Sustainable agricultural practices require considerable investments, and smallholder famers may not realize gains for years. Without secure land tenure, they lack incentive to invest in long-term benefits. Instead, many opt to use the land as intensively as possible each year since they have no guarantee for the future. This is just one example of how land tenure security intersects with sustainable development, a relationship explored in-depth in a recent book co-edited by Brian Robinson, an associate professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University.

Enjoy the beautiful summer weather and join the Redpath Museum outdoors to see and touch specimens from their natural history and world cultures collections. Fossils, skulls, minerals, ancient pottery... you never know what you'll find!

Every Wednesday and Thursday through August 18th: 10:00 am - 2:00 pm. Different themes each day. Cancelled if it rains. 

Sherbrooke St. West and McGill College, east side, inside the Roddick Gates. Look for the white pop-up awning.

Tackling climate change and preserving biodiversity a key priority for McGill and Quebec

The Fonds de recherche du Québec announced its latest rounds of funding earlier this month in support of research, training, and initiatives to tackle major societal challenges—including climate change and biodiversity loss.

Fever, cough, sore throat – symptoms in the spotlight in the era of COVID-19 – are just some of the tell-tale signs of our body’s immune system kicking into action against an unwanted intruder. Whether triggered by an infection, an allergen, or a vaccine, immune responses are driven by a complex array of cellular processes that can play out over several days or even weeks.

Astronomers have unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy. This result provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are thought to reside at the centre of most galaxies. The image was produced by a global research team called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, using observations from a worldwide network of radio telescopes. Astronomers from McGill University were part of this global effort.

In the quest to identify the origins of one of astronomy’s biggest mysteries – fast radio bursts (FRBs) – Canada’s world-renowned telescope, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), is getting backup.

Ballast water release from ocean vessels has introduced hundreds of invasive species to coastal ecosystems worldwide, causing major disruptions to fisheries and biodiversity. Attempts to control aquatic invasions have met with mixed success in general. However, a new study suggests that a bi-national regulation targeting ships entering the Great Lakes since the mid-2000s has been remarkably effective in reducing a large proportion of the invasive species in the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem.