Artificial intelligence (AI) developers are no longer satisfied with programs that play checkers and optimize search engine results, and have moved toward loftier ambitions such as diagnosing leukemia and probing the creators’ inner emotions. Humans often perceive AI as being inherently superior to their own minds, completely free of earthly[Read More…]
Science & Technology
The latest in science and technology.
Fictionalizing science: How literature and film have shaped modern technology
Science fiction has always focussed primarily on imagining the future and coming up with inventions far beyond what was possible at the time. Whether science fiction directly inspired inventors or because writers were able to predict the future, several technologies first featured in fiction are now part of everyday life.[Read More…]
Data scientists seek the perfect picture of a whale
For most Quebec residents, whale watching is a special occasion. For Whale Seeker, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence (AI) developer, it’s everyday business. To meet the needs of ecological research, Whale Seeker uses cutting-edge AI technologies to detect marine mammals with imaging methods that can be delivered as quickly and as[Read More…]
New research centre to usher in the era of digital democracy
In an age of increased globalization, social media makes it easy for people to voice their opinions online, discuss issues, organize around causes, and hold leaders accountable. However, media and technology have a tendency to amplify both positive and negative trends in contemporary discourse. In recent years, media technologies, and[Read More…]
Gliding, bat-winged dinosaurs surprise scientists
When most people picture flying dinosaurs, they picture beasts like pterodactyls and the pterosaurs. Although iconic to fossils of the Jurassic period, these flying reptiles were not dinosaurs at all, but instead a distant dinosaur cousin called archosaurs that flapped their forelimbs to achieve flight. However, scientists have recently found[Read More…]
New study highlights differences in vaccination policies worldwide
Vaccination is arguably the most successful public health tool ever developed, virtually eliminating diseases like smallpox and polio from the viral landscape. The current COVID-19 public health crisis has pushed vaccine research efforts into overdrive, as scientists race to find multiple different formulas to grant the world immunity. However, the[Read More…]
The mental gymnastics of mid-semester motivation
McGill students are tired. Slouching into the tenth week of online classes in tandem with the flurry of midterm essays and assignments, many students are struggling to maintain their academic motivation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and it shows. Motivation is the process that initiates and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. There are[Read More…]
An update on the GNL Quebec-Saguenay pipeline project
Environmental degradation, loss of endangered species, increases in greenhouse gas emissions—these are just some of the negative effects that the GNL Québec-Gazoduq Énergie Saguenay Project is predicted to have on Canada’s natural environment. The project, which proposes the construction of a 782-kilometre pipeline to carry natural gas from Northern Ontario[Read More…]
Takeaways from the 20th annual Trottier Public Science Symposium
Oct. 26 marked the second day of the 20th annual Trottier Public Science Symposium, hosted by the McGill Office for Science and Society (OSS). Scientists presented talks on a variety of topics of public interest, all within the scope of this year’s theme: “In Whom Do We Trust?” How we[Read More…]
At the convergence of art and science, ecology becomes an experience
On Oct. 29, The Convergence Initiative hosted their popular Sci-Art/Art-Sci event, a webinar about the work of scientists, artists, and researchers at the intersection of science, art, and communication. Matthew Halpenny, an interdisciplinary artist and member of the Montreal collective Somme, led the event with his talk titled “Ecologies of Experience:[Read More…]
