When electrons move in a phosphorus transistor, they do so only in two dimensions, according to a study published in Nature Communications . The finding suggests that black phosphorus could help engineers surmount one of the big challenges for future electronics: designing energy-efficient transistors.
New research reveals for the first time that pain is processed in male and female mice using different cells. These findings have far-reaching implications for our basic understanding of pain, how we develop the next generation of medications for chronic pain, and the way we execute basic biomedical research using mice.
Studying house sales in central Montreal before and after the Bixi bike sharing system was launched in 2009, researchers at McGill found that a typical home in the central Montreal area they studied had about 12 stations nearby, which had increased its value by 2.7% - or $8650 on average. This benefits owners and municipalities through taxes. Cities considering the implementation or expansion of bicycle share systems should take this into account in addition to environmental and health benefits.
Only recently has nanotechnology made it possible to reach the scale required to test the theoretical model known as the Tomonaga-Luttinger theory. Now, a team of researchers has succeeded in conducting experiments with the smallest channel yet.
A McGill University/UQAM research team has discovered that 6-month-old infants appear to be much more interested in listening to other babies than they are in listening to adults. The researchers believe that an attraction to infant speech sounds may help to kick start and support the crucial processes involved in learning how to talk.
A new technique to create long strands of DNA could make it more economical to assemble DNA nanostructures for applications such as smart drug-delivery systems, according to a research team led by McGill University chemistry professor Hanadi Sleiman.
An international team of scientists has discovered what amounts to a molecular reset button for our internal body clock. Their findings reveal a potential target to treat a range of disorders, from sleep disturbances to other behavioral, cognitive, and metabolic abnormalities.
A Cooper’s hawk, found in Greater Vancouver, is the most polluted wild bird that has been found anywhere in the world. The levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in the contaminated Cooper's hawk were 196 parts per million, significantly higher than those recorded in birds found either in cities in California or in an electronic waste site in China.
Researchers need to find ways to measure how the changes in climate are affecting biodiversity. One of the best places to look may be down at our feet, at beetles. That`s because, as a McGill research team discovered after doing the first large-scale survey of Arctic beetles, these six-legged critters are not only abundant in number but also diverse in feeding habits and what they eat is closely linked to the latitude in which they are found.
A concentrated extract of maple syrup makes disease-causing bacteria more susceptible to antibiotics, according to laboratory experiments by researchers at McGill University. The findings suggest that combining maple syrup extract with common antibiotics could increase the microbes’ susceptibility, leading to lower antibiotic usage
A major study published in PLOS One showed that women who are abused by their partner or ex-partner are much less likely to use contraception; this exposes them to sexually transmitted diseases and leads to more frequent unintended pregnancies and abortions. These findings could influence how physicians provide contraceptive counselling.
There is still no evidence of genetic difference between blacks and whites to account for the health disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to a new study by McGill University researchers. Published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers suggest that after a decade of genetic studies, factors such as lifestyle, education and socio-economics - not genetics - are more promising avenues to understanding racial health disparities.
Until now scientists have believed that the variations in traits such as our height, skin colour, tendency to gain weight or not, intelligence, tendency to develop certain diseases, etc., all of them traits that exist along a continuum, were a result of both genetic and environmental factors. But they didn’t know how exactly these things worked together. By studying ants, McGill researchers have identified a key mechanism by which environmental (or epigenetic) factors influence the expression of all of these traits, (along with many more).
McGill researchers have discovered, for the first time, the importance of a key epigenetic regulator in the development of the hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with learning, memory and neural stem cells.
Lots of potentially useful medical information is getting lost. McGill researchers discovered this when they looked into the lack of reporting of information from “stalled drug” trials in cancer, cardiovascular and neurological diseases.
The popular dietary supplement ubiquinone, also known as Coenzyme Q10, is widely believed to function as an antioxidant, protecting cells against damage from free radicals. But a new study by scientists at McGill University finds that ubiquinone is not a crucial antioxidant.
Health inequalities in young people have grown alongside socioeconomic disparities between the rich and poor. In a paper published Tuesday in The Lancet, an international team of researchers led by McGill University psychologist Frank Elgar said that rising income inequality in Europe and North America coincides with wider disparities in the mental and physical health of 11- to 15-year-olds.
The organisms commonly known as blue-green algae have proliferated much more rapidly than other algae in lakes across North America and Europe over the past two centuries – and in many cases the rate of increase has sharply accelerated since the mid-20th century, according to an international team of researchers.
Mandarin-speakers rely more on tone of voice rather than on facial cues to understand emotion compared to English-language speakers. This may be a result of the limited eye contact and more restrained facial expressions common in East Asian cultures.
Visual cues play a much more important role in the understanding of the emotions being conveyed by music than they do in the understanding of speech.
Researchers at McGill University have developed a new, low-cost method to build DNA nanotubes block by block – a breakthrough that could help pave the way for scaffolds made from DNA strands to be used in applications such as optical and electronic devices or smart drug-delivery systems.
Researchers from Canada, the UK, Sweden and the US have discovered more than 30 genes that strongly affect an antibody involved in allergies and asthma. Some of the genes could provide targets for drugs to treat those conditions, according to the international team’s study, published online in Nature.
An international study led by scientists at McGill University reports, for the first time, that drugs that selectively target the melatonin MT2 receptor represent a novel class of analgesic drugs that could be used to treat patients with neuropathic pain.
Men with short index fingers and long ring fingers are on average nicer towards women. This phenomenon stems from their fetal life, and the hormones these men have been exposed to in their mother’s womb. The findings might help explain why these men have more children.
A team of Canadian researchers has combined the art of magic and the science of psychology to demonstrate how certain contextual factors can sway the decisions people make, even though they may feel that they are choosing freely.
The Great Lakes are the freshwater system than has been the most invaded by non-native species. Researchers predict they will remain vulnerable to future waves of invasions, unless some US-Canadian coordinated measures are implemented. The scientists also identify some species at high risk of being in the Lakes by 2063, if nothing is done.
An international research team led by scientists at McGill University has found that excessive salt intake “reprograms” the brain, interfering with a natural safety mechanism that normally prevents the body’s arterial blood pressure from rising.
Current government-mandated nutrition labeling is ineffective in improving nutrition or curbing the obesity epidemic, but there is a better system available, according to a study by McGill University researchers.
Almost half of the processes that are crucial to maintaining the stability of the planet have become dangerously compromised by human activity. That is the view of an international team of 18 researchers who provide new evidence of significant changes in four of the nine systems which regulate the resilience of the Earth.
The ability to express empathy -- the capacity to share and feel another’s emotions -- is limited by the stress of being around strangers, according to a new study published today in the journal Current Biology.
Chemical analysis of some of the world’s oldest rocks, by an international team led by McGill University researchers, has provided the earliest record yet of Earth's atmosphere. The results show that the air 4 billion years ago was very similar to that more than a billion years later, when the atmosphere -- though it likely would have been lethal to oxygen-dependent humans -- supported a thriving microbial biosphere that ultimately gave rise to the diversity of life on Earth today.
McGill researchers have discovered that there are three genetically distinct groups of whipworms – and only one of the three appears to be transmissible between humans and non-human primates. It is important information for public health officers around the world.
A good night’s sleep is linked to better performance by schoolchildren in math and languages – subjects that are powerful predictors of later learning and academic success, according to a study by researchers at McGill University and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal.
Whether you are a Pygmy in the Congolese rainforest or a hipster in downtown Montreal, certain aspects of music will touch you in exactly the same ways. Researchers found that although the groups felt quite differently about whether specific pieces of music made them feel good or bad, their subjective and physiological responses to how exciting or calming they found the music to be appeared to be universal.
Most cities’ transportation plans evoke a complex blend of environmental, economic, and social-equity goals – all aimed at promoting “sustainability.” Yet, many fail to include meaningful measurements of social-equity objectives, according to researchers at McGill University.
A research team at McGill University has for the first time convincingly identified a network of neurons in a particular area of the brain, the lateral prefrontal cortex, that interact with one another to promptly filter visual information while at the same time ignoring distractions. It’s a discovery with potentially far reaching implications for people who suffer from diseases such as autism, ADHD and schizophrenia.
When dams are built they have an impact not only on the flow of water in the river, but also on the people who live downstream and on the surrounding ecosystems. By placing data from close to 6,500 existing large dams on a highly precise map of the world’s rivers, an international team led by McGill University researchers has created a new method to estimate the global impacts of dams on river flow and fragmentation.
The distinctive “fecal prints” of microbes potentially provide a record of how Earth and life have co-evolved over the past 3.5 billion years as the planet’s temperature, oxygen levels, and greenhouse gases have changed. But, despite more than 60 years of study, it has proved difficult, until now, to “read” much of the information contained in this record.
A simple potato extract may limit weight gain from a diet that is high in fat and refined carbohydrates, according to scientists at McGill University. The results of their recent study with mice were so surprising that the investigators repeated the experiment just to be sure.
If you want your child to tell the truth, it’s best not to threaten to punish them if they lie. That’s what researchers discovered through a simple experiment involving 372 children between the ages of 4 and 8.
Learning from others and innovation have undoubtedly helped advance civilization. But these behaviours can carry costs as well as benefits. And a new study by an international team of evolutionary biologists sheds light on how one particular cost – increased exposure to parasites – may affect cultural evolution in non-human primates.
People affected by a common inherited form of autism could be helped by a drug that is being tested as a treatment for cancer, according to researchers from the University of Edinburgh and McGill University.
Weather, which changes day-to-day due to constant fluctuations in the atmosphere, and climate, which varies over decades, are familiar. More recently, a third regime, called “macroweather,” has been used to describe the relatively stable regime between weather and climate. A new study finds that this same three-part pattern applies to atmospheric conditions on Mars.
Oral human papillomavirus (HPV) infections were more common among men who had female partners with oral and/or genital HPV infection, suggesting that the transmission of HPV occurs via oral-oral and oral-genital routes, according to a McGill University study.
Bobbing your head, tapping your heel, or clapping along with the music is a natural response for most people, but what about those who can’t keep a beat? Researchers at McGill University and the University of Montreal, have discovered that beat-deafness, though very rare, is a problem not simply of how people feel a pulse or move their bodies, but instead, how people synchronize with sounds they hear.
A new study on a large cohort of kidney cancer patients in Europe sheds light on the genetic architecture of the disease -- and reveals an apparent link between exposure to aristolochic acid and incidence of kidney cancer, particularly in Romania.
Researchers at McGill University have succeeded in simultaneously observing the reorganizations of atomic positions and electron distribution during the transformation of the “smart material” vanadium dioxide from a semiconductor into a metal – in a timeframe a trillion times faster than the blink of an eye.
The number of days an expectant mother was deprived of electricity during Quebec’s Ice Storm (1998) predicts the epigenetic profile of her child, a new study finds. Scientists from the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University have detected a distinctive ‘signature’ in the DNA of children born in the aftermath of the massive Quebec ice storm. Five months after the event, researchers recruited women who had been pregnant during the disaster and assessed their degrees of hardship and distress in a study called Project Ice Storm.
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