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IMAGE: By observing 5 different species of bacteria moving through a variety of microfluidic channels, the researchers discovered that bacteria navigated through the spaces not based on their own sizes or. view more
Credit: McGill University
Bacteria that move around live on the edge. All the time. Their success, be it in finding nutrients, fending off predators or multiplying depends on how efficiently they navigate through their confining microscopic habitats. Whether these habitats are in animal or plant tissues, in waste, or in other materials. In a recent paper published in
PNAS, a team of researchers led by McGill University, has described a number of factors affecting how five, very different, species of bacteria search and navigate through varied microfluidic environments which pose various decisional challenges. This increased understanding of the bacterial space searching and navigational strategies has implications for everything from diagnosing
Image caption: These killer whales may appear healthy, but a new study has found extremely high levels of PCB contamination in some of the whales. There was a 300-fold difference between the levels of PCBs among the most contaminated orcas compared to the least contaminated ones. The variation was mainly due to their eating habits. CREDIT: Filipa Samarra - Icelandic Orca Project
A new study from McGill University suggests that some Icelandic killer whales have very high concentrations of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in their blubber. But it seems that other orcas from the same population have levels of PCBs that are much lower. It mainly depends on what they eat.
New research, published today in Nature, models the impacts on the Antarctic Ice Sheet of several different global warming scenarios and the resulting.
Dr. Joanne Liu, a Canadian pediatric emergency room physician and former International President of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is joining McGill University’s School of Population and Global Health (SPGH) as a professor focusing on pandemic and health emergencies.
A graduate of the McGill Medicine class of 1991, Liu first joined MSF in 1996, working with Malian refugees in Mauritania. Since then, she has provided and coordinated emergency medical aid across the globe, whether it be resulting from natural disasters like tsunamis or earthquakes or viral outbreaks such as Ebola in 2014. As a member of the Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response, Liu has been contributing to a set of comprehensive recommendations to protect people from future outbreaks. Last week she was conferred an Honorary Fellowship by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the most prestigious honour the School awards.
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Migratory waterbirds are particularly exposed to the effects of climate change at their breeding areas in the High Arctic and in Africa, according to a new study published in
Bird Conservation International. The research team came to this conclusion after modelling climatic and hydrological conditions under current and future climate scenarios (in 2050) and comparing the impact on the distribution of 197 of the 255 waterbird species listed under the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA). The international team was led by Wetlands International, BirdLife International, and the British Trust for Ornithology, involved researchers from various universities, including McGill. The results suggest that investing more in habitat conservation in the wider landscape, in addition to the conservation of managed protected areas, is urgently needed to help migratory waterbirds adapt to the impacts of climate change.