The largest and most destructive earthquakes on the planet happen in places where two tectonic plates collide. In our new research, published today in Nature Communications, we have produced new models of where and how rocks melt in these collision zones in the deep Earth.

This improved knowledge about the distribution of melted rock will help us to understand where to expect destructive earthquakes to occur.

What causes earthquakes?

Giant earthquakes, such as the magnitude-9.0 quake… (Full Story)

A transcript of episode 4 of The Conversation Weekly podcast. Including a story on how scientists are speeding up the hunt for dark matter. (Full Story)

                The pandemic management has been a challenge for Canadians. COVID 19 hit hard the province of Quebec led by the CAQ political party. Unfortunately, The Legault government poorly performed during the first wave of the novel coronavirus. Premier Legault was over confident about his government response to COVID 19. He ignored warnings from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the novel coronavirus was spread mainly through aerosols instead of being transmitted by touching objects and surfaces. The CAQ did not have any effective strategy to fight the newly discovered pathogen Besides, the CAQ government failed to adapt social and economic activities to the new normal because humankind could have to live with the new pathogen for several months in 2021 and early 2022. For instance, the restaurant industry has been hit very hard by the pandemic because the Province decided to shut them down. However, health officials could have allowed outdoor terraces like in some other places in North America. In sum, there was a lack of creativity and adaptation by health officials. They preferred closing everything regardless of the social and economic outcomes. In short, the lockdowns could not stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Nowadays, there are arbitrary decisions about the pandemic management with little impacts on the spread of the pathogen. (Full Story)

Many countries are looking to the COVID-19 vaccines with the hope of overcoming the pandemic and beginning economic recovery. While the drug companies in the West operate as independent for-profit businesses, in China the government directs the research and development efforts of both state and privately owned companies, and uses them as a tool in its policy through official visits in the international theater, cooperation agreements, commitments to supply vaccines, and the provision of loans and other financial assistance. (Full Story)

Valentine’s Day rituals often begin in the classroom, where the holiday serves both as an enjoyable arts and crafts activity and as a pedagogical tool, teaching children about structuring love and friendship into a concrete, prescribed form. The ritualization of love continues throughout our lives, not only on Valentine’s Day, but through weddings, anniversaries, and Mother’s and Father’s Day. (Full Story)

A national coalition today wrote to Foreign Minister Marc Garneau pleading for Canada to act urgently for the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities now under direct threat from the military following the coup d'état in Myanmar, and to renew the Canadian funding for the Rohingya set to expire this March. (Full Story)

By Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE)

Dr. Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), underscores the role of antisemitic concepts and rhetoric in the ideology and activities of major far-right groups in the United States, just after extreme right-wing groups, stormed Capitol Hill the day Congress certified Joe Biden as President-Elect. Dr. Beirich outlines the theoretical and organizational evolution of antisemitism amid the ranks of America's right-wing extremists. (Full Story)

While the world is at war with a deadly, infectious strain of SARS-CoV-2, a more overt, insidious virus has gone largely unaddressed by the world community. That virus is anti-Semitism.  

Two days have passed since the vandalization and attempted arson of the Shaa’r Shamayim Congregation in Montreal, yet not a word of reassurance, comfort or sympathy was said to the Jewish community. 

 It is with great dismay and utter horror as I,  a Jewish woman in a so-called progressive, multicultural Canada, witnesses as our non-Jewish government leaders, NGOs, and citizens fail once again to acknowledge the violent re-emergence of the old, but omnipresent virus of anti-Semitism.  (Full Story)

By Noa Shusterman, Research Assistant and Israel-Palestinian Research Program Coordinator

Nickolay Mladenov served as UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process for nearly six years and earned the trust of Israel and the Palestinians alike – an achievement not reached by many before him. How was he able to do this, and what challenges face his successor? (Full Story)

By Shlomo Brom and Shimon Stein

Beyond the political issues surrounding the assassination of the “father of the Iranian bomb,” there are also questions regarding the action’s necessity and value. Will it slow down Iran’s nuclear program to a significant degree? Was it worth the angry reactions throughout the world and the revenge that is expected from the Islamic Republic? Consider these questions from a “less popular” perspective (Full Story)

Every year for several weeks before November 11, a field of scarlet poppies appears on coat lapels across Canada. This wearing of the poppy has a complex history ... (Full Story)

During the last fifteen years, Tolerance.ca organized several panel discussions.  To mark International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Tolerance.ca® organized two panel discussions on religious diversity featuring several distinguished panellists. The first meeting was held at Vanier College. The second, on which a report follows, was held at the Maison des écrivains under the theme “Education, Religion and Diversity: Enrichment or Source of Conflict?” (Full Story)

As part of a series of articles on major personalities who have furthered the cause of tolerance in Canada, Tolerance.ca® presents the world-renowned Montreal philosopher Charles Taylor, 2007 winner of the prestigious Templeton Prize. Mr Taylor co-chairs the Québec Commission on reasonable accommodations created by the Charest government in February 2007. (Full Story)

By Udi Dekel and Noa Shusterman

The Abraham Accords will ostensibly serve to inspire peace and normalization agreements between Israel and additional Arab states. Indeed? Which issues are included in the agreement, and why? Why did the UAE and Bahrain decide to establish official relations at this time? What are the implications for the Palestinian arena? And what new challenges are likely to emerge? Insights from a discussion of experts held following the festive signing ceremony at the White House (Full Story)

On the morning of September 4, 2020, Ms. Surnaa, a Mongolian employee of the Alshaa Left Banner Chinese Communist Party Committee in western Southern Mongolia, jumped from her residential building to her death in protest of the Chinese authorities’ new language policy called the “second generation bilingual education”. (Full Story)

Is Diversity about empowering people who have been victims of exclusion or an expression of resentment? Resentment, argues McGill University professor Marc Angenot in his  most recent Senior College Lecture, inspires defeatist behavior by pretending  to march towards the future, to avenge the real or mythical wrongs undergone in the past. (Full Story)