It’s easy to forget that products of daily life, like video games, are the culmination of countless hours of work and meticulous design undertaken by teams as small as one person and as large as an entire company. Playing Hard – The Game Just Got Real, directed by Jean-Simon Chartier,[Read More…]
Science & Technology
The latest in science and technology.
What is divestment?
On Sept. 12, the McGill Senate voted to support divestment from fossil fuels. While the term ‘divestment’ is ubiquitous on McGill’s campus, its meaning and implications remain foggy to many. To maintain financial stability, the Senate reports that McGill invests part of its $1.6 billion endowment into fossil fuel firms.[Read More…]
EpiPen shortage leaves those with life-threatening allergies scrambling
Earlier this year, Pfizer Canada, the pharmaceutical giant behind EpiPens, reported a shortage in both the 0.3 and 0.15-milligram versions of the drug. As the country’s only brand of life-saving epinephrine auto-injectors (EAIs), Pfizer’s announcement sent Health Canada scrambling for solutions as the shortage is predicted to persist into next[Read More…]
Behind the invisible brain-print of obesity
Most obesity interventions focus on restricting calorie intake through diet or increasing energy expenditure through exercise. For this reason, obesity is often perceived as an individual’s lack of self-control to eat a healthy, well-portioned diet and follow exercise regimes. However, there may be some invisible factors pressing the scale. According[Read More…]
A new smile in the face of defeat
Seven years ago, a hunting accident left Maurice Desjardins severely scarred and unable to eat, drink, speak, or breathe on his own. His former life ruined, Desjardins saw no way for things to return to how they had once been. But, given modern medicine, new hope has arisen. Earlier this[Read More…]
McGill welcomes inspiring new science professors
McGill University is world-renowned for the quality and exceptional range of its scientific research. Such excellence is made possible by its professors, competitively selected from among the world’s best scientists. This year, 17 new professors joined McGill’s Faculty of Science. The McGill Tribune got to know four of the departments newest[Read More…]
Which came first: The chicken or the dinosaur?
At first glance, a chicken and a dinosaur may seem as distantly related as any two species could be. For Hans Larsson, McGill associate professor of paleontology and biology and director of the Redpath Museum, the correlation between the two could not be clearer. In his presentation on Sept. 14,[Read More…]
The evolving coverage of depression and suicide in the media
In 2017, Netflix released the series 13 Reasons Why, sparking a media frenzy about the show’s portrayal of suicide. In a recent study, Robert Whitley, an assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry, investigated the Canadian media’s coverage of 13 Reasons Why. Collecting data from 20 Canadian news outlets, Whitley’s team[Read More…]
Giant floating boom boosts Ocean Cleanup efforts
For decades, a solution to the problem of marine plastic pollution has seemed out of reach. Fortunately, Boyan Slat, an entrepreneur from the Netherlands, has invented a floating device that removes garbage from the surface of the ocean. Slat was 16 years old when he scuba dived in the Mediterranean[Read More…]
The immaculate conception of the internet: A balancing act
On Sept. 13, the Redpath Museum hosted Derek Ruths, a McGill professor of computer science and director of the Centre for Social and Cultural Data Science, who addressed a pertinent problem of our technological world: The dark side of the internet. According to Ruths, the three most substantial issues with[Read More…]
