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Science & Technology

World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week at McGill

by Mairin Burke on

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Every year, from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24, the World Health Organization (WHO) observes World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week (WAAW), recognizing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the greatest modern threats to global development and public health. AMR was responsible for 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019 alone.

McGill’s own AMR Centre works year-round to raise awareness about this pernicious phenomenon. Founded in 2021 by Dr. Dao Nguyen, with backing from bodies such as the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity and McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, the AMR Centre brings together McGill professors from over 20 different departments to find innovative, interdisciplinary research solutions to AMR. The centre specializes in academic work on AMR diagnostics, therapeutics, and prevention strategies. 

The support and funding from WAAW give the AMR Centre a particular opportunity to expand public understanding of AMR with the aim of reducing its emergence and spread. In an interview with The Tribune, McGill PhD Candidate in Microbiology & Immunology and AMR Centre Outreach Team co-lead Sophia Goldman explained what AMR is. According to her, basic knowledge of AMR is the first step in halting the public health crisis it creates.

“[AMR] occurs when microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, fungi and even parasites make changes or adaptations over time to develop the ability to no longer [respond] to the drugs that are designed to kill them,” Goldman said. “In the big picture, this makes infections really hard to treat, and increases […] the spread of disease [….] [AMR] is mainly caused by the misuse and the overuse of antibiotics.”

AMR Centre Outreach Team co-lead and MSc student in Microbiology, Ashley McGibbon, described other factors contributing to AMR’s proliferation.

“Doctors and medical practitioners tend to prescribe antibiotics as the solution for everything, even though they’re only able to target bacterial infections,” McGibbon said in an interview with The Tribune. “[AMR is] also induced by the lack of investment by pharmaceutical companies […] into making new antimicrobials [….] Antibiotics are also used in a lot of agriculture [in soils, which] can promote [AMR’s development].”

Goldman outlined key solutions for preventing AMR on an individual basis: Taking antibiotics as prescribed and especially finishing them completely, keeping up with vaccination schedules to prevent infection, not sharing antibiotics or consuming expired ones, washing hands frequently, and staying home when sick.

McGibbon echoed the power of these independent choices in contributing to communal safety.

“Small actions add up,” she said. “If every person takes the time to make themself aware about this global health issue, it can inspire change and support responsible antimicrobial use, which will collectively help safeguard public health for generations to come.”

This week, the AMR Centre will be holding three public pop-up events to challenge pre-existing notions of AMR: On Nov. 18 at Macdonald Campus, and on Nov. 20 at the downtown campus’ Redpath Library, as well as at the McGill University Health Centre. The Centre will also host a scientific symposium on Nov. 19 exploring solutions to antimicrobial resistance, at the McGill Faculty Club from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

On Nov. 21 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., Dr. Eric Nelson from the University of Florida will run a seminar at the Goodman Cancer Institute discussing AMR diagnostic developments. To round out the week on Nov. 24, the Centre will host an online student roundtable discussion on the WHO’s latest AMR reports from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Throughout Nov. 18 to 24, the AMR Centre will enter anyone who posts themselves wearing blue alongside the hashtag #GoBlueWithMcGill—in honour of the WHO’s AMR awareness “Go Blue Campaign”—into a raffle. In solidarity with WAAW, the McCall MacBain Arts Building will be lit in blue on Nov. 24. 

Goldman emphasized what she hopes the McGill community will most take away from the AMR Centre’s WAAW events.

“Everyone’s interaction and experience with antimicrobials can affect everyone else around them, within Canada and even worldwide,” she said. “Everyone […] doing their little part matters.”

Editorial, Opinion

Sudan’s genocide is fueled by global and local apathy toward Black lives

by The Tribune Editorial Board on

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In April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group descended into a civil war. Since then, both groups have executed large-scale massacres and targeted ethnic cleansing against Black, non-Arab ethnic groups, such as the Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa peoples. This genocide—enabled by a complicit international community and funded by the investment portfolios of Western institutions—has killed over 150,000 people, with approximately 9 million displaced internally and 1.8 million fleeing Sudan as refugees.

The ongoing genocide in Sudan reflects the international community’s racist neglect of Black lives and selective disregard for humanitarian crises in Africa. This apathy is clearly mirrored in institutions like McGill, whose refusal to divest from arms manufacturers signals a shameless willingness to profit from global violence against Black communities. 

This pattern of international inaction is not new. Beginning in 2003, General Omar al-Bashir’s regime carried out a genocidal campaign in Darfur that killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced roughly 2.7 million individuals. Al-Bashir, in collaboration with the Janjaweed militia, conducted mass killings of Black Darfurians, destroying villages, poisoning wells, and systematically raping women and children. 

Yet the international community egregiously refused to multilaterally recognize al-Bashir’s campaign in Darfur as a genocide. The UN Security Council issued repeated resolutions calling for the cessation of human rights violations and hostilities, but offered no meaningful enforcement mechanisms, declining to authorize major interventions or impose punitive measures. 

Although al-Bashir was overthrown in 2019, today’s civil war stems from many of the same perpetrators of past atrocities in Darfur. Current RSF commander General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo was a Janjaweed leader, and many RSF fighters also fought for the militia group during the Darfur genocide. In failing to intervene meaningfully during the previous civil war, international institutions have effectively enabled the next generation of genocidaires. As such, the same power structures continue to carry out genocidal acts against Sudanese Black ethnic groups today.

Although the RSF and SAF’s military actions today each amount to acts of genocide, the international community has again faltered, refusing to take action beyond symbolic recognition and passive investigation. 

In fact, the very abuses that define Sudan’s ongoing genocide as such—the targeted destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group—have been reframed by global powers to justify their own neglect and complicity. Overtly racist framings of the genocide by officials and media as ‘tribal conflict’ minimize the responsibility of Western actors to intervene, and reinforce the devaluation of Black lives in Sudan. 

Canada itself, whose Family Reunification Program has served to reunite refugees who have been torn from their families by crisis and war, has largely excluded Sudanese applicants, substantiating the country’s apathy towards the suffering in Sudan. Canada has pledged to admit merely 4,000 refugees from Sudan, while Quebec has refused to admit Sudanese refugees for residence entirely. 

Canada’s institutional response to the genocide in Sudan reveals a glaringly racist double standard. In 2023, the Canadian government did not place a limit on the number of Ukrainians who could apply for refugee status, empowering over 300,000 Ukrainian refugees to enter Canada, an incredible testament to what is possible through effective, welcoming refugee policies. Yet when it comes to the suffering of Black Africans, Canada’s program to address the refugee crisis in Sudan is capped at a low number, reflecting the country’s discriminatory conceptions of whose suffering is urgent and whose is not.

McGill’s own investments in Lockheed Martin and other weapons manufacturers—which directly provide arms to the SAF and RSF—reveal the same selective morality that governs how Canada and the international community allocate humanitarian support. McGill must immediately cease its funding of the genocide in Sudan, as it did in 2006 when it divested from companies doing business in Myanmar (then Burma), and adopt an anti-genocidal framework that values Black lives with the same urgency as other groups facing genocide and mass atrocity.

For the sake of the over 9.5 million people currently internally displaced in Sudan, the over 21 million trapped in famine, and the millions killed throughout generations of civil war. 

Divestment blocks weapons manufacturing at its source. Even with the recently implemented UN arms embargo, the United Arab Emirates continues to arm and finance the RSF. Unless institutions divest, weapons companies will simply find new backers—sustaining the perpetrators of genocide.

When institutions fail to condemn genocide and choose complicity over conviction, the cycle of suffering, neglect, and violence only deepens. McGill’s investments sustain global violence; divestment from Sudan’s genocide is long overdue.

Science & Technology

Freedom space: A new blueprint for river resilience

by Antoine Larocque on

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For decades, river management in Quebec has focused almost exclusively on water. However, rivers do not just carry water; they also transport sediments, and ignoring this may explain why current river management practices fall short.

At last week’s GeoSpectives seminar—an annual seminar series hosted by McGill’s Department of Geography—Concordia University professor Pascale Biron addressed this issue in her talk Integrating hydrogeomorphology into river restoration practices: A winning approach.

In drainage basins—an area of land that drains various water sources to one location—sediments are carried downstream, originating from many sources, including glacial deposits, landslides, hills, and riverbanks.

Lane’s balance model, introduced in the 1950s by Emory W. Lane, helps explain the relationship between water and sediments. It posits that a river maintains equilibrium by delicately adjusting its slope, depth, width, and flow to match the sediment load it receives.

Herein lies the problem: “The way that rivers have been managed in Quebec […] in the last decades was mainly to focus on water,” Biron said in her talk. “If [we] just intervene having water in mind, [we] may create some disequilibrium.”

Such disequilibrium arises from various human interventions, including the development of dams, bank stabilization, and ripraps, a layer of stones added to prevent soil erosion. These prevent rivers from flowing as they naturally would. A common example occurs in agricultural drainage basins, where human intervention has straightened previously meandering rivers. When this happens, the river slope becomes steeper. The river will then tend to naturally increase its sinuosity—a measure of how much a stream bends—by rebuilding meanders through lateral migration.

“There is a spiral flow […] that [erodes] the sediments on the outer bend and brings these sediments into the inside bend,” Biron said.

Flooding is a second natural dynamic informed by river hydrogeomorphology.

“In general, it is a problem where [there are] urban or agricultural developments limiting the space available for rivers,” Biron said.

The two aforementioned hydrogeomorphological movements—meander lateral movement and flooding space—are at the heart of the concept of ‘freedom space.’ This approach to river management allows rivers to follow their natural movements, including erosion, flooding, and meander migration. Riparian wetlands—which harbour biodiversity, stabilize river flows and buffer against floods—also form within this space, but cannot develop if banks are stabilized via human intervention.

Researchers have created a matrix that combines mobility zones, flood zones, and riparian wetlands to determine how much space rivers need to ensure public safety and functional ecological services. The resulting freedom spaces vary widely in width, from a few metres to several hundred.

Other researchers have also conducted a cost-benefit analysis on three rivers in Quebec—the Yamaska River, the Matane River, and the Rock River—to determine whether preserving these buffer zones was economically viable. In their analysis, the team emphasized passive restoration and easements, where landowners agree not to build or reinforce banks.

“We looked at the cost of […] the loss of right to construct in the future, the loss of right to farm in agricultural areas and river management restoration,” Biron said.

The benefits of freedom space preservation included reduced flood damage, reduced bank-stabilization costs, and riparian wetland-induced ecosystem services, ultimately outweighing potential costs across the three rivers.

Biron also advocated for effective communication of river hydrogeomorphology concepts within science education.

“No one is taught about river dynamics in elementary school, in high school and CEGEP, and quite rarely even in university, so it is normal that people are very surprised when they see a river eroding its bank,” she said.

Biron concluded by presenting her PhD student Jean-Philippe Marchand’s project One meander at a time, which helped restore a straightened river on Parentall Farm in Montérégie, Quebec in collaboration with the farmers, whom the Ministry of Environment financially compensated.

After creating the freedom space, the morphological quality of the river increased. Moreover, when Hurricane Debby hit in 2024, neighbouring farms experienced costly damage. However, the Parentall Farm did not, as flooding occurred safely within the designated freedom space, demonstrating the system’s resilience.
The freedom space concept is now being integrated into river-management frameworks, including Quebec’s Plan de protection du territoire face aux inondations. By aligning management practices with natural river dynamics, these policies aim to create more resilient and sustainable landscapes for future generations.

Hockey, Martlets, Sports

Martlets Hockey push league-leading Stingers to brink in gritty OT loss

by Jenna Payette on

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On Nov. 14, McGill’s Martlets Hockey took to the ice at McConnell Arena and showcased a full-team effort, pushing the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ)–leading Concordia Stingers to overtime in a hard-fought 2-1 loss. The effort marked a sharp turnaround from the Martlets’ earlier meetings with the Stingers this season—facing 5-0 and 2-0 defeats in October—signalling that the group is settling into a disciplined, structured identity. In front of a lively home crowd, McGill played with pace, physicality, and purpose, setting an early tone that carried through all three periods and into overtime.

“We had a really good week of practice, and we showed up tonight,” forward Mika Chang, U4 Engineering, shared in a post-game interview with The Tribune. “There was good energy on the bench the whole game.”

McGill opened aggressively, swarming Concordia’s zone for the first five minutes and keeping goalie Jordyn Verbeek under pressure. Their persistence paid off only 5 minutes and 33 seconds into the first period, when forward Anika Cormier buried a backhand upstairs to give the Martlets a 1-0 lead.

The period intensified with heavy board battles and smart body play, culminating in a major penalty awarded to Concordia for a hit on McGill forward Taylor Garcia, who left the game and did not return. McGill carried their resulting five-minute power play into the second period, but could not extend their lead.

“[Garcia] was having a good game, so that one’s going to hurt for sure,” Head Coach Alyssa Cecere said, in an interview with The Tribune. “It’s a tough loss, physically and for the team.”

Garcia’s teammates agreed. 

“She’s a big contributing forward for us, and a huge personality,” defender Meganne Chailler, U3 Education, expressed in an interview with The Tribune. “But we came together to play for her.”

The game’s second period showcased McGill’s defensive discipline. The Martlets blocked shots, clogged lanes, and disrupted multiple Concordia scoring chances, with defenders Hailey Neil and Bridget O’Hare standing out.

McGill nearly extended their lead on a partial break by Jordyn Watson, but with just 0.2 seconds left, Concordia’s Emilie Lussier pounced on a loose puck in the slot and beat McGill goaltender Jade Rivard-Coulombe, tying the game 1-1.

Despite the goal, the Martlets refused to let up.

“We set the tone early, and we just kept building off each other’s energy,” Chailler said. “Getting that first goal gave us a lot of momentum.”

The game’s final 20 minutes overflowed with resilience. McGill’s forecheck created turnovers, their defensive group played with poise, and the pace grew end-to-end. Chailler and Cormier disrupted Concordia’s rushes and cleared the puck under pressure.

With 20 seconds left, McGill called a timeout to prepare for a defensive-zone draw. In the game’s ensuing final moments, Rivard-Coulombe made a spectacular chest save through traffic, ensuring the Martlets secured one of two possible points before entering extra time.

“Jade had a very good game,” Cecere said. “She’s our last line of defence, and for her to have a solid performance like that is really encouraging.”

Four-on-four overtime was frantic—full of end-to-end rushes and scrappy net-front battles. Ultimately, Concordia’s Ekaterina Pelowich shovelled in a traffic-filled goal with 36 seconds remaining, handing the Stingers a 2-1 victory.

But the Martlets still walked off with their heads high.

“We’ve improved tremendously since the start of the season,” Cecere said. “There’s a lot to be excited about with this group.”

For Chang, the game underscored the growing parity in the league. 

“The league is much closer this year,” she said. “Everyone can beat everyone. It’s good to see.”

Women’s hockey is gaining momentum and visibility as the Professional Women’s Hockey League opens up career opportunities, showing RSEQ players a viable post-university path in hockey.

“There’s absolutely a different buzz,” Cecere said. “It’s awesome to see how far the game has come. There’s just a little more jump and urgency in everyone’s play now. A lot of these young women want to get to that level, and it’s really cool to see what they’re capable of.”The Martlets faced off for a second time against the Stingers on Nov. 16, again losing 2-1 in overtime to Concordia. With 15 games left, McGill now looks to turn the page—with confidence—into the rest of their regular season.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

‘Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie’ The Review 

by Gregor McCall on

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If you’ve never heard of Nirvanna The Band The Show, don’t fret, you’re not living under a rock. The cult web series turned television show, now turned feature film, is neither about the grunge-rock group fronted by Kurt Cobain, nor is it really about a band or show—in any traditional sense, at least. 

Debuting in 2007 as an independent web series, the show is a mockumentary-style comedy starring co-creators Matt Johnson and Jay McCarroll. The pair play (semi-)fictionalized versions of themselves: Two ‘man-children’ best-friends and roommates stuck in their 90s Canadian childhood. Members of the eponymous ‘Nirvanna the Band,’ Matt and Jay dream of playing a show at The Rivoli—a small Toronto music venue, restaurant, and bar. The only problem? Neither of the pair knows how to book it. Instead, the two craft a seemingly never-ending series of schemes, each more absurd and intricate than the last, to hopefully earn them their deserved spot on stage at the Queen Street music club. 

Nirvanna The Band inverts, then breaks, then upends all of the traditional rules of storytelling in the visual medium. Reminiscent of comedies like Just for Laughs Gags and Borat, the only two actors in a given scene are often Johnson and McCarroll themselves. Nearly everyone else, from extras to people who play pivotal roles in the plot, are real people, unaware that the duo’s preposterous actions are in service of an even more ludicrous story. Yet such conventions are still never scripture for Johnson and McCarroll. Sometimes, side characters that the audience once thought to be ordinary Torontonians return, ready to up the ante. From arson to robbery to general public nuisances, Nirvanna The Band keeps the audience in both shock and awe, wondering exactly what’s real, what’s scripted, and what’s somewhere in between. 

The latest installation amplifies these themes up to 11. It would be inadequate to say that it simply breaks the fourth wall. Rather, Johnson and McCarroll completely shatter it, forcing the audience to question whether it ever existed at all. As a paragon of metafictional filmmaking, the pair repeatedly acknowledge that they’re in a movie, often talking to the camera operators themselves and showing them on camera. Carrying on the long tradition of intertextual storytelling, the film abounds with references to icons of 90s culture and Canadian nostalgia, often incorporating and interpolating pieces of those beloved and heavily copyrighted materials themselves. In fact, the central plot device of the story is one big reference to, or parody of, Back to the Future. At one point, Johnson speaks directly to the camera, acknowledging just what a copyright nightmare the film will be for distribution. 

Nevertheless, Neon picked up the film in March 2025 after it debuted earlier that month at South by Southwest, where it won a coveted Audience Award. This is hardly Johnson’s first directing success, following his previous critically acclaimed film, BlackBerry, starring Glenn Howerton of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Canadian comedy mainstay Jay Baruchel. McCarroll composed the film’s score. Up next on Johnson’s directorial plate is a reported Anthony Bourdain biopic starring Dominic Sessa of The Holdovers. Although Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is not yet in wide release, Johnson and McCarroll hosted an advanced screening at Montreal’s Cinema du Musée in October as part of a promotional tour for the film. 

Though Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie ups the stakes like never before, it never jumps the proverbial shark. The stunts are crazier, the antics more inane, and the legal trouble the two must surely be in, brazen. But it never forgets its roots. The Rivoli is still the unattainable MacGuffin driving the plot, and the two best friends are still the wacky, goofy, mischief-makers fans fell in love with in 2007. 

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is set for theatrical release in February 2026.

Off the Board, Opinion

Learning to live and love through art

by Annabella Lawlor on

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I cannot count the number of times I’ve remarked, “That changed my life.” It’s an exorbitant phrase, one that apparently—so I’ve been told—shouldn’t be used so casually when discussing art. I toss it around with nonchalance, proclaiming it at any mention of works that I adore. Accusations of recency bias have thus hounded me, my incessant passion denounced a diminishment of true artistic merit or simply something impossible to feel at every artistic turn. 

There’s also the allegation of the phrase’s hyperbole: Do I exaggerate? Do I announce everything as my new ‘favourite’ to construct my changing preferences as an illusion of progress? If only it were so simple.

Art—music, film, writing, visual culture, and everything in between—has meant so much to me for as long as I can remember. It has taught me to fall in love with life, through the ways it thrills and warps and wounds and inspires. For me, the statement, “That changed my life,” is never an exaggeration. That is what art is for. 

A few years ago, I read Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory, and—you heard it here first—it changed my life. Growing up in Northern California, I was constantly surrounded by the landscapes of towering trees; douglas fir, eucalyptus, and redwoods cascade through the sweeping turns of my childhood memory. Powers’ book sets its narrative within these familiar environments, weaving together the enduring presence of trees with human existence, as humanity sowed its harmful roots into the earth. I’d go through my days thinking about the trees’ witnessing eyes as I rode the MUNI bus through Golden Gate Park. The storms that washed branches and logs into the street as obstructions became a reflection of the trees’ ubiquitous becoming and death. It was an embarrassing realization, really, taking for granted something that so often surrounded me. 

The Overstory made a mark on me. It demonstrated that artistic narratives had the power to infuse intense emotions into even the most common part of everyday life. Powers’ environmental novel transformed the way I saw my home, my childhood, and the trees in my garden whose shadows grew alongside me.

Art makes visible within me the emotions I would have never known were present. Music, especially, confronts its audience with intimacies of the artist’s mind, for its power is to harness sincerity and intention through an auditory soundscape. Magnificent songwriting elucidates this navigation of emotion and life: Joni Mitchell’s sombre Blue and Kara Jackson’s reflective Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? are exquisite records that colour my perceptions of experiencing love and loss as a young person.

Unpalatable art also makes me love the world, in all of its complex states. Art isn’t just beautiful, nor does it have to be, as it demonstrates all the facets of our complicated world. It can be putrid and vitriolic; still and smooth; boisterous and unforgiving. It is anything the artist could possibly want it to be. Being shown this sense of interiority through art is what makes one feel less alone in our increasingly fragmented world.

The twanging teardrops of Bill Callahan’s melody in “To Be Of Use” are aching, haunting listeners with its sorrowful soundscape. Singing of his desires for purpose—almost to the point of commodified surrender—Callahan’s self-portrait is far from enjoyable. And yet, it lingers constantly in my mind with its uncompromising tenderness.

Creation puts a mirror to our reality as an intimate exploration of humanity’s endlessness. We experience so much in accessing art; it’s a privileged glimpse into our own interior lives that we could never begin to comprehend without it. For me, the creation of melody, visual art, or fictive narrative makes tangible the complicated nature of my own existence. In living within the worlds constructed by artistic visions, I come closer to finding myself in what feels like an unrelenting vastness.
It’s difficult to fully encapsulate into words all that art can do for a person. However seemingly minuscule its effects, it’s never wrong to proudly proclaim its influence on one’s personhood. “That changed my life” is never an exaggeration if it did, in fact, change your life. Through art, we know so many lives—first and foremost, our own.

Science & Technology

What is the best way to track ammonia pollution?

by José Moro on

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Ammonia (NH₃) is an essential component of agricultural fertilizers, but can become an environmental pollutant. Roughly half of all nitrogen used in the agricultural industry escapes into the environment; 56 per cent ends up in water bodies and 44 per cent is released into the air, mostly as NH₃. The gas contributes to soil acidification, biodiversity loss, and various respiratory problems. Monitoring NH₃ is particularly difficult due to its high solubility and tendency to stick to surfaces.

A recent study published in Environmental Pollution provides a comprehensive comparison of sorbent materials for Passive Flux Samplers (PFS), a widely used tool in agriculture for estimating emission rates. The research establishes the groundwork for more accurate ammonia monitoring systems. 

In an interview with The Tribune, Angela Trivino Arevalo, lead author of this study and doctoral student in McGill’s Bioresource Engineering Department, detailed how the two-year research was conducted using PFS—a tool utilized in agriculture to estimate emission rates.

“The [PFS] is just a tube, and inside you can change the sorbent according to the gas that you want to target and capture. I am working with ammonia, but there are other samplers that can capture [other gasses]. The idea is that you can go to any farm to measure gas emission, […] and the PFS tries to gather data in a way that […] doesn’t ask the farmer too much work. You can then take the data […] to the lab to analyze what was captured.”

The measured mass obtained from the PFS is then converted into an emission rate. The two processes that determine PFS performance are aerodynamics, how freely air flows through the tube, and sorption, the material’s ability to trap molecules.

Although many materials can be used as sorbents, few studies have compared how these materials affect the PFS’s accuracy. Trivino Arevalo’s team used four materials— glass microfibre filters, glass beads, zeolite, and biochar—and attempted to identify which provided the most reliable NH₃ measurements.

“I love this research, because we are comparing materials that have different characteristics. We have zeolite, that is a material that we know has a big porosity, we have glass microfibre, that is something we use to analyze air, and glass beads [….] It’s not only interesting for the side of chemical and material development, but this knowledge is one specific area that develops something to measure air quality,” Trivino Arevalo said. 

Trivino Arevalo used a wind tunnel to examine how each sorbent affects airflow through the PFS. They measured inlet airflow, pressure drop, and internal air velocity at wind speeds of one to six m/s. From here, they calculated a K factor, a measure of thermal conductivity ranging from zero to one, that describes how wind speed relates to the air entering the PFS. The higher the K factor, the more efficiently airflow passes through the sampler.

Glass microfibre filters displayed the best aerodynamic behaviour, with the highest K factor of 0.61; zeolite and biochar performed moderately well, with scores of 0.58 and 0.59, respectively. Glass beads restricted airflow the most, with a K factor of 0.47. 

The study compared the sorption abilities of these materials. To determine the best overall sorbent, Trivino Arevalo used a scoring system that emphasized four areas: Data variability, aerodynamics, sorbent capacity—the ability for the sorbent inside the PFS to hold ammonia—and handling and practicality. Variability also played a major role in determining the best sorbent. Zeolite and biochar, despite having high capacities, showed inconsistent results due to their complex pore structures. Glass beads and microfibre filters provided lower detection limits for low-concentration sampling.

Sorption results showed zeolite had the longest breakthrough time of 103 minutes and the highest capacity, while glass microfibre filters and glass beads had lower capacities, meaning they saturated quickly. Trivino Arevalo’s research concluded that glass microfibre filters were the most effective sorbent materials for PFS usage. This material offered the most balanced combination of good aerodynamics and moderate capacity. 

Improved PFS performances are a step towards more accurate and reliable data related to ammonia emissions, which is an urgent priority as agriculture is increasingly subject to erratic climate changes. 

Montreal, News

Protestors rally against police brutality and impunity

by Armen Erzingatzian on

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Content warning: Police brutality, racial violence

Despite freezing rain, a group of approximately 50 protestors rallied in Montreal’s Philips Square at 3:00 p.m. on Nov. 9 to march with the Defund the Police Coalition to denounce instances of police brutality in Greater Montreal this year.

On Sept. 21, 15-year-old Afghan-Canadian Nooran Rezayi was with his friends when an individual called 911, telling emergency services that a group armed with weapons was at the intersection of rue Joseph-Daigneault and rue de Monaco in Saint-Hubert. Officers with the Service de police de l’agglomération de Longueil (SPAL) arrived ten minutes later. Within 58 seconds, one of these officers—whose identity remains unknown—shot Rezayi twice, killing him.

In another act of police violence, on March 30, Latinx man Abisay Cruz was killed by Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) officers, who were responding to a call regarding a person in crisis. While three officers handcuffed Cruz, one of them forced his knee into Cruz’s upper back. In a video captured during the altercation, Cruz can be heard yelling, “I’m going to die.” Moments later, he lost consciousness. After being transported to a hospital, Cruz was declared dead. His death is currently under investigation by the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI).

Protesters at the rally directly called out the BEI, Quebec’s police watchdog that investigates potential misconduct. Since its implementation in 2016, zero of the 52 BEI cases concerning police officers who have fatally shot civilians have resulted in charges against an officer. Quebec’s Ligue des droits et libertés has questioned the BEI’s independence, citing its reliance on police services in initiating its investigations, and the fact that the majority of BEI staff come from the policing sector. 

One of the speakers at the rally discussed a recent provincial decision allowing police officers to remain silent and withhold information during BEI investigations. 

“The Court of Appeal of Quebec decided that it was more important to protect the right to silence than the right of the public to information,” the speaker stated. “The police officer who killed Nooran told himself that in Quebec, you can kill anyone, anyhow, as a police officer, because the system is behind you.”

The SPAL, responsible for Reyazi’s killing, has been held in high public regard recently as a reformed, community-oriented police organization. In an interview with The Tribune, an individual at the rally who wished to remain anonymous spoke about these reforms. 

“We’ve seen that not only are they not effective, but they are used by the police to justify further killings, imprisonment, [and] surveillance,” the attendee said. “We [need] to move towards mutual aid. We [need] to move towards systemic changes that eliminate the conditions that lead to […] crime in the first place.”

Another individual, who wished to go unnamed, commented on their experiences with police violence at previous protests.

“You can’t expect the police to police themselves,” they shared, in an interview with The Tribune. “I was forcibly pushed by an [(SPVM)] police officer at the March 15 protest [against police brutality]. I could have been seriously injured [….] My cameras were damaged.”

The individual added that rallies are an important way of fighting police repression and making the cause visible.

“Excessive force shouldn’t happen at all [….] When police brutalize [protestors] and people see that, it has a dissuading effect [on protest attendance],” they said. “We have to put pressure on our politicians.”

In recent times, there has been an increase in heavy and often violent police presence on McGill’s downtown campus, such as SPVM’s presence at Independent Jewish Voices’ peaceful celebration of Sukkot in October, at Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) protests in 2024, and at pro-Palestinian protests throughout 2024 and 2025. 

A 2019 report commissioned by the City of Montreal found systemic bias in street checks performed by Montreal police; compared to white people of the same age, Indigenous, Black and Arab people between ages 15 to 24 were four to five times more likely to be targeted by checks. In 2024, the Black Coalition of Quebec filed a $171 million CAD class-action lawsuit alleging that the City of Montreal was responsible for systemic racial profiling within its police force; a Quebec Superior Court judge agreed.

Some quotes in this article have been translated from French.

McGill, News, The Tribune Explains

The Tribune Explains: Departmental strikes for Palestine

by Sofia Vidinovski on

More in McGill:

In the November 2023 Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Fall Referendum, 78.7 per cent (5,974 voters) of SSMU constituents voted in favour of the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine. Undergraduates also voted to go on strike for Palestine through the SSMU in April 2025 and October 2025. 

Now, in November 2025, students are organizing departmental strikes for Palestine, calling on McGill to divest from companies complicit in the genocide in Palestine, drop disciplinary charges against students involved in pro-Palestine advocacy, and end its research partnerships with Israeli institutions contributing to the oppression of Palestinians. 

As of Nov. 17, 19 departments at McGill have voted to strike or are in the strike decision-making process. The Tribune explains the logistics of these strikes.

Why are departments striking? 

McGill University invests approximately $73 million CAD of its endowment into various companies that are directly linked to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, including Lockheed Martin and Airbus. McGill also participates in exchange programs with Israeli institutions, such as the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, which develops military technology used by the Israel Defense Forces. Furthermore, McGill campus security has heavily policed pro-Palestine student activists over the last two years, which is why disciplinary immunity for these students is at the core of student strikes for Palestine.

What is the process of getting a departmental strike approved?

Each department has its own constitution that dictates how it can strike. Typically, to vote on a motion to strike, departments must hold a general assembly (GA) that meets a certain minimum number of departmental members—referred to as quorum—to ensure the GA is representative. If a GA meets quorum, departmental members can discuss motions concerning a strike, make amendments, and then vote for or against the strike motion. If the majority of students at the GA vote for the motion, the whole department is considered on strike.

What departments are going on strike? Which departments did not vote to strike at their GAs?

The undergraduate departments going on strike in the Faculty of Arts are Anthropology, Art History & Communication Studies, East Asian Studies, English, Environment (Arts), Gender, Sexuality, Feminist, and Social Justice Studies, Geography, International Development Studies, Liberal Arts, Philosophy, Sociology, South Asian Studies, and World Islamic and Middle East Studies. The Faculty of Science’s striking undergraduate departments are Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Physics, and Physiology. Additionally, Macdonald Campus Agricultural and Environmental Science students are striking, as well as the Computer Science Undergraduate Society.

The departments of Education, History, Linguistics, Mathematics and Statistics, and Religious Studies did not meet the quorum needed to vote for a strike. The departments awaiting GAs to vote on striking are Anatomy and Cell Biology, Biology, Economics (Arts), Neuroscience, Political Science, the Caribbean and Latin American Studies and Hispanic Studies Association and the Electrical, Computer & Software Engineering Students’ Society.

Rather than go on strike, the Faculty of Science Department of Pharmacology passed a motion affirming its solidarity with Palestine and instating a plan to donate 15 per cent of its Winter 2026 proceeds to relief efforts in Gaza through a humanitarian aid organization to be selected by members of the department.

What is the difference between hard picketing and soft picketing?

Departments have announced, via their Instagrams, the unique picketing strategies they will be using during the strike. While hard picketing involves protestors physically blockading classrooms, most departments choose a soft picketing strategy where protestors stand outside classrooms and discourage attendance and participation.

How long will the strike last? What will it look like?

The strikes will occur during the week of Nov. 17 to Nov. 21, with the specific range of dates depending on the department. The strikes call on students to refrain from attending all classes, conferences, labs, and office hours held by their department. Students are still permitted, within the boundaries of the strike, to attend class to take assessments and exams that they cannot miss. 

There will be activities, such as workshops and film screenings, for students to participate in during the strike, hosted by Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance at McGill. 

To keep up with the current status of departmental strikes on campus, visit the strike progress tracker.

Science & Technology

Immortal time bias: A source for inaccuracies in cancer prevention research

by Guillaume Delgado on

More in Science & Technology:

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death, and as such, cancer treatment and prevention research has been a large focus of medical professionals worldwide. Over the past few decades, several studies have proposed that metformin—a medication widely used for type II diabetes management—is a potential preventative measure for cancer. 

Unfortunately, the truth is not so glamorous. A recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology and led by Samy Suissa, a professor in McGill’s Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Medicine, sought to put misleading claims about metformin to rest. 

“Many studies were appearing reporting that metformin, a treatment for diabetes, could lower the rates of several different cancers,” Suissa wrote to The Tribune. “What got us interested in this issue is that the reported reductions in cancer in these studies were spectacular, simply too good to be true.”

But what caused the misinformed results from these studies in the first place? Suissa traced the misleading results to a study error known as ‘immortal time bias,’ which can inflate the perceived effectiveness of a drug. He pointed to misinformation surrounding metformin and breast cancer as an example.

“Immortal time bias occurs when follow-up of breast cancer patients starts before they initiate metformin treatment. So those that receive metformin are ‘immortal’ between the start of cancer and the start of metformin; they must be alive to receive the metformin.” Suissa wrote. “The problem with immortal time bias is that all these studies started at breast cancer, but then looked at metformin use in the future, thus inherently giving a survival advantage to the women who start metformin.”

In other words, not every breast cancer patient survives long enough to actually reach the point of beginning metformin medicine. However, researchers may retroactively look at metformin use in breast cancer, and not account for the time in the interim when patients stayed alive while not using metformin. In this case, it could seem as though the metformin had a hand in treating the cancer, when in reality it was only useful for those who were able to live long enough to reach the point of taking it. This bias mischaracterizes the effectiveness of metformin as a breast cancer treatment.

Most earlier studies on metformin were observational, with no randomization occurring, and researchers only monitored the health progression of their patients without intervening. As such, Suissa stressed the importance of randomized trials—when participants are distributed by chance into different treatment groups—for producing accurate, unbiased results.

“Many scientists started to conduct randomized trials of metformin as a treatment for cancer, with the largest involving 3,600 women with breast cancer,” Suissa wrote. “Half received the usual treatment for breast cancer along with metformin, while the other half received the usual treatment. They were followed for more than five years and the study found no benefit for the metformin group.” 

Suissa has already begun examining potential misinformation in other major pharmaceutical drugs, and emphasized that both observational and randomized trials are necessary to reduce medical and scientific misinformation.

“Many such flawed studies are now appearing in many medical journals on the potential extracurricular benefits of GLP1 receptor agonists, the family of drugs that the popular Ozempic belongs to,” Suissa wrote. “The studies are also suggesting that these drugs are very effective at reducing all kinds of diseases, including cancer [….] Before expensive randomized trials are undertaken to test this hypothesis, we are undertaking properly done observational studies using rapid cutting-edge methods to confirm that the hypothesis is tenable. We wish to ensure that any time-consuming randomized trials are based on solid data and avoid a repetition of the metformin failure.”

Suissa’s studies will prevent future misinformation regarding drugs such as Ozempic. This will ensure that Ozempic and similar pharmaceuticals are only prescribed for conditions that they are completely able to alleviate or prevent.

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