On Friday, Sept. 14, a group of graduate students, professors, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs gathered in the McGill Faculty Club ballroom to attend the third annual Science and Policy Exchange. The conference featured panel speakers from government, industry, and academia. The sessions covered three topics: sustainable policymaking, the 2014 health care[Read More…]
Science & Technology
The latest in science and technology.
Some smokers’ genes make it harder to kick the habit
According to Health Canada, approximately 37,000 deaths each year in Canada can be attributed to tobacco use, racking up $4.4 billion in hospital bills. Although the adverse health effects of smoking are well-known—thanks in part to the government’s anti-smoking campaigns—many have difficulty quitting, despite a variety of available cessation drugs.[Read More…]
How social media is changing science
Early in 2011, Ichthyologist (fish biologist) Brian Sidlauskas led an expedition to catalogue biodiversity in a remote river in Guyana. His goal was to bring back over 5,000 fish. According to Guyana’s customs laws, in order remove specimens from the country, each must be documented and identified. This presented an[Read More…]
Researchers discover new star cluster
While thousands of freshmen participated in “Discover McGill” as part of orientation last month, the McGill Physics Department took part in some exciting new discoveries of their own. 5.7 billion light years from our humble speck in the cosmos is a galaxy cluster 2.5 million billion times more massive than[Read More…]
McGill unveils new and streamlined myCourses
McGill students are getting a new taste of a refined myCourses recipe this fall. The new myCourses is the product of a two-year process that included focus groups to assess the needs of the course site users, interviews with faculty and students, and finally, finding the right vendor to deliver[Read More…]
Don’t panic
As the add/drop period comes to an end, students seem frantic to get those last spots in their desired classes. These 13 days of testing the waters provide a good sense of what the classes are like, but the pool can only hold so much. Instead of refreshing Minerva every[Read More…]
Translating the human instruction manual
Humans are a complicated bunch. We all have different hopes and aspirations, likes and dislikes, dreams and realities. We like to think of ourselves as the most complicated and advanced species on this earth. Given this presumed complexity, the results of the Human Genome Project—a massive effort to record every[Read More…]
Open source urban planning
Last Saturday, over 100 hackers gathered in the Shatner Ballroom for Hack Ta Ville. They were drawn by the chance to comb through freshly released data—everything from the location and age of Montreal trees to the legal parking times in spots all over the city—to use as building blocks for[Read More…]
McGill research briefs
A new disorder in metabolism of vitamin B12 This week, researchers at McGill’s Department of Human Genetics and Genome Quebec—in collaboration with others from the United States, Switzerland, and Germany—published the discovery of a new genetic defect that causes an inability to break down vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 plays an[Read More…]
SciTech Weekly Calendar
Stones and Beer Bike Tour Fossil, rock, and architecture bike tour with beer and snacks included. Sunday, September 16th from 16:00 to 20:00. Meet at the Redpath Museum. Admission is $15 for students, call 514-398-4094 to reserve a spot. TranspoCamp Montreal Transportation-focused hack-a-thon. Friday, September 21st from 8:30 to 17:00[Read More…]
