Ultra-Processed Foods: Processing the Facts

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the name of a drug most people had never heard of before was suddenly on everyone’s lips. An off-patent antiparasitic blessed by the World Health Organization, ...

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As is typical in many language courses, we recently started the weather unit in my Czech class. Aside from learning weather-related vocabulary, my instructor – who is always privy to a fun fact – taug...

Coffee is everywhere, and so are the debates around it. Does it stunt growth? Ruin sleep? Boost performance? There’s no shortage of caffeine discourse. But today’s topic is one worth paying attention ...

“Barbie Peptide.” Why “Barbie” and why “peptide?” Barbie, the iconic little polyvinyl chloride (PVC) doll with the bronzed skin, svelte waistline and sexy figure first appeared in toy stores in 1959. ...

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At the beginning of summer, I experienced an unfortunate reality check. While fantasizing about sunbathing in the park accompanied by an abundant summer picnic, I reveled over my famous watermelon-fet...

Have you ever spent hours at your desk, studying, working, or scrolling on your phone, only to realize you barely moved all day? We often assume that sitting is harmless, especially compared to obviou...

You’re scrolling through your Facebook feed when you encounter a link to a video that promises to reveal the true cause of something that’s been ailing you for years. You’ve been to the doctor but fee...

“Why Are Young People Getting Colon Cancer? Weed Killer May Be Linked” was the social media headline that understandably caused quite a stir given that epidemiologists have documented a recent disprop...

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0 likes, 0 comments - mcgilloss on September 5, 2026: "AI Doctors are popping up everywhere but they do not care about your health. 👩🏻‍⚕️🧑🏻‍⚕️👨🏽‍⚕️ Some predatory YouTube channels publish videos of “...

It is not often that I’m left speechless. But sometimes you run into a situation where words just fail you. Absurd, ridiculous, ludicrous, preposterous, comical, and farcical come to mind, but they st...

Science is elastic. Its findings can be stretched to sell useless gadgets and to sow mistrust. Often, this distortion of the truth is done outside of academia by merchants of doubt, spiritual influenc...

Cancer plays no favourites. It can strike the young, the old, the poor, the rich. When three-year old Lukas Walton, the grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, was diagnosed in 1989 with Wilm’s tumour...

I’ll bet that either you or someone you know carries an EpiPen. I’ll also bet that someone you know has avoided using their EpiPen despite the telltale signs of an anaphylactic reaction. I get it. As ...

Evidence for the use of fire use dates back hundreds of thousands of years. At first it was likely natural fires started by lightning that were kindled, later ignition of tinder was achieved with spar...

The woman talking into the expensive microphone says she didn’t want to do the “regular stuff,” so she met a doctor whose belief system was “outside the box.” She is sitting in a plush podcast studio,...

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This might be too much information, but this article began with me sitting on an examination table wondering whether I should ask my doctor for lidocaine for my upcoming intrauterine device (IUD) repl...

Since our office, The McGill Office for Science and Society, is dedicated to separating sense from nonsense and fact from myth, it should come as no surprise that I have a long-standing interest in co...

The man who developed a surgery to treat Alzheimer’s disease has been detained by Chinese authorities for a year and we don’t know why. According to reporting done by Elie Dolgin for Nature, there are...

Ultra-Processed Foods: Processing the Facts

Ironically, during Montreal’s total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, I was in Madrid – one of the lucky cities in the path of totality for the total solar eclipse crossing the region on August 12th. Th...

The loudest alarm blaring all over the world right now is that of climate change—but the brains of many seem to have habituated to it. Climate experts find themselves trapped in irony: they can predic...

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I am a bear. So says AI. I scroll down the lengthy report on my iPad and I smile. I am a watchful, steady guardian; a person of quiet, formidable substance; and I have a broad, square-angle jawline th...

2 likes, 0 comments - mcgilloss on August 5, 2026: "🎬 Introducing OSS Shorts with our very own Jonathan Jarry, MSc. 🧫 Just because something worked in a petri dish or in mice doesn’t mean it’ll work ...

Movie slumps are the worst. You know when you’re looking through the titles on your streaming services, but nothing sounds quite right? And as you continue to look with little success, you get increas...

While I thought I was lucky enough to escape Europe’s intense June heatwave, I was greeted by equally brutal temperatures upon my return to New York City. With temperatures exceeding 37ºC in the few d...

Praying to heal from illness is possibly the oldest form of alternative medicine. When that prayer is made to a divine being on behalf of someone else—like asking a god to heal an ailing relative—it i...

Sure, I thought, when I saw the claims on the box. “Mr. Clean Magic Eraser cleans dirt and grime like you never thought you could.” Well, I have a long-standing scientific interest in materials in the...

In early September 2020, lightning strikes turned the forests of the West Coast of the United States into matchbooks. The fires recoloured the skies and their smoke veiled the sun. When that bright di...

Spray it up your nose, or inject it under the skin, and within days your skin turns a deep, even, suspiciously permanent bronze. No sun required. TikTok calls it the “vacation peptide.” The compound i...

Inside you are three animals: a primitive crocodile, a panicky mouse, and a pragmatic human being. No, this is not related to the popular story of the two wolves fighting inside you—one good, one evil...

Have you ever noticed that during exams, deadlines, or stressful life events, a salad suddenly sounds much less appealing than a bag of chips or a chocolate bar? You're not imagining it. Chronic stres...

According to Greek mythology, Icarus tried to soar like a bird with wings he had fabricated out of feathers. Unfortunately, he plunged into the sea after the wax with which he had attached the wings m...

Are you looking for love but don’t want to explain why you’ve eliminated seed oils from your diet? The dating app Primal Match might be right for you. Made for MAHA followers, biohackers, and people w...

The origins of soccer can be traced back to 2nd century BC during the Han Dynasty, when the game cuju was played. Cuju, a sport resembling hacky sack, is cited by FIFA as the world’s first “kicking ga...

A quick online search for “resveratrol supplements” finds dozens produced by various companies. They contain anywhere from 50 to 500 mg resveratrol per capsule and sport labels that scream “source of ...

I wouldn’t consider myself one to be too artistically inclined. I am unable to draw, I am not crafty, and I certainly cannot make music. It’s not that I don’t enjoy doing crafts; I do. I just was not ...

Our story starts with “surfactants,” a term derived from “surface active agents.” These are molecules with one end being “hydrophilic”, meaning it is attracted to water, while the other “hydrophobic” ...

Inside you are three animals: a primitive crocodile, a panicky mouse, and a pragmatic human being. No, this is not related to the popular story of the two wolves fighting inside you—one good, one evil...

I was startled by the comment from the shopper just behind me at the checkout counter in the supermarket. “You really shouldn’t be doing that!” Noting the quizzical look on my face, a further clarific...

A new bill has been proposed at the National Assembly of Quebec, and while it may look like it will benefit our health, there is a lot going on under the surface. It is an excellent example of how the...

If you have a child who still wets the bed after the age of 5, and if you are a fan of crime dramas, you may be asking yourself some seriously dark questions about your kid’s future. Episodic televisi...

Easter Island in the Pacific off the coast of Chile is famous for the giant stone statues that were erected by natives some 500-700 years ago. The thinking is that the statues were designed to honour ...