MCGILL WEB GEMS

Your brain is out there

By Mark Shainblum

Join us as we unearth the hidden gems and secret places on the websites of McGill University and its affiliated institutions.

The McGill University Graduate Program in Exopolitics
www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/exofile/exopol.html

A website from the future coming at you through the past.

From the past, because this circa-1999 site—co-created by McGill political science professor Rex Brynen—is a classic example of late-90's web-chic. Lots of bulleted lists with big, glossy 3D bullets. Lots of X-Files jokes. Dead links to Top Websites and the Internet Link Exchange (remember them?)

And, from the future, because it outlines a McGill graduate program in a field that doesn't exist, at least not yet. To quote: "With the discovery of sentient non-human species elsewhere in our galaxy, the field of exopolitics has become one of the newest and most important areas of comparative political enquiry. With its lovely downtown campus boldly located at the cusp of multiple dimensions of the universe, suspended outside the normal parameters of the time-space continuum, and chock full of subspace anomalies of all sorts, McGill represents the last, best hope for studies of this sort." Program requirements include "at least one non-human language," and courses include "Comparative Sentience," "Vulcan and Romulan Politics," "Politics of the Old Republic," and "Comparative Omnipotence."

The Brain from Top to Bottom
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca

And switching from science fiction to real science that only looks like science fiction, this award-winning website takes you on a slick, multimedia tour of the human brain. Originally developed by neuroscientist Bruno Dubuc and a team at the McGill-affiliated Douglas Institute, "The Brain from Top to Bottom" lets you tiptoe through your neurons in multiple ways: By topic, by level of explanation, by level of organization, by module and by guided tour. It's great fun and painlessly educational, in the best sense of the word.