McGill in the headlines
McGill in the headlines McGill University
User Tools (skip):
Global navigation (skip):
McGill in the headlines
Black Montrealers earning less than whites: McGill study
Saturday, November 15, 2008They can be just as educated, just as bilingual and in the same high-paying jobs as white people, but black Montrealers still earn substantially less than whites, a new McGill research project shows. "The data demonstrate that blacks have dramatically lower incomes than non-blacks ... at every age and even among university graduates," the study shows.
The Montreal Gazette
More info
New research on Darwin's finches
Tuesday, November 11, 2008Some of the latest research on Darwin's finches of the Galapagos Islands shows an unexpected pattern of natural selection that is allowing researchers a rare glimpse into what the early stages of speciation might look like. OEB Darwin fellow Andrew Hendry of McGill has a paper appearing in the current issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society.
Proceedings of the Royal Society
PhysOrg
More info
Kyoto Prize awarded to Charles Taylor
Tuesday, November 11, 2008Charles Taylor, a philosopher and emeritus professor at McGill University was presented with the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation on November 10. Taylor, researched the idea of cultural diversity and multiculturalism pointing to a world in which diverse, heterogeneous cultures coexist peacefully through mutual recognition, the foundation said.
CBC
The Montreal Gazette
More info
1st voter in N.H. town is McGill engineering student
Tuesday, November 4, 2008One of the first voters in the United States to cast a ballot Tuesday in the presidential election was a McGill University engineering student in Montreal who got a lift from his mom to make it to the New Hampshire poll on time.
CBC
More info
The incredible inflexible moveable house
Monday, October 27, 2008In a story in the Boston Globe on how we could save money, time, and the environment by making homes easy to remodel, and on how architects have been pressing for a new approach to home building, the work of McGill's Avi Friedman is highlighted.
Boston Globe
More info
Pinching display lets you feel the data
Saturday, October 25, 2008(New Scientist): A device that pinches and stretches the skin on the fingertips, rather than prodding and poking it, could revolutionise the way blind people access graphs and maps. (see link for full story)
The Toronto Star
More info
Researchers find state of matter that may extend Moore's Law
Saturday, October 25, 2008(New York Times): Researchers at McGill University have discovered a new state of matter that they say could greatly extend Moore's Law. The researchers say they've found a quasi-three-dimensional electron crystal that could enable them to harness quantum physics to make increasingly small computer chips. (see link for full story)
New York Times
More info
McGill physicists discover new state of matter
Thursday, October 23, 2008Canadian physicists say they have discovered a previously unknown state of matter that could have a momentous impact on creation of new electronic devices. McGill University researchers say the new state of matter, a quasi-three- dimensional electron crystal, is a material very much like those used in the fabrication of modern transistors.
Information Week
Le Devoir
More info
Ancient microbes made giant magnets
Tuesday, October 21, 2008Scientists have unearthed giant magnetic fossils, the remnants of microbes buried in 55-million-year-old sediment. The growth of these unusual structures during a period of massive global warming provides clues about how climate change might alter the behaviour of organisms. Dirk Schumann of McGill and his colleagues found the fossils in sediment taken from a borehole in Ancora, New Jersey.
Nature News
More info
Boning up on dinosaurs
Tuesday, October 14, 2008Chantal Montreuil's dream was to work with animals - live ones, that is. But as a fossil technician at McGill University, it's her job to piece together the featured exhibit at this week's Meet the Triceratops event.
The Montreal Gazette
More info
Male pattern baldness pinpointed on DNA
Monday, October 13, 2008A McGill University researcher has found a mysterious stretch of DNA that can make men lose their hair. The discovery could lead to new ways to prevent male pattern baldness or a quick genetic test to determine if a man is likely to hang on to his hair. But it also may help researchers better understand the human genome.
La Presse Canadienne
More info
Researchers question antibiotic link to C. Difficile
Tuesday, October 7, 2008Infection with potentially deadly Clostridium difficile is often linked to antibiotic use, but new research suggests that other factors might be involved in the spread of the highly contagious superbug.
The Montreal Gazette
The Globe and Mail
More info
McGill-Harvard study: weight linked to prostate cancer death
Monday, October 6, 2008Excess bodyweight and high plasma concentrations of C-peptide (a marker of insulin secretion) in men who are subsequently diagnosed with prostate cancer are reliable indicators that they are more likely to die from their disease than those with lower levels, according to a collaborative study between Dr Michael Pollak of McGill and Dr Jing Ma of Harvard, and colleagues.
The Globe and Mail
The Calgary Herald
More info
Argentina dinosaur fossil find tightens evolutionary link with modern birds
Tuesday, September 30, 2008The remains of a 30-foot-long predatory dinosaur discovered along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado is helping to unravel how birds evolved their unusual breathing system. McGill's Hans Larsson was part of the team that made the discovery, published Sept. 29 in the online journal PLos ONE and announced at a news conference in Mendoza, Argentina.
Chicago Tribune
More info
The Stones Tour: If these old walls could talk
Monday, September 29, 2008 Ingrid Birker, the Redpath Museum's science outreach co-ordinator, has given this one-hour tour several times a year since 2002, shortly after the publication of What Building Stones Tell, Redpath's guidebook to "the fossils, rocks and minerals of Montreal buildings."
The Gazette
More info
World's oldest rocks found in Quebec
Thursday, September 25, 2008Canadian and U.S. researchers say they have found the oldest rocks in the world, along the Northern Quebec coast of Hudson's Bay. The rocks are estimated to be 4.28 billion years old, according to a team of researchers from McGill University, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.
The Globe and Mail
CBC
The Gazette
More info
Brain banks: Crucial for research, clamouring for donors
Friday, September 19, 2008Brain banks. The work they do is not widely publicized — most people who consider signing donor cards think along the lines of organs such as the hearts and kidneys for transplant — but it's crucial for many researchers trying to understand the causes and characteristics of myriad diseases. The McGill Group for Suicide Studies, for example, uses brain tissue to investigate suicidal behaviour.
CBC News
More info
McGill opens doors on new Life Sciences Complex
Wednesday, September 17, 2008McGill University offered a sneak peek yesterday of its new Life Sciences Complex, a $73-million facility where 600 scientists in bio-medical, developmental biology and cancer research will be able to work together in state-of-the-art laboratories housed in four buildings.
The Gazette
Slideshow
More info
Love and infidelity: how our brains keep us from straying
Tuesday, September 16, 2008McGill researcher John Lydon and colleagues study exploring how automatic psychological mechanisms kick into action when the eye starts to wander, helping resist temptation and strengthening the relationship -- even without us being aware of it.
Los Angeles Times
More info
Deaf people feel their way to speech
Monday, September 15, 2008Anyone who's done a bad Elvis impression knows that contorting your mouth makes talking feel wrong - never mind how ridiculous you sound. People who have lost their hearing use the same sense to retain their speech, new research suggests.
New Scientist
Nature Neuroscientist
More info
Archives
“If things don't change, we're going to all have fewer medicines to treat whatever the next diseases are. Not only will we not develop those drugs for cancer and heart … but we won't get the innovative breakthrough drugs unless we change."
”E. Richard Gold, director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy at McGill in The Globe and Mail
Our discovery not only opens the door to further unlock the secrets of the Earth's beginnings, geologists now have a new playground to explore how and when life began, what the atmosphere may have looked like, and when the first continent formed.""
PhD student Jonathan O'Neil on the discovery of the earth's oldest rocks
We all know what happens when kids aren't getting enough sleep - they're cranky and it's impossible to get them to pay attention. A lot more education is needed to make people, especially parents, aware of the key role of sleep, not only in rest but in memory, learning, attention and mood."
Clinical child psychologist and sleep researcher Reut Gruber in the Montreal Gazette
We shouldn't walk around worried that everything we do will affect our grandchildren. It will, but we can't do anything about it except to do the things we were taught to do through evolution or social evolution."
McGill pharmacology professor and epigenetics researcher Moshe Szyf, speaking with the Ottawa Citizen
...most people in Western society use music to regulate moods, whether it's playing something peppy in the morning or something soothing at the end of a hard day, or something that will motivate them to exercise. Joni Mitchell told me that someone once said before there was Prozac, there was her."
McGill psychology professor and former rock producer Daniel Levitin, speaking in Wired magazine
It's been sort of a ho-hum issue -- it was like,'So what if women have less sexual desire after the age of 50.' I think we're more reluctant for some unknown reason to accept drug treatment for sexual dysfunctions in women."
Barbara Sherwin, professor of psychology and of obstetrics and gynecology
