Overdose prevention sites and supervised consumption sites in Toronto are not associated with long-term increases in local crime, McGill University researchers have found.

Over 10 years, crime reports remained stable or declined in neighbourhoods where sites opened, the researchers said. Their findings land amid debates across Canada about how harm reduction services intersect with public health and safety.

A McGill-led study is challenging a popular theory about how dopamine drives movement, a discovery that could shift how scientists think about Parkinson’s disease treatments. 

Published in Nature Neuroscience, the research found dopamine does not set the speed or force of each movement, as had been thought. Instead, it appears to act as the underlying support system that makes movement possible. 

A new international study led by McGill University in collaboration with Jefo Nutrition shows that supplementing dairy cow diets with microencapsulated B-vitamins can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions while increasing milk yield and quality. The use of the feed additive cut global warming potential, an internationally standardized measure of climate impact, by up to 18 per cent across seven countries.  

Using proteins from a common tobacco plant virus, McGill chemistry researchers have developed a simple, eco-friendly way to arrange gold nanoparticles into ultrathin sheets, strengthening the particles’ optical properties. The result: cheaper, safer materials for solar panels, sensors and advanced optical devices. 

Women who report high levels of psychosocial stress, such as from caregiving and lack of emotional support, show signs of early heart tissue changes associated with cardiovascular disease – an association not observed in men, a new study reveals.

The results support the notion that there are sex-specific ways in which stress affects cardiovascular health and that risk-assessment processes should take psychosocial factors and mental wellness into account, the researchers said.

Single people who date without a clear understanding of what they are looking for in a relationship experience more loneliness and decreased life satisfaction, McGill researchers have found.

Researchers have cracked one of agriculture’s most complicated genomes, revealing long-hidden DNA rearrangements that could help scientists breed oats that are more resilient, nutritious and sustainable.

The study, by an international consortium that included researchers from McGill University and published in Nature, presents the first-ever “pangenome” and “pantranscriptome” of oats. These map all known oat genes and track how they behave across 33 varieties that grow around the world.