CTV | Montreal marine biologist brings new eco-friendly watering stations to Osheaga
While Montreal’s numerous festivals provide ample opportunity for fun during the summer, they can also have a negative impact on the environment. A Montreal marine biologist is behind a new project aimed at reducing the amount of plastic in the oceans.
Rachel Labbe-Bellas, McGill almuni, has teamed up with Evenko to bring The Green Stop, an environmentally-friendly water refill stations, to this year’s Osheaga.
THE STAR | Three hundred long-term rentals back on market in Vancouver thanks to new Airbnb rules
Just over 300 homes that were being rented on Airbnb full time were likely returned to Vancouver’s long-term rental market in the first four months of the city’s new regulations coming into force, according to new research from McGill University.
CBC | Cree language and culture keepers celebrate McGill graduation
A room full of Cree students wearing red celebrated their graduation from McGill University Saturday in Pikogan, Que., with a lot of emotion, pride and a deep commitment to strengthening the Cree language and culture, one child at a time.
They were part of a large graduating class of close to 60 students — more than 45 of them with a 60-credit teaching certificate in First Nations and Inuit Education, Language and Culture from McGill's Department of Education.
SCIENCE NEWS | How seafood shells could help solve the plastic waste problem
Lobster bisque and shrimp cocktail make for scrumptious meals, but at a price. The food industry generates 6 million to 8 million metric tons of crab, shrimp and lobster shell waste every year. Depending on the country, those claws and legs largely get dumped back into the ocean or into landfills. In many of those same landfills, plastic trash relentlessly accumulates. Some scientists think it’s possible to tackle the two problems at once.
MACLEANS | Is that my plastic bag in the Mariana Trench?
Until Victor Vescovo landed his submersible there recently, no human had been to the seabed’s deepest point at the very bottom of the fearsome Mariana Trench, nearly 11 km below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. But Vescovo found more than shy marine life and vast untouched landscapes in the ocean’s most remote trough. Within minutes of reaching bottom, he also found trash.
MORNINGSTAR | Combatting the Toxicology Skills Crisis
Each year, tens of thousands of North Americans experience intentional and unintentional poisonings and overdoses from both prescription drugs and other widely available chemicals and substances that can result in serious illness and even death.
BUSINESS KOREA | Samsung Electronics Betting on Neural Processing Unit
Samsung Electronics has unveiled a plan to develop a neural processing unit (NPU), an artificial intelligence-based semiconductor that resembles a human brain, as part of its efforts to become the global leader in system semiconductors by 2030.
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY | What Will World Happiness Look Like in 2050?
According to Chris Barrington-Leigh, Ph.D., an associate professor at McGill University, jointly appointed at the Institute for Health and Social Policy and the School of Environment; the scope of possible changes in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and the political world order makes for an impossibly complex prediction task, even without the huge uncertainties in environmental changes that will beset us.
THE GLOBE AND MAIL | Do you live in Canada’s happiest province?
McGill University economist Christopher Barrington-Leigh has studied happiness in Quebec, tracking it for more than two decades for a paper published in the academic journal Canadian Public Policy in 2013. The data, from 1985 – when Quebec ranked extremely low in terms of overall happiness – to 2008 revealed a significant and near-steady increase in life satisfaction.
CBC | McGill launches new mandatory online course on sexual violence and consent
As an answer to Quebec's new requirements for sexual violence prevention, McGill University has developed its online course which will be mandatory for all students and staff. The law countering sexual violence on campus was passed in December 2017, after a series of sexual assaults were reported at the student residences at Université Laval in Quebec City.
THE GLOBE AND MAIL | What does your phone say about you? Canadians share the story behind their homescreens
Samuel Veissière, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and co-director of Culture, Mind and Brain Program at McGill University, studies smartphone addiction and social monitoring – or the desire to watch and monitor others, but also to be seen and monitored ourselves. He says the placement of apps on our homescreens, such as social media tools, news sites or health apps, says something about how we monitor and connect with people in our lives.
UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS | Some simple policy changes to support scientist-parents
Despite an ever-growing demand for talent in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, full-time employment for STEM workers remains challenging – and this is especially true for women who decide to become mothers. While billions of dollars are invested yearly around the world to encourage and train the next generation of female STEM workers, these fields often fail to support and retain this new talent.
MONTREAL GAZETTE | Consumers urged to buy local as frozen imported raspberries are recalled
Quebec recalled frozen raspberries imported from Chile this week over concerns they might be contaminated with norovirus. The norovirus is a highly contagious virus that continues to thrive when frozen and causes gastroenteritis, which manifests itself with diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain. The symptoms develop between 12 and 24 hours after exposure.
THE STAR | Ottawa won’t raise the carbon price beyond $50, environment minister says
Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna revealed Thursday that the federal government will not raise the national carbon price beyond 2022, a decision that experts say means Canada will need to rely on other measures to meet its emissions target under the Paris Agreement.
NOOZHAWK | Brenda Milner Still an Inspiring Leader in Brain Research
At the age of 100, she is still a professor in the department of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill University as well as a professor of psychology at the Montreal Neurological Institute & Hospital. This amazing woman currently holds more than 20 honorary degrees from different universities across Canada, Europe and the United States. Milner may not be a household name, but she is considered by many to be the founder of neuropsychology.
