Heath was invited to speak on CTV’s Your Morning (a national morning show in Canada) and CTV News to speak about recent sightings of Asian Giant Hornets in Canada and the USA. Heath took the opportunity to talk about how we don’t need to be afraid of these invaders, but do need to put in the work to identify where they are and where they might spread.
MacMillan Lab undergrads Sarah Chalmer, Alexandra Cheslock, Dawson Livingston, and Marshal Ritchie have all finished a productive year in the lab and are now moving on to bigger and better opportunities. All four adapted as best they could to a sudden end to lab work in March and presented their final posters to the lab via Zoom. All four produced publication-quality data and are working on producing first-author manuscripts from their theses. Congrats!
Congratulations to Erica O’Neill, who has been awarded an NSERC USRA for this summer to study trade-offs between basal and inducible cold tolerance in Drosophila and the repeatability of cold tolerance metrics. Erica plans to stay in the lab to complete this work as an honours student in the fall. Way to go Erica!
Congratulations to Mads Andersen, who secured a second year of funding to stay in the MacMillan Lab to work on bug brains. Congrats Mads!
Heath MacMillan has published an invited commentary on the importance of developing a solid cause-and-effect understanding of what sets thermal limits in animals. Read the commentary here.
The MacMillan Lab is happy to welcome Matt Muzzatti. Matt recently completed his MSc at the University of Guelph with Rebecca Hallett on swede midge, but has a big interest in edible insects. Matt is starting a PhD journey, co-supervised by Heath and Sue Bertram to find new ways to raise edible insects to maximize growth rates and animal welfare. Welcome Matt!
