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“Good bacteria” in breast milk changes over time
Scientists discover complex and dynamic bacterial ecosystem in human breast milk using genomic technology pioneered for the International Space Station
The cocktail of beneficial bacteria passed from mother to infant through breast milk changes significantly over time and could act like a daily booster shot for infant immunity and metabolism. The research, conducted by scientists from Montreal and Guatemala and published in Frontiers in Microbiology, has important implications for infant development and health.
Researchers discovered a range of microbiome species never before identified in human milk. Until now, relatively little was known about the role microbiome bacteria play in breast milk. These bacteria are thought to protect the infant gastrointestinal tract and improve aspects of long-term health, such as allergy prevention.
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IMAGE: Four different ways that local changes combine to result in global outcomes: aggregation, compensation, learning, and contagion view more
Credit: McGill University
In a world as diverse as our own, the journey towards a sustainable future will look different depending on where in the world we live, according to a recent paper published in
One Earth and led by McGill University, with researchers from the Stockholm Resilience Centre. There are many regional pathways to a more sustainable future, but our lack of understanding about how these complex and sometimes contradictory pathways interact (and in particular when they synergize or compete with one another) limits our ability to choose the best ones, says Elena Bennett, a professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University and the lead author on the paper. For this reason, we suggest that the global community needs to envision a diversity of desirable futures, nurture
Crocodile evolution rebooted by Ice Age glaciations
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Researchers discover impacts of Ice Age sea level changes in the genomes of Caribbean and Pacific crocodiles in Panama
Published: 16Feb2021
Image by José Avila-Cervantes.
Crocodiles are resilient animals from a lineage that has survived for over 200 million years. Skilled swimmers, crocodiles can travel long distances and live in freshwater or marine environments. But they can’t roam far on land. American crocodiles (
Crocodylus acutus) are found in the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of the Neotropics but they arrived in the Pacific before Panama existed, according to researchers from McGill University.
Over 3 million years ago, the formation of the Isthmus of Panama altered global ocean circulation, connecting North and South America and establishing the Caribbean Sea. This resulted in widespread mixing of species on the continent and separation in the seas. On land, mammals from North America such as ma
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Happiness really does come for free
People in societies where money plays a minimal role can have very high levels of happiness
Economic growth is often prescribed as a sure way of increasing the well-being of people in low-income countries, but a study led by McGill and the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technologies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) suggests that there may be good reason to question this assumption. The researchers set out to find out how people rate their subjective well-being in societies where money plays a minimal role, and which are not usually included in global happiness surveys. They found that the majority of people reported remarkably high levels of happiness. This was especially true in the communities with the lowest levels of monetization, where citizens reported a degree of happiness comparable to that found in Scandinavian countries which typically rate highest in the world. The results suggest that high level