of the human memory, learning, sleep, [and] emotional and behavioural mechanisms, to name a few,” Kudrina wrote. 

CBD also inhibits regions of the brain that are hyperactive in PTSD patients, such as the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for the body’s fear and stress responses.

Further research is required to destigmatize the recreational use of CBD and expand upon existing treatments for mental illnesses such as anxiety disorders.

“To date, the data pointing at some anti-stress and anti-anxiety properties of CBD are still insufficient and controversial,” Kudrina wrote. “Nonetheless, the body of research on the clinical usage of CBD in these areas is growing quickly.”

Arts & Entertainment, Books

Mile End Ensemble hosts ‘read-in’ protest for S. W. Welch Bookseller

by Cassandra Betts on

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On March 13, approximately 100 people lined up outside S.W. Welch Bookseller to celebrate the survival of the business after its owner, Stephen Welch, had announced its closure, and to protest gentrification in the Mile End neighbourhood. 

The “read-in” protest was organized by Mile End Ensemble, a group that formed after news circulated online that the bookstore’s landlord, Shiller Lavy, was forcing its closure with a 150 per cent rent increase. Patricia Boushel, a member of Mile End Ensemble, noted that the neighbourhood was quick to organize upon hearing the news of S.W. Welch’s closing.

“I heard about [the closure] through Taras Grescoe’s Twitter,” Boushel said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “He’s a local writer who took a photo of the ‘for rent’ sign in [the bookstore’s] window and then got the info circulating. A bunch of people started chiming in, especially that it was a Shiller Lavy ‘for rent’ sign. Many of us have watched that company make its way around the neighbourhood in a devastating way. Just seeing that sign was an omen of terrible things.”

Shiller Lavy’s steep rent increase continued to garner media attention, with major news outlets such as CTV Montreal and CBC News picking up the story. Meanwhile, 50 members of the community began to mobilize by holding an impromptu protest on March 1, followed by the official creation of Mile End Ensemble, which then spurned March 13’s “DOES ANYBODY BUY BOOKS TODAY? (A Read-In).” 

The public outcry successfully pressured Shiller Lavy to lower the rent for a duration of two years. Although the attention helped S.W. Welch remain open, Boushel says that the issue of gentrification goes beyond the particular barrier of rent hikes.

“It’s not just an isolated case of a rent hike, it’s a symptom of a really big interconnected problem,” Boushel said. “If we have these businesses that do not have skyrocketing rents, then our groceries can remain affordable. It’s all connected. We’re really acting out of a desire to retain accessibility and equity in our neighbourhoods.”

S.W. Welch is not the first local business to be driven out of the Mile End by gentrification. Boulangerie Clarke, a bakery known for its five-dollar sandwiches, was forced to close its doors in 2015, when their rent unexpectedly tripled after 35 years in business. Café, co-op, and queer space Le Cagibi relocated to Little Italy in 2018 when their rent more than doubled. The former spaces of these small businesses are still owned by Shiller Lavy. Ian Rogers, a long time resident of the Mile End who attended the protest, has witnessed the gentrification of the neighbourhood over the years. 

“I’ve been living in this neighbourhood for a long time,” Rogers said. “It has been about 30 years now. It’s changed a lot over that time, but just over the last 10 [to] 15 years, it started to become very gentrified, especially when Shiller Lavy started buying up so many properties on St. Viateur.”

Mile End Ensemble, Rogers, and other protesters hope that the read-in signals to government officials that action needs to be taken against predatory rent practices.

“[The municipal government] says their hands are tied but they control zoning,” Rogers said. “They control property taxes, they control licenses, they control inspections, and they’re doing nothing. This is one of their core neighbourhoods, but if they do not do anything maybe this next election we will vote for someone besides Projet Montréal.”

As for Welch himself, he is simply happy to live in a supportive neighbourhood. 

“It makes me very gratified to see it,” Welch said. “I live in an art co-op, so I know very well the power of collectivity.”

Off the Board, Opinion

Rediscovering the value of practice

by Adam Burton on

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One of my earliest memories is of my mother handing me a cardboard violin and stick and having me bow along to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. As the child of two classical musicians, I started learning music very early—at the age of two. Every day when I came home from school, I had to devote at least 45 minutes to practice before I was allowed to do anything else. 

For much of my childhood, it felt unfair that I was forced to spend this much time on something that I did not always enjoy. While my classmates were playing video games or sports, I was stuck at home working on smooth string transitions that seemed to improve little, if at all, in the long term. 

It was only when I turned 10—when I started taking lessons from someone other than my mother—that I took ownership of my practice time. I had to practice on my own, and if I did not improve significantly week to week, I faced disappointment and embarrassment. 

From an outside perspective, practice appears simple: Just pick up the instrument and play. I had a rude awakening when I attended my first sleep-away music camp at 12 years old, where tight deadlines and entire days dedicated solely to music challenged me to improve quickly. 

Under this pressure, I realized that practice was one of the most exhausting things I had ever done. One hour of intense focus made me weary. When I asked my friends and teachers how they practiced, my list of tips and tricks grew rapidly: Dedicating time to warm-ups and technique drills, dividing what I needed to work on into manageable sections, timing breaks every 20 minutes, and repeating drills were just a few of my strategies. I slowly started to plan my practice sessions through journaling. I eventually realized that practicing is a skill one must develop over many years. It is dedicated time for self-improvement, and if one does not invest effort, the only person cheated is yourself. 

It can sometimes feel as though practicing is synonymous with suffering. While it certainly can appear that way at times, it can also serve as a form of meditation. The state of mind when one decides to dedicate the next hour to improving is unlike anything else: Time comes to a halt, and all worries melt away. Suddenly it is just you and the task at hand. In psychology, this state of mind is often described as “flow”—the mental state of immersed, energized engagement one reaches while performing an activity, being both fully concentrated and actively focussed on the process. Many attribute greater success and happiness to those who pursue these entrancing activities dubbed “flow activities” such as art, writing, or practicing an instrument. 

Since coming to McGill, I have spent a lot less time practicing the violin. Over the pandemic, however, I have resorted to practicing music for solace. Whether it be shooting a basketball, learning a new scale on my viola, perfecting a track on Mario-Kart, throwing a frisbee, learning a yoga pose, or even chopping an onion, rigourous learning is incredibly fulfilling. Although I will not necessarily need or use all of these skills in everyday life, the grounding and satisfaction they provide is invaluable. 

My father often says that people who succeed in music find success elsewhere, and while I did not fully understand this at first, I do now. A life-long work ethic dedicated to improving one’s craft and learning will not only help with success with the task at hand, but can also be applied to living a more well-rounded and fulfilling life. 

Art, Arts & Entertainment

MMFA lecture examines Riopelle’s Arctic inspiration

by Lowell Wolfe on

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On Mar. 10, Roy Ellenwood, a retired professor from York University and translator of Québécois literature, presented “Riopelle and Indigenous Art: The French Connection,” an online lecture with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA). The presentation, which complemented the exhibit Riopelle: The Call of Northern Landscapes and Indigenous Cultures, elucidated the artwork’s historical and multicultural contexts.  

Until Sept. 12, 2021, the MMFA will feature a major in-person and virtual exhibition dedicated to one of Quebec’s most renowned artists, Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002). Riopelle showcases over one hundred of the artist’s works, juxtaposing them with their sources of inspiration—Indigenous artworks, artifacts, and anthropological documents. By displaying Riopelle’s art adjacent to its inspirations, the exhibit connects his fascination with Indigenous art to his work.

The exhibit’s free virtual tour shows hundreds of Riopelle’s works alongside Inuit masks, sculptures, tools, and other objects that tell the story of their creation. One room, Icebergs, features walls covered in monolithic, white canvas paintings. A sculpture looms in the room’s center, alongside a case displaying Inuit tools, carvings, and postcards from Riopelle’s trips to the Arctic. The concomitant placement of Riopelle’s art with Inuit art and history demonstrates their correlative existence in Riopelle’s artistic processes. 

“It was in 1955 that Riopelle first began to make reference in his titles to the masks and sculptures of [Indigenous] artists of the Canadian Arctic and West Coast,” Ellenwood said. “These three paintings, in spite of their significant titles, are not representational [of Indigenous art] in the usual sense of the word [….] Without their titles, they would be hard to distinguish from other abstract works on paper of the same period. The point is that these paintings do not depict masks, they respond to them.”

Although Riopelle’s paintings do not exhibit visual similitude to Indigenous sculptures, masks, or carvings, they express Riopelle’s feelings upon viewing them. Ellenwood then explored the circumstances that fostered Riopelle’s fascination with and eventual exploration of Indigenous visual cultures, and how they became part of his artistic process. During and after World War II, Riopelle’s interactions with figures of the surrealist art movement, such as French art critic Georges Duthuit, inspired his craft.

“Since the 1920s, the surrealist movement had been publishing articles on and photographs of Indigenous art, arguing that it deserved to be seen as more than mere anthropological evidence,” Ellenwood said. “[They argued] that it was great art in its own right, representing an alternative to the impoverishment of European culture, a possibility of renewal in times badly in need of what they called ‘a new myth.’”

Ellenwood’s presentation offered a small, representative glimpse of the art exhibit’s featured works, with oil paintings and lithograph prints that exemplified how Indigenous cultures influenced Riopelle’s creations. Many pieces, such as Tyuk, featured string-like patterns that referenced Inuit string figures and games which were popular across the Arctic.

“Inspired by the Inuit game of making shapes by manipulating a loop of string around the fingers of both hands, [Tyuk] refers to the sound that was traditionally made by the manipulator of the string as the knots, each representing a bird, were pulled, one-by-one, and came apart, representing the bird flying away,” Ellenwood said.

Other interesting pieces of information in the exhibit included letters sent from Riopelle to his companion, Joan Mitchell, and photos and postcards from Riopelle’s excursions to the High North. Ellenwood explained how Riopelle’s personal life, including his hobbies and relationships, was inseparable from his artistic activities and persona.

“His excursions included several to Pangnirtung on Baffin Island, one of which occurred in the summer of 1977,” Ellenwood said. “During that trip, he sent a half-dozen postcards to Joan Mitchell in France, keeping in mind that she did not appreciate his new Quebec residence, and as an animal lover, hated his enthusiasm for hunting and fishing. It is hard not to read some of these notes on these cards as teasing gibes.”

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

In ‘Nomadland,’ there is no such thing as goodbye

by India Blaisdell on

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It is no secret that the distinct American brand of late-stage capitalism is pushing its working class into even deeper levels of poverty. The exorbitantly high cost of health care and housing, tied with low-yield retirement benefits and a weakened welfare state, has forced many elderly Americans to adopt a neo-nomadic lifestyle. Jessica Bruder examines this phenomenon and its political context in her 2017 nonfiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. Bruder interviewed older Americans who live out of their vans and RVs, travelling across states to find seasonal work. Some of these Americans were cast as fictionalized versions of themselves in Nomadland (2020), written and directed by Chloé Zhao. The film recently won Best Picture – Drama and Best Director at both the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards, and is Zhao’s third feature-length film.

Nomadland follows Fern (Frances McDormand), a 60-something nomad, as she drives from South Dakota to California and back again, working at Amazon warehouses, fast-food chains, and National Park campsites along the way. Fern’s character is based on an ex-resident of the real town of Empire, Nevada, which was wiped off the map after the sole source of its local economy—a gypsum mine—shut down after the 2008 recession. In contrast to its source material, Nomadland is much more about its own postscript—Dedicated to the friends who had to depart—than the scenes inside factory warehouses. Despite the book’s focus on socioeconomic factors, the film, in fact, does not address these issues at the foundation of the plot, perhaps to its detriment. To Fern, working for Amazon and various farms are just parts of her macro-level routine of driving around in search for odd jobs, and audiences who anticipate a take-down of the gig economy in Nomadland will find it lacking.

From a strictly formal perspective, McDormand’s raw and powerful performance and Joshua James Richards’ stunning cinematography paint a heart-wrenching portrait of grief and life’s impermanence. Fern, surrounded by the unforgiving, expansive, yet majestic American landscape, is chiefly a nomad because everything that provided her stability and security in the past has dissipated––her husband, Beau, has recently passed away, leaving her with no children, and she is forced out of her hometown. Throughout the film, Fern staunchly rejects offers from her friends and family to stay with them. Fern is unable to sit still and only feels truly at home in her van, where she can easily pack up and head to a new destination. Much like other characters in grief-centred films, especially Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) of Manchester by the Sea (2016), Fern is stubbornly self-reliant and cannot let go of the trauma she carries. She is unable to commit to something permanent despite her ability to acknowledge that other people foster that desire. Fern encourages Dave (David Strathairn), another nomad, to return home to his son and grandchild, yet when she visits them later on, she flees without saying goodbye. In a subsequent conversation, Bob (Bob Wells), the de facto leader of the van-dwelling community, voices something Fern has believed for a while. 

“I don’t ever say a final goodbye,” Bob tells Fern. “I always just say, ‘I’ll see you down the road’. And I do. And whether it’s a month, or a year, or sometimes years, I see them again.” 

The film’s incredible depth and power come from such moments, showing the audience what it means to accept the grief and loss with open arms. Without emphasizing fear, guilt, or shame, Nomadland reminds audiences that relationships are the most fluid and impermanent parts of existence, and ultimately, that our lives are filled with person-shaped holes. 

McGill, News

QS rankings place McGill among the top 50 universities worldwide

by Respina Rostamifar on

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On March 3, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings released its annual university rankings, naming McGill University as one of its top contenders with a global ranking of 31. Thirty-two different McGill subjects placed within the top 50 university rankings by subject, with three departments—Mineral & Mining, Library & Information Management, and Anatomy & Cell Biology—ranked among the global top 10.

The QS global ranking system is reputed to be among the most comprehensive ranking systems in the world for higher education. The system examines six key metrics to determine their rankings: Academic reputation, employer reputation, the faculty-to-student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, and international student ratio. 

Kimiz Dalkir, director, and Joan Bartlett, graduate program director, both at the School of Information Studies, attributed the school’s success to the student body and their contributions to research. 

“We owe our international reputation firstly to our students, who remain connected to us and act as the best ambassadors, and also to our researchers, who continue to have a great impact nationally and internationally,” Dalkir and Bartlett wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “We remain focussed on the heart of our program, to connect people to information. [This] has been the guiding principle since the School was established in 1927.”

 Frédérique Mazerolle, a media relations officer at McGill, said the university was pleased by its performance this year. 

“To be recognized is a source of pride for the McGill community,” Mazerolle said. “It is a demonstration of our collective commitment to maintaining McGill’s high standards and ensuring that we remain one of the world’s leading universities.”

Reflecting on the history of innovative research conducted at the university, Mazerolle discussed some of McGill’s most notable discoveries. 

“Our institution is recognized globally for the excellence of its teaching and research programs,” Mazerolle said. “Ernest Rutherford’s Nobel Prize-winning research on the nature of radioactivity was conducted at McGill, part of a long tradition of innovation on our campuses that includes the invention of the artificial blood cell and Plexiglass.” 

Mazerolle highlighted the university’s involvement in the field of epigenetics and expressed enthusiasm over recent research developments.

“Today, our professors are building the new field of epigenetics, developing alternative energy sources from crop plants and driving human achievement in every field imaginable,” Mazerolle said.

Brooklyn Frizzle, U3 Science and the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Vice-President of University Affairs, was less optimistic about McGill’s ranking. Frizzle believes that while university rankings affect the decisions of prospective students, they have an insignificant impact on the lives and academic careers of current students. 

“Frankly, the university is far too concerned with courting prospective students and donors with high world rankings, and current McGill students suffer for it,” Frizzle said. “It is an open secret that when applying for tenure, instructors with high-profile research experience, the kind that boosts ranking statistics, are prioritized over instructors who chose to dedicate their time to teaching or campus community involvement.”

Frizzle questioned the extent to which the university prioritizes rankings over the quality of education and student life on campus.

“If you look through the principal’s remarks presented monthly to the Senate, you will find far more mentions of university rankings and illustrious award winners than community initiatives or campus heroes,” Frizzle said. “That is not to say that the university does not have a clear interest in boosting rankings [as] high ranking universities attract more students, donors, and government support, but rankings should not come at the expense of quality teaching and student wellbeing.”

Student Life

The dark side of studying nutrition

by Josephine Wang on

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CW: Disordered eating

I entered my freshman year at McGill with the dream of becoming a dietitian. After struggling with negative body image and disordered eating during high school, I vowed to dedicate my career to helping those experiencing the same challenges. I also thought that studying nutrition on a scientific level would improve my own relationship with food. I soon realized that while studying nutrition and dietetics comes with benefits and opportunities, there is a dark side to the field.

The classes and environment that I envisioned myself thriving in soon led to an overexposure to information about food and exercise, ultimately causing more harm than good. I constantly questioned my ideas and perceptions about food, weight, and even what the ideal of health looked like. 

Growing up in a Chinese-Taiwanese household, my diet consisted of all kinds of food, from white rice, to red meat, to colourful vegetables. However, as I began my classes in nutrition at McGill, I was taught to consult educational resources like MyPlate, which recommends meals with salmon, brown rice, and steamed vegetables, but not the beef noodle soup and scallion pancakes I grew up enjoying. I started internalizing the idea that anything that was not chicken, steamed broccoli, or whole grain was ‘bad’ for me, and I felt guilty for not eating the foods that I was “supposed” to.

Given the hyper-scrutiny I internalized from diet culture and my nutrition education, I pressured myself to eat healthy all the time. As a nutrition student, I believed I had to look and act a certain way in order to be taken seriously, and feared that I could not become a dietician if I did not appear slim and fit. This led to a vicious cycle of food restriction and binging, which made me feel even more ashamed. I wondered how I was supposed to give nutritional advice to others when I was struggling with these issues myself. 

Further, telling others that I study nutrition prompted them to scrutinize my dietary choices. The pressure from the expectations of my family, my peers, and even strangers significantly impacted my eating patterns. 

Although some of the pressure I felt was self-imposed, much of it also came from external factors. On social media, I noticed how body-shaming insults were hurled at dietitians who were not skinny. The public assumes that nutritionists and dietitians represent the perfect picture of health, without realizing that “health” comes in many different shapes and sizes.

“There is definitely an image associated with the success of a health practitioner, and that image is thin,” Hayley Mauricio, U3 Science, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “This expectation further bleeds into social media. There is a world of health and fitness gurus that we look up to because they look good. But of course, social media is not representative of real life.”

Throughout my undergraduate studies, I have internalized many of my struggles, believing that I had to be the person with the answers, not the problems. To my surprise, I eventually learned that I was not alone with these feelings. Eating disorders are of concern in nutrition faculties around the globe: A study in 14 countries revealed that 77 per cent of nutrition professionals, including professors, teachers, and dietitians, felt that developing eating disorders are a concern for nutrition students. A 2015 study echoed these findings, reporting that female nutrition students experienced higher eating restraints and binge eating levels compared to non-nutrition students. 

Although these findings are not always consistent, there is a body of evidence to suggest that dietitians and nutritionists throughout the world may be at greater risk for disordered eating behaviour, binge eating, and orthorexia nervosa when compared to other professionals. 

Among the public, there is a stigma that nutrition practitioners should be free from food-related issues, such as orthorexia, by virtue of their training and expertise. Truthfully, we all harbour some expectations for professionals in any field of work: Many people would not trust a doctor who smokes. However, these expectations put an enormous amount of stress on students and professionals to look and act a certain way, without realizing that doing so can induce devastating health outcomes.

“I felt that I had to eat healthier to gain some credibility,” Michelle Hsieh, U3 Nutrition, said in an interview with the Tribune. “I remember people coming up to me and saying, ‘Wow, you’re in nutrition and you still eat so much junk food?’ This kind of pressure to always eat clean is not only damaging, it is also not right.”

Although nutrition is a science, food is personal––healthy eating is certainly not one-size-fits-all. One obvious solution to having a more inclusive approach to health is encouraging better representation among leaders in the field.

“The health and wellness industry has, since its inception, perpetuated the image of a white, thin, cisgender, and affluent woman,” Tarini Gupta, U3 Nutrition, said in an interview with the Tribune. “Needless to say, this image is extremely harmful, especially to young, impressionable girls, and needs to be changed.”

For several years, racialized individuals have been underrepresented in the fields of nutrition and dietetics, particularly in leadership ranks. According to the Commission on Dietetic Registration, over 70 per cent of dietitians in the U.S. are white. Although Canada lacks substantial race-based data in this field, the results from a 2018 study highlight the need for the Canadian dietetics field  to address systemic barriers that prevent ethnic minorities from becoming registered dietitians. These barriers exclude many individuals who do not identify with the Western-centric narrative of health, as seen by a lack of diverse food choices within the Canadian Food Guide. 

“I was not able to resonate with the tools and resources I was taught in class, such as the Canadian Food Guide,” Gupta said. “I grew up eating traditional Indian cuisine. While studying nutrition, I realized that my meals did not look like the ones illustrated in this guide, which made me feel like I was not eating correctly. Though the Canadian Food Guide has made efforts towards inclusivity […], it is still limited in terms of ethnic food accessibility, financial barriers, and an in-depth knowledge of non-Westernized eating patterns.”

As I continue my studies, I have realized the need for conversations surrounding culinary diversity, representation, and eating disorders in the nutrition field. To properly serve Canadians of all backgrounds, our training must reflect the diverse society we currently live in. 

The current disparity in nutrition promotes a narrow definition of health, one that is unrealistic and damaging to both the patient and the provider. By dismantling systemic barriers and training experts in the field to understand diverse backgrounds, we can begin to shift conversations surrounding health without sacrificing one’s culture and traditions or subjecting them to food guilt. 

For those struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder, services such as the National Eating Disorders Association Helpline or SSMU’s Eating Disorder Resource & Support Centre may be able to help.

Editorial, Opinion

McGill 24 overlooks student demands

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

More in Editorial:

The annual McGill 24 fundraising event took place on March 10, with the university calling on its worldwide community—including alumni, faculty, staff and students—to donate. The funds raised contribute to McGill’s larger fundraising campaign, Made by McGill, which was introduced in September 2019 and seeks to raise two billion dollars ahead of the university’s upcoming bicentennial. At the time of its announcement, the campaign attracted significant criticism for its messaging. Despite that McGill often relies on student labour for soliciting funds and serving as university representatives, the administration has neglected to prioritize funding for causes that students have long been demanding, such as better mental health services. In future campaigns, McGill must make efforts to fund tangible solutions to improve the well-being of its students and better publicize its financial information to live up to its reputation.

McGill has consistently shown disregard for services that are crucial to students’ well-being. Last year, the Office for Students with Disabilities converted its paid notetaker jobs to volunteer positions after years of compensating notetakers’ time and effort. In 2017, the university cut funding to the Eating Disorder Program—an invaluable support service to students struggling with eating disorders or disordered eating. McGill’s insufficient mental health services are also of utmost concern, especially amidst a growing mental health crisis. Many of the university’s insufficient student services could be remedied if the university provides them with proper funding. 

When donating to the university, individuals have the option to choose which areas receive their contribution. Most of the categories promoted on the McGill Giving website revolve around research, innovation, and infrastructure projects, with only a few making specific references to opportunities for students. While all of these areas are undoubtedly important, it is surprising that in light of student concerns over a lack of support, more emphasis is not placed on providing better funding for student services as part of these campaigns. The Made by McGill campaign celebrates student and alumni success despite failing to acknowledge the activism and initiatives students create in response to inadequate support––as they did with the creation of the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Eating Disorder Resource and Support Centre. If the university were to highlight specific categories dedicated to improving student wellness, donors may be more likely to contribute.  

Perhaps McGill’s fundraising practices would be less insulting to students if the university publicized clearer fundraising reports in an effort to promote increased transparency. While donation records exist internally, the McGill Giving website includes only certain figures and a vague list of donors. Allowing for widespread, publicized access to these documents is key to holding the university accountable, but their concealment from students and donors only further ignites suspicions regarding the allocation of funds. 

Upon graduation, when University Advancement starts sending emails soliciting donations, young alumni can use their voices to send a clear message to the university that they do not intend to donate to certain initiatives unless their donations go toward meaningful causes. If alumni continue to donate to the university without questioning its practices, the administration will have no reason to adjust its priorities. 

For administrators to continue to receive donations in the current way while ignoring student demands for improved wellness services would be profoundly inconsiderate. If McGill is concerned with propelling itself into its third century, it can commit to meaningful equity initiatives like swiftly removing its outdated James McGill statue as demanded by its Black students. Students have a right to know where their money goes and to benefit from robust services that affect their actual campus experience. McGill’s rankings may speak to its research accomplishments, but they cannot mask its current students’ dissatisfaction. The administration must prioritize students’ health as it is the best way to set them up for success, ultimately making them more likely to think and speak positively of McGill in the future.

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