In the first two months of 2019, Canada has seen an increase in the number of active measles cases compared to the same period last year. There are currently ten confirmed cases in British Columbia, enough for the Provincial Health Services Authority to declare an outbreak, and one in Quebec[Read More…]
Science & Technology
The latest in science and technology.
Music shown to significantly improve mental motivation
There’s something about music that engages the brain, often eliciting a strong emotion simply using the ears. While it might just be an abstract pattern of pitches and rhythms, music somehow has significant biological and therapeutic implications. A recent study co-authored by McGill researchers explains the phenomenon, providing novel evidence[Read More…]
MAPS Canada charts the way for psychedelic therapy
When McGill students hear about psychedelics, their minds might wander to that friend who tried magic mushrooms once, or maybe MK Ultra’s acid-based electrotherapy experiments. What might not immediately register is the novel and promising potential for these drugs today in the form of psychedelic therapy. The perception of psychedelics[Read More…]
Davos 2019: Climate change and empowerment
Globalization, climate change, social entrepreneurship, and sustainability were just a few of the topics on the table at the 2019 World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland Jan. 22-25. This year, the annual forum provided a platform for environmentalists, young innovators, world leaders, multinational corporations, academics, and more to consider[Read More…]
A future vision of STEM education
Nanotechnology is revolutionizing healthcare systems. Self-driving cars are changing how we navigate our roads. The world has entered an unprecedented era of technological innovation, and scientists are making novel discoveries that will extend and improve the quality of our everyday lives. Ainissa Ramirez, a world-renowned materials scientist and science evangelist,[Read More…]
Coding in the deep
“Programming a computer to be clever is harder than programming it to learn to be clever,” Hugo Larochelle, a researcher at Google Brain and adjunct professor at Université de Sherbooke, said during his “Beyond Artificial Intelligence: Deep Learning” presentation at SUS Academia Week on Jan. 31. Deep learning is a[Read More…]
Love on the brain
Everyone knows the story: Boy meets girl, boy encounters obstacle; they fight to overcome it, but something goes wrong and someone runs away crying. Ultimately, love prevails, they share a passionate kiss, get married, and live happily ever after. This, Hollywood claims, is love. Valentine’s Day is marketed as a[Read More…]
McHacks 6 attracts diverse talent from across Canada
From Feb. 2 to 3, students from across Canada and the United States hunched over their laptops at McGill’s annual McHacks competition. With cash awards and Nintendo switches at stake, the participating ‘hackers’ had 24 hours to program an original project. Students have organized and run the competition since 2013,[Read More…]
A brain without a body
Parkinson’s disease affects the dopamine neurons in as many as ten million people worldwide yet, to this day, nobody has identified a concrete cause. However, science may be a step closer, as researchers have recently shown that the protein alpha synuclein detrimentally affects the brains of Parkinson’s patients. Scientists have[Read More…]
DOvEE project aims to detect ovarian cancer earlier
In Canada, deaths from gynecological cancers have steadily decreased over the past three decades. As women are no longer heavily exposed to carcinogenic dyes in clothing and early detection programs have improved, detecting cervical and uterine cancers has slowly become less of a priority for gynecologists. However, ovarian cancer continues[Read More…]
