A study by Concordia researchers at the Next Generation Cities Institute and the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre found that in Montreal, both the amount and layout of green spaces strongly affect how much neighborhoods cool down during the summer — areas with more trees and larger, connected patches of vegetation are significantly cooler. However, neighborhoods with lower incomes, more visible minorities, and fewer university-educated residents have less access to these cooling benefits, highlighting a clear inequity in how urban greening mitigates heat across the city

A research team from the Cognitive Neurotechnology Unit and the Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory at Toyohashi University of Technology has found that approach–avoidance behavior in a virtual reality (VR) environment modulates how individuals recognize facial expressions. Notably, the study demonstrated that participants were more likely to perceive a facial expression as “angry” when they actively moved away from the face stimulus than when the face moved away from them. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the reciprocal relationship between perception and action in social contexts. The study was published online on July 31, 2025, in the International Journal of Affective Engineering. https://doi.org/10.5057/ijae.IJAE-D-24-00049

A trailblazing Genomic Press interview with Dr. Bruce M. Cohen explores how cutting-edge brain cell technology is providing revolutionary new information on the biological origins of psychiatric disorders. Among these findings, the Harvard professor discusses discoveries on mitochondrial dysfunction that are opening novel therapeutic pathways for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Alzheimer disease. In addition, his advocacy for evidence-based diagnostic models challenges century-old psychiatric frameworks, proposing specific dimensional approaches that better capture the complexities of causes, presentations, and outcomes of mental illnesses.