Yessiree, each December and January I gobble up the various "The Year that Was" reviews with the kind of gluttonous passion that Homer Simpson might display at an "all you can eat" buffet. Entertainment Weekly's "Entertainers of the Year," Discover's "The Year in Science," Time's "Man of the Year," Esquire's "Dubious Achievements of the Year" -- bring them on. I'll read them all.

Which got me to thinking: Could I do some sort of year-end review for McGill? Since I toil in a public relations department and I'm a news junkie by nature, I hit upon a plan soon enough -- to find out which McGill researchers received the most media attention in 1998.

I spent a day in the McLennan Library, searching through various electronic databases storing media stories (Lexis-Nexis, Canadian Newsdisc and Actualité Québec). The following afternoon was spent searching through almost two dozen media web sites to pick up stories I might have missed the day before.

Before I give you the results, let me give you a better sense of how I went about putting this list together. I used "McGill University" as my keywords for all my searches, so it's possible I missed several stories about McGill researchers that didn't mention the name of the University in them.

In assembling the list, I only counted news stories that dealt with professors' research projects -- a professor being interviewed about something topical wasn't good enough.

For instance, Professor Margaret Somerville, from the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, might well have been the University's most mentioned professor last year. But much of the time, the media sought out her off the cuff opinion on issues related to her general expertise -- not to specific areas of research that she has been involved in.

Last year, she was interviewed on topics ranging from the culpability of German corporations during the Holocaust to the ethics involved in drug companies' ad campaigns. For my purposes, that stuff didn't count. Still, Somerville did make my list of McGill's top 10 research stories for 1998. As a scholar, after a period of study and reflection, she put forward a carefully crafted position on male circumcision, which received a fair amount of media attention. As far as I'm concerned, that counts.

Likewise, Desmond Morton, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, was often interviewed by the press about the recent Quebec election. Morton was well placed to offer an interesting analysis, but it wasn't the focus of his scholarly attention -- as far as I know, he doesn't plan to publish anything about it. Doesn't count.

On the other hand, another major story during 1998 -- the repercussions of President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky -- did tie in directly with history professor Gil Troy's research into the way in which Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage has affected the U.S. presidency. As a result, Troy was interviewed often and I include him in my listing.

The following doesn't pretend to be in any way a scientific or comprehensive compilation. I'm sure plenty of news stories eluded me -- the tools I used tended to focus on North American and print-based media, for instance. Still, I hope you'll find the exercise interesting.

	1. Oncology and medicine professor Michael Pollak's research into prostate cancer was the top McGill research story of 1998, garnering the attention of 40 media including The New York Times, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times. Pollak led an effort that discovered that men with high levels of insulin growth factor-I (IGF-I) are four-and-a-half times more likely to develop prostate cancer than men with lower levels of this hormone.
	2. Ann Blood, a graduate student at the Montreal Neurological Institute, comes in second for her research on how different types of music seem to affect different parts of the brain. Together with her supervisor, neuropsychology professor Robert Zatorre, Blood used PET scans to map brain activity in research subjects while having them listen to various forms of music. This story was covered by 29 media, including The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News and The Boston Globe.
	3. Biology professor Amanda Vincent places third for her work on seahorses. Widely regarded as the world's top authority on the tiny, graceful creatures, Vincent has done much to further our knowledge of how they go about their lives. She also leads an international effort aimed at protecting them from extinction.The world trade in seahorses, widely used in Chinese medicine, is estimated at more than 20 million fish a year. Vincent's work was covered in stories in 24 media, including CBC Radio's This Morning, Newsweek and The Globe and Mail.
	4. Educational and counselling psychology professor Jeffrey Derevensky heads a research project that examines how increasing numbers of young people are getting hooked on gambling -- especially video lottery terminals. His research was mentioned in 18 media last year, including CTV National News, The Chicago Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
	5. History professor Gil Troy was a man much in demand. In 1996, Troy published a book called Affairs of State that dealt with White House marriages. Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage -- and how they worked together to overcome bad press about Bill's adulterous behaviour in the past -- was one of the items covered. Then along came Monica Lewinsky. "The phone has been ringing off the hook," Troy told the McGill Tribune. "It's like being in the position of someone who wrote a book about O.J. Simpson's violent tendencies a year before Nicole Brown was murdered." Troy appeared in 17 media including NBC's Today Show, CTV's Canada AM and The Washington Post.
	6. Psychiatry professor Sonia Lupien established a link between stress and memory loss in seniors. Specifically, Lupien noted that high and sustained cortisol levels (a hormone produced in the body in response to stress) atrophy the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory. Her work caught the attention of 16 media, including NBC Nightly News, CTV National News and Psychology Today.
	7. Robert Zatorre is the only researcher who appears twice on this list. Zatorre examined perfect pitch -- the rare ability enjoyed by a precious few to name all the individual notes in a piece of music. He used PET scans to identify the parts of the brain that seem to be connected to perfect pitch. His research attracted the interest of 15 media in 1998, including Newsday, Psychology Today and The Daily Telegraph.
	8. When Margaret Somerville decided to take a public stand against male circumcision, she knew some of the reaction would be heated. She was right -- her call against the practice on the grounds that it was medically unnecessary and ethically unsound earned her dozens of angry letters and phone calls, as well as a human rights award. It also attracted the attention of the media -- 14 covered her position, including The Gazette, Men's Health magazine and The Independent.
	9. Psychology professor Maggie Bruck's research is also often controversial -- Bruck is one of North America's top experts on the credibility of children's testimony in court cases. This expertise has resulted in Bruck herself testifying in some of the most celebrated child sexual abuse cases in the U.S. Her work was featured in stories that appeared in 12 media last year, including CBS News's 48 Hours, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.
	10. Psychiatry, neurology and neurosurgery professor Patricia Boksa and graduate student Bassem El-Khodor earned the attention of 10 different media for a study that pointed to a possible connection between Caesarean sections and a predisposition to schizophrenia. Using rats, the McGill researchers found marked increases in dopamine levels and erratic behaviour among rats born from C-sections. Researchers have long suspected a link between schizophrenia and an overactive dopamine system. The study was covered by The New Scientist, The Daily Telegraph and Le Devoir, among others.

Which story about McGill as an institution captured the most media attention? The answer requires a bit of explanation.

In 1997, the Recruitment and Liaison Office and the University Relations Office started collaborating with an American public relations firm called KSV. The goal was to pitch a story to major U.S. media about how Canadian universities in general -- and McGill in particular -- offered excellent educational programs at relatively cheap prices. With fewer potential students available in Montreal's declining anglophone community, the University is stepping up its efforts to recruit American students -- the partnership with KSV is part of that effort. So how has the project gone? Awfully well. KSV interested several U.S. media in the story in 1998, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and The Chicago Tribune.

The second biggest story related to the Montreal Alouettes playing the football season in McGill's Molson Stadium. A win-win deal, the Als attracted the largest and most enthusiastic crowds in years, while the University received some much needed repairs to the stadium.

As usual, dozens of McGill graduates earned plenty of media attention in the past year. Among the alumni mentioned the most (at least in terms of their connection to the University): John Cleghorn, the Royal Bank CEO who led his company to huge profits, but couldn't convince Canadians of the wisdom of bank mergers; Dave Williams, Canada's most recent astronaut; Steven Pinker, the MIT neuroscientist who wrote the best-selling The Language Instinct; Philip Currie, an archaeologist who discovered two new species of dinosaur; David Levine, the one-time Parti Québecois candidate and controversial new head of Ottawa Hospital; and Dr. Bob Arnot, the NBC News correspondent who wrote a best-selling book about a diet that could help women avoid breast cancer -- the book has come under fire for being medically misleading.

Two of the year's most celebrated former McGill students are both dropouts.

Musician Rufus Wainwright was named as Rolling Stone's best new artist and his album made the CDs of the year lists of both Spin and Entertainment Weekly. Wainwright told reporters that he left behind his classical music studies at McGill because "with rock 'n' roll, the grungier side of things, there were a lot more cute boys, and there was a lot more opportunity for me to express my personality, as opposed to my musical prowess."

Actor Evan Adams drew widespread praise for his role in the film Smoke Signals. While studying biochemistry at McGill, Adams ran into a casting agent who asked him if he was an actor. Despite having no acting experience, Adams replied positively, launching himself into an accidental career. "To this day, I'll never know why I lied, but I did," Adams told The Calgary Sun.