McGill Headliners

From love darts to mea culpas

Not your average Hallmark moment

Nothing says "I love you" quite like skewering your partner's head with a slime-covered dart - at least if you're a snail. According to a recent discovery by biology professor Ronald Chase and grad student Katrina Blanchard, the snail's ritual of lancing potential paramours with gooey projectiles prior to copulation increases the chance of conception two-fold. The New Scientist stole our thunder by drawing parallels to Cupid and his arrows, while we at the Reporter were left to wonder if instead of Barry White to smooth the mood, randy snails slip a little "Love Hurts" by Nazareth onto the turntable.

Having a gay old time? Not necessarily

After suffering prejudice and stigmatization most of their lives, you'd figure gay and lesbian seniors would have earned a little respite in their golden years. Not so, say Shari Brotman and Bill Ryan, both professors in the School of Social Work, who caused quite the ruckus with the release of their study showing how these elders are frequently discriminated against by healthcare and social service workers - the very people who are supposed to be their champions. Findings from the four-year study were broadcast in both official languages on a variety of TV and radio newscasts and splashed across the pages of some of the country's major newspapers including the Globe and Mail, the Montreal Gazette, Le Devoir, La Presse and Le Soleil.

Coral combats cancer

Can nature do what science cannot? Absolutely, or so suggests research recently carried out by biochemistry professor Jerry Pelletier and his team on a compound isolated from Isis hippuris, a coral harvested off the Okinawa coast. As recently reported on ScientificAmerican.com, Pelletier's work demonstrates that the compound has the ability to slow down, and possibly prevent altogether virus replication - the process by which some cancers spread so quickly. Ironically, antibiotics and other modern medicines do not work on viruses.

McGill in da House... redux

It takes a person of strong character to admit a mistake, which is why I'm pointing a finger at someone else for this cock-up. In my last column, I had mentioned how McGill merchandise would be sported by the Dr. Wilson character in the March 28 and April 4 installments of House. Well, the first of these episodes aired and, much to the chagrin of McGillians the world over, during the scene in which Dr. Wilson is sporting McGill T-shirt, he had a blanket pulled up over his chest. Ah, the cruel world of television, in which the best performances end up on the cutting room floor. Stay tuned to see if our merch will finally get its big network break next week.

Neale McDevitt