Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2010-2011 Congratulations to our 2010 Prix du Québec RESEARCH, DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY laureates Mark A. Wainberg Winner of the Prix Wilder-Penfi eld Reasons in biomedical research 11 One of Canada’s fi rst HIV-AIDS Why researchers, Mark Wainberg is a professor McGill in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and director of the McGill Researchers AIDS Centre. As a researcher, he helped identify the antiviral properties of 3TC. As a passionate advocate, he works Care toward universal access to the latest About life-changing medical advances. theArctic Nancy J. Adler (And Winner of the Prix Léon-Gérin Why You in social sciences and humanities Researcher. Leader. Painter. Nancy Adler is Should, Too) a professor in the Desautels Faculty of Management and the S. Bronfman Chair in Management. Her work in cross-cultural management and global leadership is world renowned, and her research and collaborations have made a signifi cant impact in how management is both practiced and taught. McGill University has earned an international reputation for excellent training and research in many disciplines. Our researchers are part of a remarkable community that is creating knowledge and improving society’s well-being, in Quebec, across Canada and around the world. outstanding proud Making Headway McGILL RESEARCH FACTS thinkers university 13 1 ➥ In 2010, their nationwide peer group elected 13 McGill professors as Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada. Representing the cream of teaching and research, McGill’s 13 embody excellence across the sciences, arts and humanities. ➥ Turning Point 1889 Colin Chapman Russell Davidson Diane Desrosiers-Bonin Siegfried Hekimi Barbara Jones anthropology economics literature molecular biology and medical sciences genetics Tho Le-Ngoc Michel Loreau Alain Pinsonneault Christine Ross Rima Rozen engineering animal and plant biology management art history medical sciences As members of Canada’s national academy, Royal Society Fellows bring their expertise to matters of national interest and promote Canadian culture on the international stage. McGill University is enormously proud of the 13 new Fellows and their distinguished achievements. It is Mark Sutton Lydia White Robin Yates through the continued support of physics linguistics history the Government of Canada, the Government of Quebec and our loyal supporters that such exceptional scholars are able to create the new knowledge and innovations that enrich our society. Winter 2010-2011 MEET MCGILL’S NEW VICE-PRINCIPAL headway (RESEARCH AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS) Research, discovery and innovation INTERVIEW WITH DR. ROSE GOLDSTEIN at McGill University ON PAGE 24 Volume 5, Number 2 Volume Headway (ISSN 1911-8112) 2 WORKSPACE is published twice a year From true crime tabloids to fi lm noir, Will Straw is drawn toward by the Vice-Principal (Research the dark side of urban life. and International Relations) and the Offi ce of Public Aff airs NEWS McGill University 3 The latest breakthroughs, awards and research developments. Editor IN FOCUS James Martin 8 Grave Hunters Editorial Assistant How a collaboration between geography and anthropology researchers — Jennifer Campbell and a new technology—is helping to speed the search for lost remains. Consulting Editors Susan Murley 10 Ancient Secrets Jennifer Towell A rare medieval pharmacology manuscript is attracting scholars from Graphic Designer around the world. Carmen Jensen COVER STORY Special thanks to Laurie Devine 12 Eleven Reasons Why McGill Jane Jackel Correspondence Researchers Care About the Arctic Headway (And Why You Should, Too) James Administration Building It’s big, it’s (o en) cold and it’s important. Learn why so many McGill researchers Room 110 are fascinated by the Arctic. 845 Sherbrooke Street West Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T5 UP CLOSE [email protected] Telephone: 514-398-7404 18 The Prepared Mind Fax: 514-398-2700 A look at the events that helped shaped Dr. Charles Scriver’s 50-plus-year career as an award-winning genetics researcher. Pour recevoir un exemplaire de cette publication en français, ACT GLOBALLY veuillez communiquer avec nous à l’adresse ci-dessus ou consulter 21 Boots on the Ground publications.mcgill.ca/entete/ McGill University has a long tradition of training excellent doctors for clinics, Publication Agreement Number ORs and ERs. Now, with the new Humanitarian Studies Initiative, it’s training 40031154 doctors for another tough world: front-lines humanitarian relief. Headway can be found online at publications.mcgill.ca/headway/ FIRST PERSON 24 Leading Globally Interview with Dr. Rose Goldstein, Vice-Principal On the cover: (Research and International Relations) Canada’s Arctic is the focus of this issue 25 of Headway. Making Headway Remembering J.J. O’Neill, pioneering Arctic enthusiast. iStock ontents c WORKSPACE RESEARCHERS IN THEIR NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS Will Straw Will Straw caught the collecting bug when he was given his fi rst regular resource for other academic researchers. (And, on occa- comic book (Strange Tales, starring super-spy Nick Fury, Agent of sion, for relatives of crime victims looking for information about S.H.I.E.L.D.) at age 12. From there he moved into pulp fi ction long-ago misdeeds.) “Th e problem with 20th-century tabloids is paperbacks, attracted by their lurid cover art, and then on to the that libraries usually didn’t collect them, so if you want to study vinyl albums, movie posters and, of course, books that fi ll his them, you have to collect them,” he says, waving at the piles of offi ce. “But you can’t collect everything,” quips the professor and newsprint surrounding his desk. “Th ey’re not necessarily all that chair of the Department of Art History and Communication expensive, but they’re rare. Nineteenth-century newspapers are Studies. “My eBay collecting has slowed down a great deal as actually easier to access, because libraries kept them. For the 20th materials have dried up.” (Still, he receives some 60 automated century, there was more an attitude of ‘Why would anyone ever be eBay search results daily.) Straw now mainly focuses on tabloids interested in the National Enquirer? Th row it away.’ ” Straw is and so-called “true crime magazines” from the 1920s to sixties, now leading the “Media and Urban Life in Montreal” research intrigued by how the publications represent a larger sense of inse- team; the scholars from McGill, Université de Montréal and curity or urgency that pervades contemporary life. “In countries Université du Québec à Montréal are studying the roles of various like Mexico, true crime is a daily reminder of insecurity and vio- artifacts — such as public art, architecture and urban-focused lence,” he says. “Crime fi ction, in contrast, tries to give a mean- periodicals —in the city’s cultural expression. ingful context — psychological, social — in a way that the brute ■ The Media and Urban Life in Montreal project is funded by an reality of dead bodies on the covers of newspapers cannot.” He FQRSC team grant. “Crime, Visuality and Print Media” was funded recently completed a multi-year study on “Crime, Visuality and by SSHRC. Print Media,” and maintains an online index of his collection Will Straw in his Arts Building office on November 17, 2010. (http://strawresearch.mcgill.ca/streetprint/) that has become a Photographed by Rachel Granofsky. “True crime periodicals flourished Bound copies of Town Topics, from about the 1920s through the a New York City society gossip 1960s,” says Straw. “Then news- magazine from the late 19th and papers, in particular, sought the early 20th centuries. “It was family and homemaker readership eventually driven out of business that didn’t want dead bodies when it was discovered that the on covers.” But the Quebec staff was blackmailing people “journaux jaunes,” such as Montreal to keep incriminating stories out Confidentiel or Allo Police, stayed of the magazine.” strong through the 1970s and lingered into the 2000s. (One title, Photo Police, remains.) The Quebec Straw has written on the informal industry’s longer life was partly economy and cultural geography due, he explains, “to the language of unwanted artifacts, such as barrier stopping the influx of vinyl albums that move from U.S.-based tabloids and magazines.” basements to yard sales to charity shops. His own collection of Straw estimates he has “a couple Québécois rock’n’roll from the hundred” vintage movie posters. sixties and seventies (like this LP This one, for the 1956 film noir by Les Aquarels), disco singles Edge of Hell, speaks to his “inter- and soundtracks numbers in the est in representations of cities hundreds — but he admits that as sinful. This idea goes back “these days, I prefer my iPod.” centuries but was particularly prevalent in the popular culture of the 1950s, fueled by political In 2009, Straw published Cyanide movements for municipal reform and Sin: Visualizing Crime in and by the turn of film industries in 50s America, a collection of images several countries towards more from magazines such as Real blatant forms of exploitation.” Detective, Crime Exposé and True Mystery. “What fascinates me is how these magazines combined “The sensational press in Mexico official photographs provided by is amazing,” says Straw, who the police — mug shots and so on — collected these nota rojas during his with wildly faked studio images regular visits to Mexico City. that used models. There was a real “There’s a real gory, sensational appetite for images that show the dimension, and not just during the danger and corruption beneath the recent drug cartel–narco battles.” surface of our cities and towns.” 2 Winter 2010-2011 NEWS THE LATEST DISCOVERIES AND INNOVATIONS Prix du Québec times two 2010 Prix du Québec winners Nancy Adler and Dr. Mark Wainberg, with the 2010 Prix du Québec medal, designed by Pierre-Yves Paquette, above them.