Faces of the opioid crisis: Pain expert on the puzzle of what to prescribe

Ask Montreal pain specialist Yoram Shir about the deadly opioid crisis ravaging North America, and he immediately calls for perspective on the rivers of narcotic pills running into so many homes. Nothing here is black or white, says Shir, director of the McGill University Health Centre’s Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit, starting with the ubiquitous nature of pain. One in four people suffers from chronic pain — a condition that is arduously resistant to therapy.

Plourde: Making artificial snow is a very slippery slope

Article by Daniel Plourde, Bioresource Engineering undergraduate at McGill University.

Morneau advisers urge sweeping changes to cope with looming tech disruption

Mr. Morneau has faced criticism this fall from business groups over proposed small-business tax changes set to take effect Jan. 1, and the government s appetite for undertaking further tax changes is unclear. Council member Christopher Ragan, a McGill University economics professor, said the group didn't discuss political challenges the Liberals may face in following its advice. "We don t care about the politics," he said. "Is this minister going to take it on?

Jordan’s plan of shiny city in the desert met by skepticism

In the past two decades, some two dozen new city projects were announced in the Middle East. About half remain “power point cities” existing only on websites, said Sarah Moser, an urban geography professor at McGill University in Montreal. Others are well behind schedule.

Is it time to retire cholesterol tests?

The next time you go in for a medical checkup, your doctor will probably make a mistake that could endanger your life, contends cardiologist Allan Sniderman of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Most physicians order what he considers the wrong test to gauge heart disease risk: a standard cholesterol readout, which may indicate levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or non-high density lipoprotein (non-HDL) cholesterol.

How to short-circuit the urge to splurge this holiday season

Ashesh Mukherjee is trying something new this holiday season. At a time of year when excessive shopping has become the norm, he plans to volunteer with a charitable organization that works with people in need. It's more than just a way to give back to his Montreal community. Dr. Mukherjee, associate professor of marketing at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management, sees volunteering as an important way to recharge and reconsider what is important in a fast-paced digital age.

We might absorb billions of viruses every day

In the experiment, just 0.1 percent of the total phages made it through. But based on their rate of travel, and the staggering number of them in the average human gut, the team estimated that our gut cells absorb around 31 billion phages every day.

Reading like a Bureaucrat

Excerpt from Merve Emre's new book, Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America. She is an assistant professor of English at McGill University.

Birds, humans share communication link

John Sakata discusses his research on CTV News. 

Montreal Police needs to do more to curb racial profiling

Dr. Myrna Lashley, assistant professor in psychiatry at McGill University discusses the report she authored and what efforts are being made to help fix the issues.

Watch the interview here: Global News

Champlain Bridge: 'Hoping for no winter and no wind' with one year to go

However, Richard Shearmur, a geography professor with McGill University School of Urban Planning, has doubts about the project and fears taxpayers will be left with a hefty bill for extras. “I don’t think anyone can tell if it will be finished on Dec. 1, but it seems that the deadline will probably be missed,” Shearmur said. He blamed the public-private partnership (PPP) model chosen for the bridge.

Good Reader, Bad Reader

Article by Merve Emre, assistant professor of English Literature at McGill University.

"Bad readers were not born, they were created. To know them is to understand literature and politics in postwar America."

Read more: Boston Review

Lawyers expect legalizing cannabis will lead to more arrests and criminal cases

McGill University law professor Daniel Weinstock says he heartily recommends his students take up criminal law in order to take advantage of the country's new, strict cannabis laws. "There is going to be a steady stream of customers," Weinstock said, referring to the influx of people he estimates will be moving through the justice system.

McGill aims to become carbon neutral by 2040

McGill University is planning to open an indoor bicycle centre with 350 parking spaces, showers and lockers as part of a plan to reduce its carbon footprint over the next three years and achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. Read more: Montreal Gazette

Can computers pick stocks better than humans can? Investment firms think so

The fact that people program AI to analyze specific information is also a factor. What if they tell it to focus on the wrong data sets? And what happens if everyone's AI is looking at the same things? "The market would become perfectly efficient," says Sebastien Betermier, a finance professor at McGill University. "There would be nothing to predict anymore."