For one, period apps are explicitly designed to cater to cisgender women and users with a regular cycle, excluding transgender individuals and those with medical conditions which don’t allow for menstrual regularity. Moreover, the stigmatization of menstrual health in many countries can result in period apps being inaccessible for those who seek to use them. Finally, the lack of privacy for period tracking apps has become a grave concern, especially in countries with restrictive abortion laws. 

Transgender individuals are one of the main groups of people who face barriers when using period tracking apps. Period apps are mainly targeted at cisgender women, as seen in the explicit use of women in design graphics, along with more feminine branding such as pink color schemes and floral designs. For example, the app Flo reinforces this traditionally feminine focus by incorporating images of women and pink designs. In reality, trans men also make up a sizable percentage of users, although no precise data exists on the true number of transgender users due to the inability to indicate gender on many of these apps. In order to minimize the sense of alienation for gender-diverse individuals, changes should be made to these apps to accommodate a wider group of users; being able to customize the app to suit personal needs and implementing more inclusive app design would be an important step forward to foster such inclusivity.

In addition to transgender individuals, people with medical conditions – such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, and perimenopause – are often at a disadvantage when using period tracking apps. These apps are programmed to assume that the average person experiences a cycle of 28 days, which is often not the case for those with medical conditions. This results in the incorrect prediction of a person’s cycle. The ability to allow users to select from multiple cycle types and hormonal options would help improve prediction accuracy, and in turn diminish unnecessary stress.

 It is also important to address the dangers that data collection poses to an individual’s safety. Data tracking apps gather extensive volumes of data on their users, such as their weight, age, sexual activity, menstrual flow, and symptoms related to their menstrual health. There is often no clear privacy clause outlining how their data is actually being used, stored or potentially sold. In the post-Roe v. Wade United States, and other countries with abortion bans where millions of people use period-tracking apps despite state restrictions on reproductive health, the data collected from these apps and subsequent monetization of this data could potentially leave users vulnerable to prosecution. Inferences can be made from period data to determine if a woman underwent an abortion, and some period apps state that they may disclose users’ personal data to law enforcement if requested. This is especially concerning for people of color (POC) and those from low income communities, who are already more heavily surveilled by law enforcement agencies. As far as period tracking apps, it is becoming increasingly apparent that developers need to specify how user data will be used and provide consent-based mechanisms around the selling of user data to third parties and government agencies. To improve user safety, a storage model should be created where user data remains solely on their device, without being connected to a larger “cloud”.

As technology continues to shape how individuals manage their reproductive health, inclusiveness, maintaining security and ethical data practices is more important than ever. If period tracking apps fail to prioritize these concerns, these applications risk reinforcing inequalities in both healthcare access and digital privacy.

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From its inception, the journal aimed to inspire undergraduates to engage with scientific inquiry and to provide a home for outstanding research that might have otherwise gone unseen. Just as importantly, MSURJ encouraged interdisciplinary thinking within McGill’s community of young scientists, publishing work across the full breadth of the Faculties of Science, Engineering, and beyond. Twenty years later, MSURJ remains committed to these founding goals. That being said, new guiding principles have also emerged, shaped by the changing culture of science and academia.

The first edition of MSURJ published a selection of articles that were presented at the first McGill URC, which took place earlier in 2005. It wasn’t until the second volume, published two years later in 2007, that MSURJ adopted what would become its most defining principle: the application of a rigorous peer review process to every manuscript.

When MSURJ was reprised in 2007, it became one of the first undergraduate research journals in North America to hold up its articles to the rigorous standards of scientific peer review. This pivot gave undergraduate authors a transparent look at some of the challenges of publishing a scientific work: grappling with reviewer feedback, refining their arguments, and defending their conclusions. For several of the MSURJ alumni whom we interviewed in March 2025, the journal’s steadfast commitment to its competitive and rigorous editorial process had a lifelong impact on their understanding of what makes good science. In an interview with one previous editor/co-editor-in-chief on the board (2006-2009), they remarked, “Prior to being on MSURJ, I did not know much about the scientific publication process, but I was able to get a much better understanding while being on the board.” For this previous co-EIC, MSURJ inspired a continued interest in scientific publishing, and they later went on to become an editor on the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine.

In 2011 — four years after MSURJ’s second volume and its adoption of peer review practices — the journal underwent its next major evolution in ethos. While the accessibility of journal articles had always been part of MSURJ’s culture, the early 2010s ushered in a renewed emphasis on science communication — not just for undergraduate researchers, but also for a broader audience that included students outside McGill and members of the general public. Editors at the time began to reflect on the journal’s role not only in upholding academic standards, but in making science understandable and engaging to non-specialists.

In 2010, the editorial board began a tradition of community outreach initiatives aimed at CÉGEP students in the Montreal area, helping these students solidify their foundation in scientific writing and encouraging involvement in undergraduate research. The next year, in 2011, the editorial board launched The Abstract, MSURJ’s popular science blog. This platform opened a new avenue for students to explore science writing without the mandate of conducting completely original research. That same year, MSURJ also began accepting submissions from undergraduates at institutions beyond McGill — a quiet but meaningful step toward expanding its reach and encouraging dialogue across institutional and affiliation boundaries. 

A decade ago, only a minority of undergraduates gave serious thought to conducting research during their bachelor’s degrees — let alone publishing their findings, as one MSURJ alumnus reflected in an interview in March 2025. Today, a much larger proportion of students across disciplines are actively pursuing research positions and competing for publication opportunities. This shift is driven in part by the rising expectations of graduate and medical school admissions committees.

Regardless of the cause, the changing student attitude toward undergraduate research presents both a challenge and an opportunity for MSURJ’s editorial board: to adapt to a more competitive landscape, while continuing to fulfill the journal’s mission in service of the scientific communities at McGill and beyond. In response to this growing demand, MSURJ has introduced several new initiatives aimed at supporting students’ research goals. This year, MSURJ organized an Undergraduate Research Seminar in collaboration with the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) to meet the increased demand from students for opportunities to showcase their research. The board also continued a longstanding tradition of organizing workshops to empower undergraduates with skills useful for scientific research across disciplines, like R, Python, and LaTeX. MSURJ is always looking for alternative ways to support young scientists towards their academic aspirations.

Over its twenty years of operation, MSURJ’s mission has evolved from simply inspiring undergraduates to pursue research to embracing a dual responsibility: to rigorously train future scientists and to help build a more scientifically literate society. While the organization’s goals have expanded, one attribute has remained constant. Across all generations of the journal, MSURJ alumni agree on what makes the publication special: the people involved in the process — from editors to authors to peer reviewers — and the lasting connections forged through that shared work.

“Getting to meet other like-minded people in science and research was inspiring. It was amazing to be surrounded by others who were so hardworking,” noted one former editor/co-editor-in-chief (2011-2014).

True to this legacy, MSURJ continues to honor the collaborative effort behind each volume with an annual tradition that brings the community together. On April 8, from 6:00 to 9:00 P.M., MSURJ will host its annual journal launch in Thomson House — an evening dedicated to honoring the editors, writers, and reviewers whose efforts made the 20th volume, and indeed 20 years of MSURJ, possible. If you are interested in celebrating two decades of rigorous undergraduate research and the people that make it possible, we would love to see you there!

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In the following months, it became clear that generative AI like ChatGPT would bring unique potential for AI usage. Unlike earlier AI machine-learning models, which were trained to make predictions based on a dataset, generative AI (GenAI) creates new content. In response to a prompt, GenAI uses sophisticated algorithms to organize large datasets into new material, including text, images, and audio. 

Considering its ability to generate essays, computer code, and musical scores, among a myriad of other possibilities, McGill professors are paying close attention to GenAI in their pedagogy. In an interview with the Daily, Alexander Manshel, Associate Professor of English, said that by the spring of 2023, he had begun to closely follow the emerging discourse that claimed GenAI would “change everything.” For Dr. Manshel, it was not that GenAI was necessarily a transformative technology in itself. He recognized it as “something major that would have to be reckoned with in education.”

Initially, Dr. Manshel was eager to experiment with GenAI. He told the Daily that he was interested in exploring how the technology could be utilized in a classroom setting on an analytical level. “What would it mean to project a generated passage from Toni Morrison or Colson Whitehead, and then spend the class analyzing the features [ChatGPT] is picking up on and testing that against our own sense of the aesthetics of the writers?” Dr. Manshel told the Daily that although such exercises may sound exciting in practice, his classroom discussions repeatedly proved “far more interesting” without ChatGPT. 

Dr. Manshel took his GenAI experimentation further in an introductory undergraduate class in Fall 2023. When he assigned a paper, he told students they could use GenAI without any limitations. Students also needed to submit a document outlining how they had used GenAI. Their papers were then graded without Dr. Manshel and his teaching assistants knowing the extent to which AI had been used. Only after grades were returned did they test the results of students’ writing against the AI disclosure forms.

Dr. Manshel told the Daily that at least in his class, “the majority of McGill students did not have any interest in using [GenAI] beyond sentence-level spell check.” However, some students did use it more substantively. On the whole, the vast majority of those papers received low “B” grades. “It produced — to speak frankly — ‘mid’ work,” Dr. Manshel said.

Now, after seeing how GenAI limits his students’ ability to produce strong, critical work, Dr. Manshel “essentially prohibits[s] the use of generative AI” beyond sentence-level grammar check. 

Jacob Blanc, Associate Professor of History and International Development Studies at McGill, similarly sees pedagogical limitations to GenAI usage in university classes. In an interview with the Daily, Dr. Blanc shared that “in my classes, I try to emphasize that there is no shortcut to doing research well, to doing a paper well.” Simultaneously, he limits the opportunities where students could easily use AI. His final assignments tend to be creative: a historical fiction essay or a podcast episode, for example. This serves a dual purpose of being both “fun for doing history” and “helping students not fall victim to this trap of AI.” 

While Dr. Blanc assigns creative projects for reasons beyond being largely AI “fool-proof,” software like ChatGPT has changed the way he evaluates students on a regular basis. Like many of his colleagues, Dr. Blanc has begun to introduce weekly, in-class quizzes. “Is it useful? Maybe, as a check-in,” Dr. Blanc noted. “But I wouldn’t have done this if ChatGPT hadn’t come around.”

At the same time, Dr. Blanc acknowledges that it is difficult to completely prevent students from using AI. That is why he has recently started requiring students to submit an AI disclosure form to acknowledge how they used AI in their assignments. Dr. Blanc said he is “trying to force students to be honest with themselves and with me. We’re all learning this on the fly, so I really want to know how students are using it more than just when it is obvious to me that they are cheating.”

Samantha Damay, an instructor in the Centre for French Teaching at McGill, uses GenAI in a different way from Dr. Manshel and Blanc. Damay sees unique pedagogical benefits to GenAI for second-language courses. While Damay believes AI lacks depth and creativity, she acknowledges that in second-language classes, creativity is not necessarily the first priority. In an interview with the Daily, Damay said she primarily looks for “abilities to synthesize text, to apply grammar conventions, and to understand the language.” For Damay, GenAI can help students achieve these skills.

Damay encourages students to use ChatGPT to correct their own work. “I think it is essential that students are able to understand their mistakes and then make their own corrections,” she said. “That’s why I asked myself, ‘can Chat-GPT help students develop independent ways of correcting their work?’”

Now, Damay has created specific ChatGPT prompts, which she encourages students to use to improve their French writing skills. One such prompt asks ChatGPT to “indicate” errors but not to correct them. This way, students can utilize GenAI like a professor who highlights their mistakes, while still needing to fix them autonomously. 

When Damay explicitly instructs her students to use ChatGPT, they are often surprised. But she emphasizes that she is not advising them to use it to cheat; rather, they should take advantage of it as a tool. “I really hope that generative AI becomes a reflex for students,” Damay said to the Daily. “Each time they write a text in French, they should take the time to ask ChatGPT to review their work.”

When asked about the future of GenAI in French language learning, Damay raises concerns about ethics and laziness. “We must see AI as a tool and not a solution,” she said. Rather than using it to replace human writing and critical thinking, Damay said students should use it as an “assistant.” 

Outside of the classroom, Damay is worried that AI will threaten social connections, alluding to a growing number of romantic relationships between humans and AI chatbots. “That is what I am scared about: that people will lose their humanity,” Damay told the Daily. She acknowledged that “we are not there yet,” but that it is a real concern.

In many ways, GenAI appears poised to change education as we know it. That being said, speaking from his perspective as a historian, Dr. Blanc acknowledged that we have seen rapid technological advances before. “I guess I have to say that nothing is ever unique,” he noted. “Google was going to change everything, the personal computer was going to change everything.”

Still, he continued, GenAI presents many unknowns: “It’s going to change how we teach. And I don’t think anyone can quite say how it’s going to do that, or when.”

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The event brought together students and faculty from multiple universities to share their ideas throughout the day. CogSURF started off with a keynote by Dr. Nancy Kanwisher, Professor of Cognitive Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The itinerary began with flash three-minute student research presentations, followed by a poster showcase and a panel discussion with leading experts. CogSURF came to a close with a networking event within the historic halls of McGill’s Faculty Club.

CogSURF’s flash talks were a highlight of the conference. Challenging students to present their research in three minutes or less, they provided an insightful exercise for undergraduate researchers to gain confidence in presenting their research to a large audience. Topics spanned a diverse array of subjects: undergraduate students came onstage to speak on the effects of hallucinogens on the brain, childhood cognitive skills and emotional problems, the health impacts of gendered lifestyles, and how genetic markers of pathological insomnia could help shed light on Alzheimer’s disease, to name just a few. Speakers were able to present their research in a more personal manner during the poster showcase, allowing them to share discussions about their research with students and professors from various universities.

In the afternoon, Dr. Ian Gold, Dr. Stevan Harnard, Dr. Karim Jerbi, and Dr. Charles Reiss, Professors of Psychology and Cognitive Science from McGill University, Université de Montréal, and Concordia University; and Dr. Doina Precup, a leading researcher in artificial intelligence, convened for an informative panel to discuss a diverse range of cognitive science topics, notably on sentience and Large Language AI Models. An illuminating discussion, moderated by Nguyen, unfolded about current research methods and findings in these fields, as well as key challenges in the study of consciousness. The panelists ended their conversation with a strong message to the audience, urging them to consciously promote creativity in their research.

Finally, Nguyen wrapped up the conference by thanking everyone for their participation. In her parting remarks, she expressed her hope that the impact of CogSURF would continue to grow year after year as the messages delivered at this event echo beyond the walls of the ballroom and create waves in our peers’ research projects. The forum ended with a final and apt concluding statement by Nguyen: “never stop connecting minds and making waves.”

In the later hours of the evening, students were lucky to step inside the beautifully ornamented walls of the Faculty Club, normally reserved for university professors. Participants, students, professors, speakers, and staff alike joined a networking event in the interest of expanding the field of cognitive science. All in all, CogSURF was a full day promoting connection, discussion, and the sharing of knowledge around the innovative and growing sector of cognitive science. The CogSURF executive team has high hopes for next year’s conference and they hope to see you there!

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The sentiment shared by many is that there is a need to build a more ethical AI domain. In light of this, the subject of “open-source AI” was at the heart of conversations. According to the MIT Tech Review, an open-source AI system is, as the name implies, open to everyone: it can be used for any purpose without special permission or payment. This means that researchers can freely inspect the system’s components and functioning.

Seeing these benefits, Macron announced the launch of Current AI, a foundation aiming to raise $2.5 billion to reshape the landscape of AI. It aims to expand data-set access, develop open-source tools, and make AI more transparent overall, including in measuring its environmental impacts. Along the same lines, tech industry leaders also gathered at the summit and launched Robust Open Online Safety Tools, or ROOST, to develop and provide free open-source safety tools.

While open-source AI was developed to enhance transparency in the domain of artificial intelligence, it also has a negative side: the “open-source” aspect means anyone may use the system “for any purpose,” without any control whatsoever regarding the intentions of the developer. David Evan Harris, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, warns about the dangers of such tools that can create “dangerous information, like a bomb recipe,” deepfakes, and violent pornographic content. Additionally, expanded access to AI tools may deeply weigh on the environment, as the energy consumption of AI is already high.

But if so many countries seek to invest in an AI model that seems to relinquish economic profit, there must be some underlying motives behind this. Open-source AI is viewed as an opportunity to share benefits and stimulate innovation, but also as a way for some countries to “catch up” on AI development. Indeed, fostering investment in AI is “one of the most pressing projects” France wishes to undertake, not so much for the sake of promoting an ethical AI industry but rather to further its own national interests and influence.

What the summit in Paris really showed was that a global race for AI dominance is already well underway, and national interests were at the core of the debates surrounding the development of AI.

In the early weeks of his presidency, the Trump administration broke the 2023 consensus about AI development by massively investing. Trump promised to dedicate $500 billion to the industry, placing the US in a leading position in terms of AI development and research. To add to this, the US refused to sign a regulation declaration to “ensure AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy.” J.D. Vance, Vice President of the US, declared that excessive regulations could “kill a transformative industry.”

However, this American aggression over AI regulation does not come out of nowhere: the tech rivalry with China has led to a real AI race, with both countries competing to develop the most advanced model. China is successfully expanding its AI industry through the development of state-backed tech giants, and the worldwide success of DeepSeek, one of the AI systems that democratized open-source tools, only confirms their advancement.

As the US and China race for dominance over the AI industry, Europe seeks to enhance its AI capabilities. Thus, during the summit, $150 billion was allocated to “AI Champions” by 20 European corporations, led by General Catalyst, to boost the European AI industry over the next five years. Seizing the opportunity of the summit, Mistral AI, a French start-up, and Helsing, a European defence corporation, announced their partnership to build a European AI defence. Gundbert Scherf, co-founder of Helsing, claimed that “Europe needs to assert its strength as a geopolitical actor, and AI leadership is the key to that strength.” To attract further investment, Henna Virkkunen, the EU digital chief, promised to simplify regulations and make an AI-business-friendly Europe, a sentiment echoed by Macron in his speech.

This “three-way race” for the dominance of the AI industry between the US, China, and Europe does not foreshadow anything good for the average AI user. Driven by economic and national interests, governments seem little inclined to regulate AI systems. Instead, they are preferring to maximize its development through massive investment and minimal regulation – as seen in the US and UK’s refusal to sign the AI regulation declaration of the summit. These developments in the world of AI policy will lead to more intense competition among nations alongside increased technological advancement.

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Traditional methods like dieting and exercise, while important, don’t always work in the long term for everyone. Bariatric surgery, though effective, is expensive and invasive, and not an option for most people. That’s where a new type of treatment — GLP-1 receptor agonists — comes in, offering a fresh approach to tackling obesity.

GLP-1 receptor agonists are medications that work by mimicking glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a hormone in the body that controls hunger. This helps people feel full for longer by reducing cravings and slowing down how quickly food leaves the stomach. This combination makes it easier to eat less and gradually lose excess body fat. These medications were originally designed to help people with diabetes, but researchers soon noticed their potential to aid weight loss even for those without the condition.

McGill University is at the forefront of this promising topic of research. In a major study, McGill researchers reviewed data from 26 randomized controlled trials involving over 15,000 people who were overweight or obese but did not have other significant health issues, such as diabetes. The results were striking: participants using GLP-1 medications, over the course of 12 to 18 months, lost a significant amount of weight, often between 15–20 per cent of their total body weight. One such new medication, retratrutride, showed shocking success with some participants losing up to 22 per cent of their weight after 48 weeks of weekly treatments.

Alongside weight loss, the study highlighted other health benefits of the treatment. GLP-1 receptor agonists improved metabolic health markers like blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and cardiovascular outcomes, reducing the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure. By alleviating strain on the heart and preventing arterial plaque buildup, these therapies could help address the serious health risks often tied to obesity. According to a report by McGill’s Office for Science and Society, these treatments could also shift the narrative around obesity, emphasizing its biological roots rather than placing responsibility solely on the individual.

While this breakthrough could revolutionize obesity treatment, there remain many challenges to consider. As highlighted in a discussion on the McGill Journal of Medicine podcast, questions about affordability and long-term safety are key areas of this study that require further research. These cutting-edge medications are expensive, making them inaccessible to many people who could benefit from them. Obesity tends to affect lower-income groups more, and without changes in healthcare policies on medication pricing, these treatments may not reach the people who need them most. Moreover, obesity is a chronic condition, which requires long-term treatment. The side effects of using these medications over the span of decades are still being studied.

There is also the need to balance this medical breakthrough with broader societal changes. Medications like GLP-1 can be life-changing, but they are not a standalone solution to obesity. Issues like access to affordable healthy food, better education about nutrition, and tackling the stigma around obesity must remain part of the conversation – and they should come first to reduce the risk factors of developing the condition in the first place. GLP-1 therapies, as a treatment rather than a preventative measure, should be seen as one tool among many in a much larger effort to improve public health.

McGill’s research into GLP-1 medications represents an important step forward in addressing obesity. By investigating whether these novel treatments are safe and effective, the university is helping to pave the way for a future where obesity can be managed with the same care, precision, and social understanding as any other health condition.

This isn’t just about science — it’s about changing lives. For millions of people struggling with obesity, McGill’s research offers hope that real, lasting solutions are on the horizon.

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Protecting the Earth from asteroids? Modelling how light behaves around a black hole? From November 15 to 17, the ninth edition of the McGill Physics Hackathon saw hundreds of young STEM enthusiasts congregate at McGill’s downtown campus, from high schoolers to graduate students. Their common goal? “Hacking” their personal projects in physics and adjacent subjects and sharing them with their peers in the STEM student community.

Over a period of 24 hours spaced across three days, teams of two to five students worked tirelessly to bring their visions to fruition. Luca and Jeremy counted as two of four CEGEP participants from John Abbott College working on coding a soccer shooting game. Their team’s goal was an intriguing twist on a classic game: kicking a soccer ball into a net, given that the ball’s flight is realistically influenced by drag.

“We’re trying to incorporate air resistance and other physical parameters into our project,” Luca explained to the Daily. “We’re using vectors to model the movement of objects through air.”

Roadblocks for their project were numerous, noted Jeremy, although he observed that overcoming such obstacles is what makes coding so satisfying. “There’s been quite a few moments where we’ve thought to ourselves: ‘I hate coding,’ only for everything to work out in the end.”

An open mind is one of the qualities that Dr. Kim Metera, one of the Hackathon organizers and undergraduate advisor for physics students at McGill, hopes to instill in participants. “People will have created something and taught themselves something, regardless of whether they’ve finished their project or not,” she observed. “The Hackathon is a chance to create something new, to hang out and collaborate with friends.”

Jointly organized by the McGill Department of Physics and the Trottier Space Institute (TSI), the McGill Physics Hackathon began in the mid-2010s and happens annually in November. For most of its history, the event only spanned a single day, and participant numbers figured below the 100 mark. This year’s Hackathon was special in two ways. First, a drastic increase in sponsorships allowed Hackathon organizers to host participants for a full weekend. Second, this year’s participant numbers broke a new in-person record at over 170 total participants.

To see this year’s Hackathon kick off on such a spectacular high note was a highlight for Catherine Boisvert, lead organizer and PhD candidate in the Department of Physics.

“During the opening ceremony, when we were onstage in the [Trottier] auditorium looking at all the participants and the sponsors,” she described, “I was listening to all the speakers and thought to myself: ‘Wow, this is happening. It all came together.’”

Hacking and Learning

For Luca, the Hackathon’s 24-hour deadline was a necessary creative constraint to push participants out of their comfort zones and experiment more. “It’s a really great learning environment to develop programming skills,” he said, “having that sort of stimulus to learn and grow and start coding. [The time limit] gives you an incentive.”

During the Hackathon, students could consult mentors whenever they encountered roadblocks in their code. Consisting of graduate students and other specialist volunteers, mentors played a central role in the problem-solving process. Their presence ensured that despite the time limit of 24 hours, participants would receive the necessary support to complete their projects. Hannah Fronenberg, PhD candidate and mentor, described the mentoring process as highly “dynamic.”

“You mostly just get here, start going around and meet teams — you either help them get started with their projects or help them overcome hurdles. These might be physics conceptual challenges or computational problems.” She noted that one might be “helping out with a relativity problem” before transitioning in quick succession to “debugging,” then “helping in fleshing out an algorithm.”

Sometimes, it is less a matter of teaching new knowledge and more of guiding someone toward understanding they already possess the sufficient know-how. “A lot of people have knowledge they aren’t aware they have,” recounted Dr. Stephan O’Brien, organizer and TSI Computing Fellow. “There was a group who was working on Javascript and Python who suddenly realized how to put their problem together. It’s the “eureka” moment, when it all clicks — that’s the really satisfying part.”

Hackathons provide an educational setting that fills in the many gaps that are frequently overlooked in traditional classroom settings. A 2024 literature review found that hackathons are effective at “enhancing collaboration and teamwork, providing hands-on learning experiences for workplace skills, facilitating skill transferability across sectors, and promoting student motivation and engagement.” Flexibility, awareness of one’s strengths and shortcomings, and an ability to collaborate on hands-on projects are skills that are useful in any career path, regardless of one’s field of study.

Understanding one’s intellectual shortcomings is also an integral part of the scientific process, Dr. Metera pointed out. “Research is about making mistakes. You try something, you make a mistake, you stumble and try something new, then you’ll make a new mistake! Everyone — even the most seasoned researchers — makes mistakes. You should collaborate; don’t do it by yourself.” She recalled an anecdote to illustrate her point: “There was a professor in a university in Germany who once said that “we’re here to learn, not to know.” Because no one truly knows what they’re doing!”

Forging Communities In Physics

Beyond the tinkering and the problem-solving, the Hackathon allowed participants to mingle with fellow STEM enthusiasts. Such events are crucial to fostering community among youth interested in physics and other areas of STEM and connecting them with the wider academic and industrial world.

The Hackathon aimed to prove that physics is not just a science. It is also a way of connecting and uniting people with shared passions. For Dr. O’Brien, physics was a method of self-expression in his youth. “I’m dyslexic, so I struggled a lot with languages,” he recalled. “In primary school, I gravitated toward math since math was a language that I could understand well. My disability makes math and the natural sciences more intuitive for me, and it’s what drew me toward those fields.” 

Boisvert commented that she was “a bit of a late bloomer — I’m not the stereotypical kid who looked at the stars when they were ten.” She mentioned that her interest in science outreach began in her teenage years: “My high school was very much into STEM but didn’t necessarily highlight pursuing physics as a career, so I wanted people to get interested in physics.”

One of Boisvert’s driving goals is to bridge the gender gap in physics. “We have a lower percentage of women in physics, and in particular in condensed matter, which is the field I work in. So it’s important for me to promote physics, especially to women and minorities who are interested in studying the subject.”

Community, in particular the connection between older and younger generations, is a core element of the Hackathon. PhD student Regan Ross noted that “we also have a good department in terms of volunteers,” adding that one of his most “rewarding experiences is seeing people who come back.” Many past participants have returned to serve as either volunteers or mentors and help future generations of students experience the magic of the Hackathon.

Boisvert also took the time to extend her gratitude to the Hackathon’s volunteers: “We had an amazing team of volunteers and mentors and judges — sponsors, students, who have gone to the Hackathon before and who are working in their free time to make this happen. Volunteers who set up the venue, mentors who help with the physics and the coding. If there’s one thing to highlight, it’s that we couldn’t do anything on this scale without our volunteers.”

Inspiration Runs Both Ways

For Ross, seeing the passion of participants toiling away at a problem was the most inspiring aspect of the Hackathon. “If you walk into any of those rooms now,” he remarked while pointing at a series of doors, “you’ll see people working hard. It’s some otherworldly kind of dedication to come here during the weekend.”

When asked what he would say to youth who want to get into physics or other areas of STEM but aren’t sure they’re up to the challenge, Ross advised that “it’s hard to be good at anything. There are some basic skills needed in STEM,” he continued, “but it isn’t necessarily more challenging than other fields like the arts. For instance, I can write, but I’m not the best writer. If you’re interested in tinkering — taking things apart, putting them back together — then you’re already halfway there.”

Boisvert corroborated Ross’s sentiment, emphasizing the importance of contacting people in the fields you want to pursue. “If you’re interested, ask your teachers [or] your friends if they know someone in that area. People in science love to talk about their work. Don’t be afraid to reach out!”

Working at one’s own pace, rather than trying to emulate others, was an element which both Fronenberg and Dr. O’Brien underlined. Neither could have seen themselves doing a Hackathon during their high school or undergraduate years. Fronenberg, who now works on computational problems in cosmology, noted that she struggled in math during her childhood. “I only really got interested in science in high school,” she said, “once I built more confidence and did a lot of bridging [in mathematics] to get caught up. Which is one of the problems a lot of people face: if you’re bad at math, you’re drawn away from a lot of STEM fields like physics and engineering.” She went on to remark, “I really only started serious coding in grad school. I couldn’t imagine myself doing any of this in high school.”

Sergei Shilin, Hackathon mentor and co-founder of Blymp, highlighted passion as the primary key to success: “Follow your passions, the interests that will elevate you to the heights that it won’t bring anyone else. If there are two people in the same field … the person who has more passion will be the one who’s ahead in ten years’ time.”

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This scenario is generated in a 2024 study published in Knowledge Mobilization for Settlement, where researchers asked ChatGPT to generate an image of a refugee family in Canada and prompted it to consider ethnic background, integration barriers, and educational levels. Shockingly, it repeatedly depicted refugees as Muslim families, in particular from the Middle East and including women wearing hijabs. It also cited language as a primary integration barrier for these families. The prompts were tested multiple times to capture the AI’s understanding of diverse populations. The results were surprising, revealing a significant lack of nuanced understanding of diversity in the representations of refugee families.

This study also reveals ChatGPT’s disparities in job recommendations for newcomers between the Global North and the Global South. When asked about job prospects for individuals from five countries in the Global North and five from the Global South with the same amount of experience and using the same prompt, ChatGPT suggested lower-tier positions, such as administrative assistant, for those from the Global South, while recommending higher-tier roles, such as software developer, for applicants from the global north. This discrepancy extended to an average salary disparity of $20,000.

Generative AI uses predictive models to generate responses by drawing on historical data. These cases demonstrate how systemic biases and discrimination are ingrained in AI training. These biases are further compounded by language barriers, highlighting another critical area where AI fails to serve newcomers effectively. The study demonstrated how ChatGPT offers substantially less assistance to non-English speakers. Researchers tested it by prompting about opening a bank account in English and French, the two official languages of Canada. ChatGPT provided more detailed and interactive responses to the English prompt than to the French one. ChatGPT’s inconsistent responses across languages show a gap in linguistic support to newcomers in a bilingual country like Canada. For new immigrants who don’t speak English or French, such limitations could lead to inequitable access to critical information, underscoring the need for the development of robust multilingual AI tools.

As newcomers transition through the complex journey of settlement, they often face challenges along the way, including navigating job searches, adapting to a new culture, and facing language barriers in their country of residence. According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate for new immigrants living in Canada for less than five years is 12.6 per cent, which is significantly higher than the total unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent as of July 2024. To navigate their career path, newcomers and the settlement sector may turn to AI for immediate assistance. These findings underscore why Canada’s immigration sector must adopt a human-centred approach to AI in order to ensure that technology supports the integration of newcomers without reinforcing stereotypes and biases.

Immigration, Refugee, Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is increasingly applying generative AI and data analytics tools such as Chinook for faster and more effective service delivery in administrative tasks, such as summarizing profiles, triaging applications, and assigning officers based on the sensitivity of cases. Even though they do not involve AI in the final decision-making, any plan to expand the use of AI in providing assistance to immigration settlement requires careful consideration.

“AI tools should be responsive to the specific needs of newcomers that require human oversight in the loop. Every newcomer has a unique story, especially refugee cases, [which] are highly sensitive. AI often misses the nuanced understanding of cultural sensitivity and empathy essential for supporting the integration journeys of diverse newcomers,” says Darcy McCallum, CEO of Social Enterprise for Canada.

Echoing Darcy, Isar Nejadgholi, senior research scientist at the National Research Council of Canada, said, “Because of vulnerabilities and intersectionalities of demographics in this population, it’s very important to understand the specific needs and challenges diverse newcomers face in integration.”

For effective use of AI in immigration, the IRCC should work closely with the settlement sector and provincial governments while serving as the intermediary to newcomers. “Developing AI tools requires an agile, iterative and multidisciplinary approach. Technologists, the settlement sector, policymakers, and AI researchers need to collaborate starting from early stages of AI tools design and development. This collaboration ensures that these tools are reliable, user-centric, culturally sensitive and ethically aligned that meet both technical and user expectations. It requires long-term planning,” Isar added.

Another 2024 study, titled “Human-centred AI applications for Canada’s immigration settlement sector,” found that AI solutions benefit from a prototyping-first approach, allowing for early, iterative testing and refinement.

“Prototypes help identify design flaws early, saving time and resources in the long run,” Isar noted. Technologists play a pivotal role in developing these prototypes, which require hands-on testing and continuous refinement before widespread deployment. “Additionally, to align ethical standards with user needs, centralized government oversight is required that would establish data-sharing protocols, privacy safeguards, and regulatory frameworks,” Isar noted.

Isar further pointed out that AI cannot replace humans in immigration support; rather, this sector requires more humans to apply AI effectively in integrating immigrants, who are one of the biggest contributors to Canada’s economy. “Students should be involved in AI research, as they bring fresh perspectives,” Isar recommends.

One organization, Immigrant Networks, uses AI algorithms to pair newcomers with professional mentors based on shared interests, saving staff time while ensuring appropriate support. “A newcomer’s success depends on language, communication, digital, and networking skills. With the mentorship from Immigrant Networks, 70 per cent of mentees secured jobs within six months,” said Immigrant Network’s founder and CEO Nick Noorani. This approach underscores the importance of employing more humans to train immigrants where AI might fall short of meeting individual needs.

Promoting AI literacy among newcomers and the settlement sector is also essential. “Critical thinking and fact-checking are especially important when interacting with AI in a non-native language,” explained Isar. By understanding AI’s limitations, the literacy training may support newcomers and allow settlement staff to tailor prompts to achieve accurate, useful results.

Canada’s prosperity relies on the success of its immigrant communities. As Nick Noorani states, “Canada is built on immigration. If immigrants fail, Canada will fail.” With ethical design and a human-centred approach, AI can complement Canada’s immigration efforts, ensuring that each newcomer’s potential contributes to a stronger and more inclusive society.

The author is a graduate of the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.

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The notion that the internet had academic applications barely crossed my mind as a child. Sure, I learned things by surfing around on Internet Explorer (oh, the antiquated horrors), and I did search up answers on web browsers for some of my homework assignments. But the other possibilities just never really clicked for me back then.

So, come Grade 3 and my third- period “computer studies” class, you could colour me surprised. We were marched, single-file, to one of those big “computer labs” lined with rows of desks and those clunky, absurdly slow Windows desktops. This was before the Chromebook carts, mind you. If you wanted to access the internet at school, you went to the computer lab. You pressed the power button on the monitor, then the power button on the desktop if that didn’t work, then prayed that something would happen. With some luck, the computer would whir to life. Just as frequently, you would be stuck on a loading screen, watching the little white pixels twirling in a perpetual dance. Early 2010s school tech – what more is there to say?

Our teacher dressed more like the office IT guy than an elementary school teacher, with his dress shirts and square- framed glasses and oddly-timed jokes about obscure Albanian customs. We learned about Ctrl + Alt + Delete, about our student numbers and how we could use them to log onto school computers. We learned how to set passwords and download files and open our student Google accounts. Some of my classmates were ahead of the curve: I distinctly remember the boy next to me learning to code in Javascript on Khan Academy while the rest of us were still learning how to navigate the school website.

Soon thereafter, my teachers started using Google Classroom. Announcements and assignments were posted online. I typed up my homework in Google Docs, uploaded the file into the submission box and pressed that big bold “Submit” button with a slight sense of foreboding. Grades were returned online, and to this day I hesitate before viewing them.

By the time middle school rolled around, all of this had become second nature. I didn’t have to think twice to know that when you create a new account, you had to go into “settings” and check “site permissions” and “privacy,” to make sure things like “share data with third parties” and “location access” were off. For group projects, you shared documents with your group partners by either copying the link to the file or uploading it to the cloud. School clubs set up their own Google Classrooms to keep in touch and set deadlines. We played Kahoot in sex-ed class, hoping that our laughter could hide the embarrassment. “Google Classroom” started as a name mentioned carelessly in a stuffy computer lab, and ended up a staple of the academic experience by the time I graduated middle school.

High school made the virtual classroom into the core of the learning environment. In the pre-COVID-19 months, some of our teachers diverged from the Google Classroom equation and experimented with D2L Brightspace. D2L stood for “Desire 2 Learn,” a hippie name for a “cool and modern” learning platform, except that Brightspace’s sterile, brutalist layout stripped away any desire to learn instead of engaging me as advertised. Even now, opening up myCourses triggers a deep-seated nostalgia for those simpler bygone times, when you could access course content in an intuitively-displayed feed, instead of needing to click through ten gazillion tabs only to realize your teacher hadn’t made the content visible.

Then came the pandemic. If I still had any lingering doubts that virtual learning platforms would become an essential aspect of the modern classroom, COVID-19 beat them soundly out of my head. Without Google Classroom and Brightspace, there would have been nowhere to submit our work during the lockdown. Without Google Meet and Zoom, classes would have been restricted to notes and recordings, and teacher-student interaction would have fallen even below the dismal minimum it had already dropped to. The Internet made learning possible during the pandemic — made it possible for us to retain some degree of normalcy while the world was flipped upside down.

Isn’t it ironic? In my early schooling years, I never envisioned the Internet to play any significant role in school. A little less than a decade later, schooling only seems to be possible because of the Internet.

Nowadays, vestigial practices from the COVID-19 era remain central components of academic life. Missed a lecture? No problem: the professor probably made a recording. Have to organize a meeting with ten participants in different locations? No biggie – just set up a Zoom call and you’ll all be side by side on your screens. The internet is the most powerful tool of our time, and it’s been an enlightening and encouraging experience to see it shape our classrooms for the better.

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On behalf of The McGill Daily, I had the pleasure of speaking with Meghana Munipalle, VP Mentorship of Scientista and PhD candidate in Biological and Biomedical Engineering; and Annie Dang, a U1 Biology and Computer Science major. As a mentor-mentee pair and now research collaborators, they offer some insight into their personal experiences in STEM, including their takeaways from the mentorship program and advice for those considering a career in science.

This interview has been shortened and edited for clarity and concision.

Andrei Li for The McGill Daily (MD): What is Scientista?

Meghana Munipalle (MM): The Scientista Foundation is an international organization dedicated to building resources for women in STEM worldwide. They have chapters in many universities, including McGill. McGill has had a mentorship program for years. There are studies that show that in graduate education, they have less access to networking and other resources. There are many undergrad women who are interested in research. This is a way to meet people in the field, get research experience: for Annie, for instance, to get your foot in the door.

MD: What does the typical Scientista mentorship look like?

MM: We match undergrad students with grad and upper undergrad in their field of study/research area. We start at the beginning of the year. Generally, we’ll host career and professional or social events once a month, and also meet one-on-one with mentees once a month, but possibly more often depending on personal goals. This continues through to April, officially, but many mentors and mentees continue the connection beyond the end of the program. Mentees often ‘guide’ the direction of their mentorship based on their own needs and goals: for example, Annie and I have talked about course selection, study habits, research, grad school, time management, work-life balance, resume building, and everything in between!

MD: What is something you’ve learned, as a mentor for the program?

MM: I didn’t have these kinds of opportunities in my undergrad: I didn’t know what grad school was like until third year, and only started research when I met a prof whose research I was interested in. I didn’t have these kinds of go-tos like the mentors offered in this program. It’s interesting to see how quickly I found myself in this role. I am now a person who can leverage the experience and knowledge that I have to help someone else who wants to enter the field, and this was a bit of a “wow” moment for me. It’s an amazing feeling, to be in the position of a role model.

MD: Why Scientista? What brought you to the program?

Annie Dang (AD): I first heard about Scientista from the MBSU mailing list, and I was really interested in how it was focused on creating opportunities for women in STEM. I have definitely felt the discrimination against women in STEM: a vivid memory I have is of an elementary school teacher who talked about how girls were better at arts and humanities, while boys were good at math and science. I wanted to change that and meet like-minded women. I wanted to do biology since Grade 10, and have been interested in math since elementary school, though there used to be sort of a mental block that made me think I didn’t want to do math. In Grade 12, I discovered that there’s a computational biology program at McGill, and this interested me because I’ve only learned about biology and computer science separately, and I didn’t know what it meant to do a joint program. Many people I met were surprised that they were a combined major. Through the mentorship program, I was able to meet peers in upper years who were able to offer me advice and guidance.

MD: What goals did you have for the mentorship program? What impact has it had on your outlook?

AD: My two main goals were to, first, figure out what computational biology is. Since I’m in second year, I don’t have courses intersecting between biology and computer science, and I wanted to meet people to see what could be done in the field. Second, I wanted to unveil the world of academia. There’s a mystique around it: it’s difficult to find out what it looks like unless you reach out to the professors. What’s more important? Lab, networking, courses? What kind of skills should I prioritize? Statistical programming, anything else? Do I want to even do academia? When do I have to choose between industry and academia? From Meghana, I’ve learned that I don’t have to focus on the choice now, and that I should simply do what I want to do. I can choose to do a Master’s and then a PhD, then enter the industry if I want to. It’s important to do what you’re interested in, rather than selecting a path that would lead you to a good career.

MD: One moment that really stood out to you during the program, that you remember very vividly because it was special in some way?

AD: It was the realization that I don’t have to have it figured out right away. For instance, Meghana started in physics! I found out that many profs did something different in their undergrad than in their research. There was a time where I was considering pure math or computer science: I figured out that undergrad is the best time to find out what I want to do. For instance I’m considering a math minor! Initially, in bio[logy], I wanted to do ecology and evolution, but with Meghana’s supervisor, Professor Nicole Li-Jessen, I became invested in doing cell biology and tissue engineering research. There’s so much out there that I don’t know to like or dislike because I haven’t been exposed to it. I want to try as much of everything as possible, before I choose what field I want to focus on in the future.

MD: How did you first get interested in STEM?

MM: I got interested in STEM through astronomy and astrophysics. It was what pulled me into the world of science. In middle school, I watched every documentary about cosmology, space, physics. It was my first real experience of what I could do in science. Documentaries are a way to make science digestible and show scientists in action: different labs in different countries, collaboration between institutions. It was a moment where I thought “woah, this is something I want to do in my future!” I did some biology, math, and computer science in addition to my major, and I ended up branching out from where I started. You just don’t know how things will turn out.

AD: I actually wasn’t that interested in middle school. I started getting interested in Grade 10, when I had a biology teacher who used to be a neuroscientist. He pushed us to logically deduce and reason out answers, instead of giving them to us. Every time I learned a new logical process, it felt like my worldview was expanding. I feel that this is a better representation of the way science is done in academia than the rote memorization, cut and clean way it’s usually taught. I didn’t like science in elementary school because it’s taught like a series of disconnected facts; learning that science is done differently was what brought me to the field.

MD: What were the most fulfilling and the most challenging parts of your careers?

AD: The most challenging part was getting used to the feeling of not knowing what’s going on. When I started my research, I had no idea of what intervertebral discs were, I did have a bit of knowledge of stem cells, but I didn’t understand the articles or the technical terminology. When I had the chance, I spoke with more people in the lab and read more, and the more I learned, the more quickly I was able to continue learning. The one disparity between how things are taught and done in science is that in school, everything is learned in foundational steps. In research, they assume you have good background knowledge already. The higher you move up, the more you have to fend for yourself. You have to get used to not understanding everything.

The most fulfilling was studying damage and repair of the intervertebral disc. For me, it really felt incredible that I was going to help people with this research.

MM: The most challenging is an equal tie between [my] Master’s Thesis and PhD qualifying exam. The most fulfilling thing was getting involved in initiatives to help women in STEM. One person can’t change systemic issues, but there’s something beautiful in giving advice to one person, watching their worldview grow. For instance, helping Annie and working with her. I also love my research: problem-solving and programming. Some people might not like troubleshooting, but for me it’s like a puzzle. “What’s happening in this model? How can we translate facts in biology into code?”

MD: Any advice/wise words to dispense for people who may feel discouraged?

AD: One thing that’s really stuck with me, in an ironic way, is to not feel discouraged when you feel out of your depth, because that feeling never really goes away, no matter what level you’re at, be it as an undergraduate, masters student or professor. Even masters students and professors will feel out of their depth when talking to experts in fields other than their own. I have a friend who’s stressed that she doesn’t have background knowledge when she’s applying to research positions, but this is quite normal. In class, many of the things you learn have been discovered for hundreds of years, versus the niche and very modern things in research. Feeling out of your depth is a good feeling, because that means you’re putting yourself in an environment that pushes you to learn more.

MM: Two main things. The first is, the path to a career in STEM is not as linear as people or academic culture makes it out to be. I was not linear, nor was I a 4.0 GPA student in undergrad. Don’t think that just because you’re not perfect, you won’t get your foot in or you’ll never get into research. Undergrad is a chance to try things, to wet your feet. Second: to young women, queer people or people of colour, if you ever feel discouraged, there are many clubs and organizations and communities for you. Being part of these communities made me more confident in my voice and beliefs. Join these communities: they’re there for you. Go to networking events, reach out to profs and peers, etc.

AD: Often, there’s a feeling or obligation that you have to use your voice when you’re a minority, for activism. I don’t think anyone should feel obligated if they don’t want to. You’re already changing the landscape of the scientific community by being here.

To learn more about Scientista McGill, you can check out their website at scientistamcgill. wordpress.com.

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In addition to the US and Russia, both China and India have joined the space race in the last twenty years, with lunar probes that landed on the Moon, orbiters around Mars and even a separate space station in Earth orbit. Now, 50 years after the first Apollo mission, we are more poised than ever to return to the Moon and reach Mars within the next two decades.

Challenges of Space Exploration

That said, there still exist many major obstacles in the way of a potential manned mission to Mars and beyond, with the most significant limitation being the amount of time astronauts can spend in space. The human body is not designed to function in the microgravity of space. Time spent in such an environment leads to the degeneration of our muscles and bones and damage to our immune systems.

There is also the factor of psychological issues that can arise from being confined to a small space-faring capsule for long periods of time. In the case of a journey to Mars, astronauts will have to spend a minimum of 14 months in space for a two-way journey, assuming the fastest speeds achievable with our current chemical propulsion technology.

It stands to reason that the best way to remedy the issue of time is to make spacecraft that can travel faster. This is where nuclear powered engines come into play.

The Promise of Nuclear Engines

The human conquest of space is currently stuck in second gear due to our reliance on chemical propulsion systems. Chemical rocket engines work by combusting a liquid fuel and oxidizer (most often liquid oxygen) together, then shooting the resulting hot gas out of a nozzle. This emission pushes the rocket in the opposite direction, by Newton’s Third Law of action-reaction.

The speeds that can be achieved with chemical propulsion systems are limited by how much energy can be generated from a given mass of fuel. The operational efficiency of a rocket engine is indicated by a metric known as the “specific impulse”. Where the fuel efficiency of a car can be gauged in litres per kilometer, a rocket engine’s specific impulse measures how long a kilogram of fuel can last while providing a constant thrust of one Newton. Conventional chemical rocket engines can usually generate impulses up to 460 seconds.

Nuclear thermal engines are not too different in that they also work by expelling hot gas to generate thrust. The difference here lies in the type of fuel used. In nuclear engines, a type of gas, like hydrogen, flows over a nuclear reactor operating on fissile material like uranium-235 or plutonium. The process generates extreme heat (in the range of 2000 to 4000 degrees Kelvin), expanding the hydrogen gas and expelling it out of the engine’s nozzle at extremely high pressure, propelling the engine forward.

Because of the incredibly high temperatures achievable in a nuclear reaction, nuclear fuel engines can generate a higher specific impulse than any chemical combustion rocket. Nuclear engines are theoretically able to reach specific impulses of between 850 and 1000 seconds, which is twice the highest impulse attainable by a chemical rocket engine. Additionally, the pure hydrogen gas ejected from nuclear thermal engines is pure hydrogen, which is much lighter in mass per molecule than the waste generated by chemical engines, meaning it can achieve higher velocities – and by Newton’s Third Law, the higher the velocity of the ejected material, the higher the velocity that would be reached by the rocket.

The high energy density of nuclear fuel also means that less fuel needs to be carried by a nuclear-powered spacecraft compared to a chemically propelled one. This enables more efficient mass budgets and, in turn, faster travel times for future interplanetary missions. Reaching Mars on a nuclear spacecraft could take two weeks instead of the current seven months. Journeying to Jupiter, which could take up to ten years with a chemical propulsion system, could theoretically be done in only two with a nuclear rocket, which would finally put the gas giant within humanity’s reach.

Past and Future Prospects

Several nuclear rocket engines have already been tested so far. Between 1959 and 1973, a total of 23 engine tests were performed by the United States. The U.S. Department of Defense took the lead with its NERVA program (Nuclear Engines for Rocket Vehicle Applications). Researchers in the program were able to develop an engine which sustained a maximum impulse of 850 seconds for 90 minutes and achieved a maximum temperature of 2750 K. The NERVA program had a total cost of around 2 billion USD (about $6 per person in the U.S. at the time).

Newer projects for nuclear thermal engines, such as a 2023 DARPA-NASA joint contract and another independent endeavor by Lockheed Martin, are already under way. The costs for these projects are estimated to be between 10 and 20 billion USD (about $62 per person in the US). Despite the seemingly high price tags, investing in nuclear rockets could actually pay off in the long run in the form of reduced travel times for interplanetary journeys and reduced costs for the transport of materials to and from the Earth, such as shipments to the Moon for the construction of a future lunar base. 

At present, there are still several challenges standing in the way of building commercially viable nuclear engines. Building an engine able to withstand the extreme heat of a nuclear fission reaction, for instance, is a major challenge. The materials used to build Earth-bound nuclear reactors are difficult to transport and would be hard to use in space. This is compounded by the necessity of using chemical rockets to transport building materials into space, as igniting a nuclear engine on the Earth’s surface would be extremely dangerous.

Any nuclear spacecraft would also require extensive shielding to protect astronauts and electrical instruments on board from the nuclear radiation, adding to its mass budget. There is also the problem of public opinion around the idea of a nuclear reactor in orbit above our heads – nuclear accidents over the years (such as Chernobyl and Fukushima) have cast a pall of fear over the use of nuclear power which would undoubtedly carry on to the public perception of new nuclear-powered spacecraft.

Nonetheless, nuclear engines hold great potential for a new generation of spacecraft. Despite the current logistical challenges that persist, the technology to build nuclear- powered spacecraft is already well within our reach. The relevant engineering hurdles are expected to be overcome in the next 10 to 20 years. Thorough testing by reliable organizations and a strong enforcement of safety standards may be able to sway public opinion and interest in the use of nuclear energy in space. Nuclear propulsion could be vital for our forays into deep space, and I, for one, am excited for the engineering marvels we are likely to witness in the coming decades.

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What we experience as solar eclipses are largely a cosmic accident. An eclipse occurs when observers on Earth perceive the Moon’s angular size to be roughly the same as the Sun’s, allowing the Moon to fully obscure the Sun from view. A total eclipse extinguishes daylight and can drop the ambient temperature by as much as 10°C.

If the Moon’s path about the Earth were contained in the orbital plane of the Sun – known as the ecliptic – we would expect to see a solar eclipse once every 28 days. The Moon’s orbit, however, does not stay in the ecliptic: a 5° offset between the two orbital planes guarantees that, more often than not, prospective eclipses wind up becoming disappointing near-misses. Because of this, total solar eclipses are incredibly rare, passing over any spot on the Earth only once every few centuries.
Because of their rarity, people have been fascinated by solar eclipses since the faintest beginnings of civilization. The word “eclipse” comes from the Greek ékleipsis, meaning “to abandon,” but the first recorded eclipses may have occurred much earlier, possibly as early as 3340 B.C.E.

It is dangerous to look directly at the Sun before totality – the moment at which the Moon completely obscures the Sun. Modern eclipse observers use special protective lenses, or solar filters, to block out the Sun’s rays. The filters are coated with materials that decrease the intensity of incoming light or, in some cases, block out all but a certain wavelength of light. With this equipment, even casual observers can stare safely at the Sun for extended periods of time and discern a variety of interesting phenomena. Often, coronal mass ejections, streaks of plasma cast from the surface of the Sun, can be faintly seen behind the shadow of the Moon.

During eclipses, scientists are allowed glimpses of astronomical phenomena that the brightness of our star would normally keep hidden. The 1919 total solar eclipse, for example, was used by Arthur Eddington and other astronomers to verify Einstein’s theory of general relativity: light from distant stars was slightly bent by the Sun’s enormous gravity, in line with Einstein’s predictions. Nowadays, astronomical research tends to focus on transit events occurring at other, more distant stars, rather than local eclipses. Here at McGill, researchers use eclipses in distant star systems to analyze the atmospheric composition of exoplanets, in order to determine whether they may be candidates for life outside the Solar System.

“When a planet passes in front of a star,” says Dr. Nicolas Cowan, Professor of Astrobiology at McGill, “its atmosphere appears bigger when viewed at different wavelengths of light, which can tell you what molecules are present in that atmosphere. Through this technique, we’ve already discovered lots of greenhouse gases in different atmospheres. Once we detect an atmosphere with, say, water vapour in it, then we can start to try really hard to see if we can detect other gases, like ozone or methane.”

This method, known as transit spectroscopy, will be applied to much of the data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope, but eclipses remain a unique opportunity for the public to make interesting observations much closer to Earth using simple equipment. As of March 18, municipal libraries across Montreal have begun distributing eclipse glasses, and the English Montreal School Board and LBPSB have announced that April 8 will be a pedagogical day, which means amateur astronomers of all ages will have ample time to watch the rare transit as it occurs. As part of the Eclipse Fair, several telescopes outfitted with solar filters will be set up at the downtown campus. There will also be a handful of smaller solar scopes, which reflect the light of the sun into a small viewing box and allow the Moon’s shadow to be viewed without risk.

Much of the equipment will be managed by graduate and undergraduate volunteers from the Trottier Space Institute and the Anna McPherson Observatory. “Students are heavily involved in the eclipse fair,” says Carolina Cruz-Vinaccia, Program Administrator at the Trottier Space Institute (TSI). “We couldn’t do anywhere near the amount of outreach that we currently do without them. They’re really passionate about communicating their work, and they want to make sure people know what’s going on at the university.”

Cruz-Vinaccia heads the Eclipse Task Force organizing events for the upcoming eclipse. Activities at the Fair will include a make-your-own pinhole camera station, a photo booth, and a Solar System Walk, where the planets will be arranged to scale from Roddick Gates to the McCall-McBain Arts Building. The Redpath Society, in collaboration with TSI, will be organizing a program on the cultural significance of eclipses throughout history and their effect on wildlife, while the Rare Books and Special Collections section of the McLennan Library will be displaying records of eclipses from antiquity. In the wider Montreal community, Space Explorers, a McGill student-led physics outreach program, will be holding workshops to teach elementary school students about what eclipses are and how they work in preparation for April 8.

“The idea is to give not only the McGill community, but the surrounding community the opportunity to experience this once-in-a-lifetime event together,” Cruz-Vinaccia says. “Anecdotally, people who’ve seen total eclipses before say that it’s quite a moving experience, and we feel that it would be something that’s better viewed together.”

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Ke had filed an application to allow Chen to travel with his children to China. The application included two cases as precedent: one in which a mother took her 7-year-old child to India for six weeks, and another where a mother’s application to travel with her 9-year-old child to China was approved. However it was soon discovered that these cases did not actually exist, and instead they had been fabricated by ChatGPT.

Allegedly, Ke asked ChatGPT to find relevant cases that could apply to her client’s circumstances. OpenAI’s chatbot generated three results, two of which Ke then used in the application. When lawyers of Nina Zhang, Chen’s ex-wife, were unable to locate the referenced cases, Ke realized her mistake. She attempted to withdraw the two cases and quietly provide a new list of real cases without informing the opposition. Zhang’s lawyers then demanded copies of the two original cases, leaving Ke no choice but to inform them expressly of her mistake. She wrote a letter acknowledging her actions, calling the error “serious” and expressing her regret. In an affidavit, Ke later admitted her “lack of knowledge” on the risks associated with using AI, saying it greatly embarrassed her to “[discover] that the cases were fictions.”

Justice David Masuhara, who presided over the case of Ke’s client, wrote in his ruling that “citing fake cases in court filings…is an abuse of process and is tantamount to making a false statement to the court,” going on to say that the improper use of AI could ultimately beget the miscarriage of justice. Masuhara mandated Ke to review her files and disclose if AI had been involved in any other materials she had submitted to the court.

Fraser MacLean, the lead counsel of Ke’s opposition, also emphasized the serious dangers of using AI-generated content: “what’s scary about these AI hallucinations is they’re not creating citations and summaries that are ambiguous, they look 100 per cent real.” He adds that it is important to be “vigilant” in verifying the validity of a legal citation.

Despite Masuhara finding Ke’s apology to be sincere, she will be held liable for the costs incurred by Zhang’s lawyers in remedying the confusion. The judge also acknowledged that she was suffering the effects of “significant negative publicity” following her misconduct. The Law Society of BC has also issued a warning to Ke affirming the ethical obligation for lawyers to ensure accuracy with the growing use of AI tools. In addition to incurring the debt of her opposition, Ke will also be facing an investigation from the Law Society of BC.

While Ke’s AI-generated content was removed before it could have any significant impact on court proceedings, this case underscores the ethical risks surrounding the use of AI in the legal field. Discussions are already being held around the importance of lawyers’ diligence when it comes to navigating AI tools in their work and the need for clear guidelines to prevent potential abuses of the process. Thompson Rivers University law librarian Michelle Terriss commented that this ruling sets a new precedent, indicating that “[these] issues are front and centre in the minds of the judiciary and that lawyers really can’t be making these mistakes.”

Lawyers have an ethical duty to acknowledge the risks and benefits that arise from the use of AI tools. But as the use of AI grows, new questions around its implementation in the legal field are beginning to emerge, including whether or not a lawyer can ethically bill a client for work that an AI tool performed or if using AI to handle court materials is a breach of confidentiality. The latter is especially concerning as most AI tools, including ChatGPT, do not guarantee the confidentiality of user inputs – in fact, OpenAI’s terms of service state that a user’s exchange with the program “may be reviewed” by OpenAI employees in order to improve the system, and that the responsibility of maintaining confidentiality lies with the users themselves.

While AI can provide significant improvements to tasks including electronic discovery, litigation analysis, and legal research, concerns persist about biases and prejudices in the system in addition to the potential for legal fabrication. Bias in AI technology is common and results from the training process of AI tools. For instance, Microsoft’s AI tool for text-based conversations with individuals was found to mirror discriminatory viewpoints that had been inputted in training conversations. These biases have already made it into the legal field, with a prominent example being the Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) system, an AI algorithm many US judges used in making decisions regarding bail and sentencing. Investigations revealed that the system, in assessing whether or not a past offender would re-offend, was found to generate “false positives” for people of colour and “false negatives” for white people. The issue lies in the training of AI, as many are programmed to “quantify the world as it is right now, or as it has been in the past, and [to] continue to repeat that, because it’s more efficient,” says AI and robotics expert Professor Kristen Thomasen of UBC.

While the future of AI in the legal field and its ethical implications remain ambiguous, many legal and AI experts, including Professor Thomasen and Justice Masuhara, have weighed in, expressing their beliefs that an AI system could never “truly replace the work of a lawyer,” and that “generative AI is still no substitute for the professional expertise that the justice system requires of lawyers.”

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Soup and Science happens twice every academic year: once in the Fall term (usually late September), and once in the Winter term (usually January or February). Every day over the course of a week, five speakers — typically four professors and one undergraduate student from the Faculty of Science — give an overview of the aims and importance of their research work.

The talks, each lasting around five minutes, aim to provide brief but complete introductions of the speakers’ research to both current and prospective McGill students. They offer undergraduates an opportunity to interact directly with professors outside of class. Topics of the 37th Soup and Science talks ranged from evolutionary microbiology to bot detection, from drug synthesis and the development of quantum materials.

Following the lectures, audience members are challenged to a pop quiz on the topic of each presentation. Correct answers win the respondent a free “Faculty of Science” T-shirt. Afterward, soup is served for lunch — hence the “soup” in  Soup and Science — where students have the chance to mingle with the faculty, share their questions and discuss their interests. These discussions frequently end with offers for academic term or summer research projects.

Soup and Science was designed as a unique opportunity for students to meet their professors outside of the lecture hall. Science undergraduate programs often involve the successful completion of research projects, which take place either over the summer or during the academic term. For a first-time student researcher, searching for these positions can be daunting. This is where Soup and Science comes into play, with the aim to streamline this process by bringing professors and students together in a casual setting with more space for one-on-one conversations.

Rees Kassen, Professor of Evolutionary Biology and director of the Trottier Institute of Science and Public Policy, highlights the importance of promoting student-professor collaboration. He notes: “It’s hard for professors, in a lecture hall of 200 to 300 people, to interact with students. In my own research, I try to find ways to engage as many as possible. I hope to share my passion and get as many people as interested as possible.”

For newer students, Soup and Science also offers a window into the nature of research beyond the scope of their classes. Unlike cut-and-dry course content, real scientific investigations can be long and gritty, often requiring years of effort and a consistent process of trial and error to yield fruit.

“It’s really valuable for students to come and learn about science in a setting that is informal and welcoming,” says Grace Parish, an undergraduate researcher working at the Nguyen Lab in McGill’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology. She observes how “presentations are short, engaging, and accessible, helping students figure out what they might be interested in without getting them bogged down in the details.”

Contrary to departmental seminars which tend to involve faculty members and graduate students in specific fields of research, Soup and Science talks are geared toward introducing research to an audience with little to no expected background. The relatively relaxed tone of the event serves to spark the curiosity of students and faculty alike, engaging them in a way where they feel more free to learn.

“These presentations really show the different things people do across the Faculty of Science,” says John Stix, Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Associate Dean of Research at McGill. He notes that while students are the main audience, the event is also of value to McGill professors as well. “[Researchers] tend to pigeonhole ourselves in our own fields, and we don’t know what people do across disciplines.”

Stix highlights the interdisciplinary benefits of Soup and Science in its ability to bring people from largely disparate fields, like geography and chemistry, together in the same room. For himself and many other professors, Soup and Science lectures also offer new perspectives on their own work in relation to other fields they are not necessarily familiar with. “Over time, people often find connections — an instrument, a computer program — between fields. The goal of Soup and Science is for both students and professors to get exposure to see the amazing work being done here at McGill.”

To learn more about Soup and Science, you can visit their website at www.mcgill.ca/science/research/undergraduate-research/soupscience, as well as view a selection of past talks on the McGill Science and McGill University YouTube channels.

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From January 19 to 21, the Canadian Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CCUWiP) saw Canadian physics undergraduates grace the halls of McGill University and the Université de Montreal (UdeM). Over 100 delegates from underrepresented groups congregated to celebrate their accomplishments in physics and discuss an inclusive and fairer future for science.

Over three days, delegates partook in career panels, a grad school fair, and research project presentations – the usual fare at academic conferences. Student conferences have long served as meeting points for aspiring undergraduates to showcase their research and meet peers from other institutions. However, CCUWiP also served a third purpose: for delegates to share their experiences as coming from underrepresented groups in a traditionally white, Western, and male-dominated field. This shone through in the stories attendees brought to the table: tales from the many walks of life travelled by undergraduate participants.

CUWiP began in the US to “help undergraduate women continue in physics by providing them with an opportunity to experience a professional conference.” Organized by the American Physical Society and first hosted by the University of South California in 2008, they provided a unique venue for female undergraduate students in physics to meet other women in the field.

The first Canadian CUWiP was organized in 2014 by the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), which represents physicists across Canada. Coincidentally, this first conference was also held at McGill University by two of this year’s speakers: Dr. Brigitte Vachon, associate professor of physics at McGill; and Dr. Madison Rilling, executive director at Optonique and then-student in Joint Honours Mathematics and Physics.

This year, a decade later, physics undergraduates returned to Montreal to honour the gruelling work of undergraduate researchers and mark the progress made toward bridging the gender gap and other inequities in physics.

The Gender Divide in Physics

In physics, the gender gap is more of a gaping void. According to a 2021 analysis by Statistics Canada, women are 36.4 per cent less likely to enroll in a post-secondary STEM major than men. A 2023 report by the CAP found that women make up only 35.3 per cent of undergraduate physics majors across Canada: this figure sinks to an abysmal 22.9 per cent for doctoral students. This stands in stark contrast to other STEM fields. In chemistry, for instance, 40 per cent of students have historically been female-identifying. As a result of this gender stereotyping, many women are likely to leave or avoid entering physics careers entirely. 

“In my undergrad, there was a one-to-five girl-boy ratio in physics,” recounts McGill physics professor Bill Coish in an interview with the Daily. He notes that “the balance has improved quantifiably” though there is still progress to be made: “Conferences [like CCUWiP] are a good start. We need more outreach at an early stage […] for example, you can look at the work done by the Physics Outreach Committee at McGill.”

Early education, as Professor Coish points out, is one of the major hurdles to achieving gender parity in physics and other STEM fields. Gender discrimination in the education system represents a key factor in this imbalance. A 2020 study published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology found that “Boys are more likely than girls to say that their own gender group ‘should’ be good at STEM.’’ Self-reinforcement of gender stereotypes throughout childhood, along with long-existing cultural and socioeconomic barriers against women, have long contributed to the gaping gender disparity in STEM fields.

This discrimination continues into the professional realm. Day two of CCUWiP saw astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell share her experiences as one of the first female graduate students in astronomy at the University of Cambridge. While working toward her PhD at Cambridge, Burnell discovered a series of periodic, localized blips from radio telescope data – signals she and her team would later identify as pulsars, a type of rapidly-spinning neutron stars. Despite her critical contributions, she was denied the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of pulsars, which was instead awarded to her supervisor, Anthony Hewish, and his colleague Martin Ryle.

Gender-based discrimination is systemic in physics, and has persisted before and since Burnell’s time as a graduate student. A cross-cultural study, published in Nature in 2020, showed that women communicating in STEM were frequently characterized as “bitchy,” “bossy,” and “emotional” by correspondents. These biases, the researchers concluded, indicate that women in STEM find themselves “in a more vulnerable position when communicating publicly about their work, which could have implications for them participating fully in their careers.” This research suggests that a deep, cultural restructuring of gender attitudes in academia is necessary in order to eliminate the gender gap in STEM.

For Ivanna Boras, an engineering physics major at Queens University, such attitudes are the daily reality of women in her department. “Our voices tend to be ignored,” she says. “As a result, we try to band together. Luckily, it’s gotten better during upper years.”

Vanessa Smith, Vice President of the Dalhousie Undergraduate Physics Council, says that at Dalhousie, “the undergraduate physics body has a 50-50 split, but there’s only one [fully tenured] female professor in the Department of Physics.” For her, this highlights the need for continued and sustained progress toward gender equality in physics.

A Safe Space to Share

For delegates, CCUWiP represents an open, non-judgmental space for them to voice their experiences with discrimination in physics, gendered or otherwise. It also provides a perfect venue to exchange ideas and stories – not just academic ideas, but also personal anecdotes of their journeys through the realm of physics.

Between keynotes and workshops, days two and three of CCUWiP also saw the much-anticipated oral and poster presentations. The poster presentations were laid out in a science fair-esque manner, with delegates free to move between posters and discuss each other’s work in an informal setting. Student research took centre stage, with the projects exhibited ranging from topics like improving wildfire prediction and the acoustics of the human ear, to exploring the exoplanets orbiting distant stars. Alongside research work, initiatives in science outreach and education were also featured, as well as projects geared toward equity, diversity and inclusion.

During coffee breaks, delegates had the chance to share personal stories in physics. Michaela Hishon, from the University of Guelph, reminisces: “What sparked [my passion] was the mentors I had growing up. My high school teacher majored in geophysics: she encouraged and inspired me to pursue my current work in medical physics and outreach.”

For some, CCUWiP was a chance to speak out about issues they cared about. Raina Irons, from the University of Toronto, Mississauga, took time to highlight the importance of “creating opportunities and funding for Indigenous students interested in physics and astronomy.” She notes how socioeconomic hurdles are especially high for aspiring Indigenous students in STEM.

Undergraduates also had the chance to learn about lesser-known, yet equally crucial, careers in physics. One keynote saw Dr. Rilling speak about her work in science policy: a field which aims to bring the interests of scientists to political stakeholders and achieve support for science on a governmental level.

To many, CCUWiP stands out from other conferences in the way it promotes collaboration over competitiveness. “CCUWiP fosters a sense of community,” says Leslie Moranta, a PhD student at the Institut Trottier de recherche sur les exoplanètes at UdeM. “Being a woman in STEM can often feel isolating, and CCUWiP is a place for us to share our stories.”

For many underrepresented groups, conferences like CCUWiP are a unique chance to meet like-minded peers, share their experiences and accomplishments, and open the next page to a new, more inclusive chapter in physics.

CCUWiP 2024 was organized by Audréanne Matte-Landry, Joël de Leon Mayeu, and Pénélope Glasman from Université de Montreal; and Olivia Pereira, Simone Têtu, Sloane Sirota, and Ruby Wei from McGill University.

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