Your toddler on tv. Alternative energy. Anti-smoking aid. Human book. Montreal Signs Project. Your brain on your ex. Bus shelter redesign.

The scholarly work of Concordia faculty and researchers informs and improves society on many issues that affect our daily lives. Visit the Research section to read news stories involving research at Concordia, or read the most recent items here:   

• Lien Multimédia picks up news of a study co-authored by Caroline Fitzpatrick, affiliate researcher at Concordia's PERFORM Centre, that describes how watching more than two hours a day of television can hamper school readiness skills in kindergartners, notably among poorer families. Fitzpatrick worked with researchers at New York University. The findings were published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. 
• Concordia's multidisciplinary Centre for Applied Synthetic Biology is featured in a piece in the Montreal Gazette e-edition focusing on the centre's work on new sources of alternative energy. The article includes quotes from Steve Shih, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pragasen Pillay, professor in the same department, and Adrian Tsang, biology professor in the Facultry of Arts and Science and director of Concordia's Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics. A video accompanying the story details Professor Pillay’s work on motors for electric vehicles.
• Nadia Chaudhri, associate professor of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Science is interviewed for Radio Canada International about new Concordia research centered on the anti-smoking drug 'Champix'. The study, led by Chaudhri and published in Neuropsychopharmacology, describes how 'Champix' may be used to fight alcoholism by helping recovering alcoholics resist environmental and other  alcohol-consumption triggers.
• The Montreal Gazette (reprised by Canada.com) writes about the "human book" experience, currently being offered in the main hall of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), in collaboration with Concordia. The university recruited students hailing from other countries to sit face to face with "borrowers" at the BAnQ for a dialogue about their life experience as new arrivals to Montreal. Concordia journalism student and human book, "Solène", is quoted and appears in a video accompanying the online version of the article. The human book sessions take place every Thursday, from noon to three-thirty, through the end of March.
• Canada.com reprises a piece from last Tuesday Montreal Gazette that describes the part played by Concordia's Montreal Signs Project in the restoration and display of an iconic sign, familiar to many in the NDG area of Montreal: the Elmhurst Dairy cow heads, which can now be seen on a wall at Parmalat Canada's dairy plant in NDG. Matt Soar, associate professor of Communication Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Science and director of the Signs Project, was quoted. 
• Jim Pfaus, professor of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Science, is quoted in a Discover article about what happens in the brain when a person reconnects with a former romantic interest. 
• Wtoutiao (in Chinese) picks up news of a competition to create new designs for bus shelters in the Mercier – Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough. The competition is co-organized by the Concordia University Research Chair in Integrated Design, Ecology, And Sustainability (IDEAS) for the Built Environment, held by Carmela Cucuzzella, associate professor in the Department of Design and Computation Arts.

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