For the first time ever, McGill University will run a summer-semester version of CHEM 181, its enormously popular course on the chemistry of food.

Enrolments are now open for a June 2020 edition of the course that has been taken by tens of thousands of students over its nearly 40-year history.

Making sense of food

Published on: 27 Apr 2020

Researchers at McGill University have discovered a new, energy-efficient way to make key ingredients for the production of pharmaceuticals, polymers and fine chemicals.

Published on: 17 Apr 2020

Bird species that have the capacity to express novel foraging behaviors are less vulnerable to extinction than species that do not, according to a collaborative study involving McGill University and CREAF Barcelona and published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Classified as: Science research, Department of Biology, birds, evolution, climate change, Sustainability
Published on: 6 Apr 2020

By Nicole George

Academia Week 2020 began with an Undergraduate Poster Showcase, sponsored by the Office of Science Education (OSE), Science Undergraduate Society (SUS), and Teaching and Learning Services (TLS).

Published on: 1 Apr 2020

The Chemistry Outreach Group has taken home the Principal’s Prize for Public Engagement through Media, winning the inaugural 'Collaboration' category for groups of undergraduate or graduate students that engage with the external community and/or the media.

The Prize recognizes the vital role outreach groups play in supporting the University’s commitment to being of service to society and engaging with the broader community.

Classified as: STEM Outreach
Published on: 13 Mar 2020

A research team led by McGill University geochemist Peter Douglas has used a new method for measuring the rate at which methane is produced by microbes breaking down thawing permafrost. The breakthrough could lead to an improvement in our ability to predict future releases of the potent greenhouse gas as long‑frozen layers of soil begin to thaw.

Published on: 11 Mar 2020

With the federal ban of single-use plastics planned for this year, the demand for alternatives to everyday plastic products, such as straws, is set to increase. TreeMaTech, a startup company born through a collaboration between chemistry professors from McGill and Lakehead University, is betting on cellulose for making drinking straws that don’t suck for the environment.

› Read more

Published on: 2 Mar 2020

A fossilised insect wing discovered in an abandoned mine in Labrador has led palaeontologists from McGill University and the University of Gdańsk to identify a new hairy cicada species that lived around 100 million years ago.

Maculaferrum blaisi, described in a study published in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, is the first hemipteran insect (true bug) to be discovered at the Redmond Formation, a fossil site from the Cretaceous period near Schefferville, Labrador.

Classified as: Alexandre Demers-Potvin, Hans Larsson, paleontology, Fossils, Redpath Museum, Biology, Faculty of Science
Published on: 21 Feb 2020

Using a new microscopic "fishing" technique, scientists from the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM), Université de Montréal and McGill University have successfully snagged thousands of proteins that play a key role in the formation of the cell skeletons or cytoskeletons. Cell skeletons, whose primary function is to give the cells their shapes, are also involved in things like muscle contraction. They are made up of an interlocking network of protein filaments that connect the cell nucleus to the cell membrane.

Classified as: Research, cell biology, molecular medicine, proteins
Published on: 9 Jan 2020

By Cynthia Feng and Kira Smith

Office of Science Education team members Cynthia Feng and Kira Smith are working with members of the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) on planning the next edition of the SUS’s highly anticipated Academia Week.

Published on: 9 Jan 2020

Astronomers in Europe, working with members of Canada’s CHIME Fast Radio Burst collaboration, have pinpointed the location of a repeating fast radio burst (FRB) first detected by the CHIME telescope in British Columbia in 2018. The breakthrough is only the second time that scientists have determined the precise location of a repeating source of these millisecond bursts of radio waves from space.

Published on: 6 Jan 2020

How can predators coexist with their prey over long periods without the predators completely depleting the resource that keeps them alive? Experiments performed over a period of 10 years by researchers from McGill University and the Universities of Oldenburg and Potsdam have now confirmed that regular oscillations in predator-prey populations can persist over very long periods

Classified as: evolution, Science research, Department of Biology, predators, prey, Sustainability
Published on: 18 Dec 2019

Cities and their rising impacts on biodiversity versity. To gain a clearer picture of the situation, an international group of scientists, including Professor Andrew Gonzalez from McGill’s Biology Department, surveyed over 600 studies on the impacts of urban growth on biodiversity. They published their findings today in Nature Sustainability.

Classified as: science, Research, Sustainability, biodiversity, cities
Published on: 9 Dec 2019

Old habits are hard to break. A McGill-led study of replacement of traditional wood and coal burning stoves with clean energy in China suggests that, without a better understanding of the reasons behind people’s reluctance to give up traditional stoves, it will be difficult for policies in China and elsewhere in the world to succeed in encouraging this shift towards clean energy. The study was published recently in Nature Sustainability.

Classified as: Sustainability, science, Research, China, air pollution, climate change, health, clean technology
Published on: 5 Dec 2019

In November this year, around 400 people gathered at the McGill Faculty Club for the Faculty of Science’s annual scholarship reception. The evening’s celebration was an opportunity for donors to the Faculty to meet the students who have benefitted from their generous support.

Confidence-building opportunities

Addressing the guests, Joëlle Begin Miolan, recipient of a McGill Alumni & Friends Undergraduate Research Award, described the opportunity to do research as a defining moment for her self-belief as an undergraduate physics student.

Classified as: Bob Wares
Published on: 21 Nov 2019

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