Montreal and McGill University Become Blue Communities
The Ville de Montréal and McGill University today received Blue Community certification on the occasion of World Water Day. To obtain this certification, they have undertaken to recognize water and sanitation as human rights, to promote publicly managed water services and to ban or phase out the sale of bottled water in their buildings and at their events. Hence Montreal has joined some forty Blue Communities worldwide, including major cities like Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Victoria.
Do we trust people who speak with an accent?
You are in a strange neighbourhood, your cell phone’s dead, and you desperately need to find the closest garage. A couple of people on the street chime in, each sending you in opposite directions. One person sounds like a local and speaks in a nonchalant manner, while the other uses a loud, confident voice but speaks with a strong accent. Who are you going to trust?
Bystanders in cyberbullying
Your child is in elementary school and is begging you to buy them a cell phone, an iPod and iPad. Anything, as long as they can communicate with their friends, either by texting or through social media. As a parent, you’re worried about cyberbullying. Indeed, up to 30% of children and adolescents admit to cyberbullying others, while 25% of students report being victimized on electronic platforms. You rationalize that your child has lots of friends and that they will st
Global project to reduce health inequalities in cities around the world
A major new research partnership has been launched to explore ways of reducing health inequalities in cities around the world. Coordinated from London and funded with £10m (C$17.5 million) from Wellcome Trust, with a global network of expert scientists and practitioners -- including three from McGill University -- the partnership comprises two integrated urban health projects.
We’re not addicted to smartphones, we’re addicted to social interaction
We all know people who, seemingly incapable of living without the bright screen of their phone for more than a few minutes, are constantly texting and checking out what friends are up to on social media.
These are examples of what many consider to be the antisocial behaviour brought on by smartphone addiction, a phenomenon that has garnered media attention in the past few months and led investors and consumers to demand that tech giants address this problem.
The high cost of short-term rentals in New York City
A new report from McGill Urban Planning professor David Wachsmuth and his team provides an analysis of Airbnb activity in New York City and the surrounding region in the last three years (September 2014 - August 2017).
American cities with large Hispanic populations are less likely to police the police
How individual police forces treat those that they suspect of being illegal immigrants varies greatly from one city to the next in the U.S. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the police department has a policy that states clearly, “Officers shall not stop, question, detain or arrest any person on the ground that they may be undocumented and deportable foreign nationals.” But this is unusual. Local police departments across the U.S.
Do birdsong and human speech share biological roots?
Do songbirds and humans have common biological hardwiring that shapes how they produce and perceive sounds?
Scientists who study birdsong have been intrigued for some time by the possibility that human speech and music may be rooted in biological processes shared across a variety of animals. Now, research by McGill University biologists provides new evidence to support this idea.
Claudia Mitchell named Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellow
By Meaghan Thurston
McGill duo honoured by the Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) announced today that Professor Michel Tremblay (Department of Biochemistry and the Director of the McGill Cancer Institute) has been awarded the McLaughlin Medal for important research of sustained excellence in medical science.
Playing with your brain
Human-computer interactions, such as playing video games, can have a negative impact on the brain, says a new Canadian study published in Molecular Psychiatry. For over 10 years, scientists have told us that action video game players exhibit better visual attention, motor control abilities and short-term memory. But, could these benefits come at a cost?
