Many of the seemingly harmless products we use in our daily lives have a nasty afterlife as environmental toxins, but civil engineering professor James Nicell is giving nature much-needed reinforcement. An award-winning teacher, researcher and associate member of the inter-faculty McGill School of Environment, Nicell is used to looking at all sides of a problem. [...]
Like so many virtuosi, Roderick Guthrie can trace his lifelong passion back to an early accident that left him bedridden. “I was quite a fan of Captain Hornblower and loved making model sailing ships,” the veteran McGill metallurgist recalled of his boyhood in England. “So, at 16, I figured out how to make my own [...]
For people with depression, life can be like being locked in a darkened room, unable to find a light-switch. The opening of the Neurophenotyping Centre at the McGill-affiliated Douglas Hospital will help researchers turn on the light for these patients. These potential switches are genes, some of which can be activated through environmental factors. Genes [...]
McGill researchers have received much recognition for their work in the last six months. In the fall, Professors Lawrence Mysak (Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences) and François Ricard (French Language and Literature) were awarded the Prix Acfas (Association francophone pour le savoir), and Professor Marc Angenot (French Language and Literature) won the Prix du Québec, Quebec’s [...]
Researchers who rely on statistical data to draw connections, challenge assumptions and discover unexpected social links in the lives of Canadians have a new tool. The Quebec Inter-university Centre for Social Statistics (QICSS) Laboratory is an authorized repository for the reams of information gathered by major Statistics Canada surveys to help governments understand the changing [...]
For an astronomer, finding the fastest-spinning pulsar on record is like, well, nothing in this world. “It’s not quite like striking gold and not quite like winning the lottery,” says Vicky Kaspi, the McGill physics professor who oversaw the McGill Pulsar Group discovery. “There was no ‘Eureka!’ moment in this one… It was more like [...]
Memory alteration has been the inspiration for many a science-fiction movie, from Star Trek to Total Recall. McGill psychology professor Karim Nader has brought the concept to real life. Nader recently found that propanolol, a drug normally used as a blood pressure medication, could ease the intensity of painful memories such as those experienced by [...]
Bad mothering may produce more than therapists’ bills and tortured souls. Researchers at McGill have discovered that the behaviour of rat mothers can change the chemistry of certain genes in their offspring—and that drugs can reverse those changes. Moshe Szyf, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Michael Meaney, a professor in the [...]
A mathematician and a musician, Godfried Toussaint is as at home using algorithms as he is keeping the beat at Sunday afternoon percussion jam sessions on Montreal’s Mount Royal. The McGill professor of computer science has combined his twin passions of computational geometry and percussion and applied some cold calculations to the steamy Spanish flamenco. [...]
McGill breakthroughs help fight virulent bacteria on two different fronts The bug is Clostridium difficile, also known as C. difficile. In one year in Quebec, it killed almost 10 times more people than died during the SARS epidemic in Toronto. It’s extremely contagious because it can live on surfaces and be passed easily through casual [...]
