Research & Ideas

Digital illustration of lockbox containing a blue face and a yellow key made up of pixels. There is a small opening on the left side of the box, with a trail of blue pixels outside the opening.

Safety First

AI has developed faster than anyone thought. Will it serve humanity’s best interests?

Digitally illustrated collage of health care professionals in white lab coats surrounded by oversized pills, glass bottles and round discs with reflections of people's heads in silhouette profile

Healing Power

Why AI could be good news for both patients and our health-care system

Digitally illustrated collage of musical instruments, mobile phone screens and miniature sized musicians playing guitars. A hand is reaching through a mobile phone screen to press a key on the keyboard.

Tuning into Tomorrow

AI can help musicians compose and create new sounds. Is it just another music-making tool – or something else?

The text

AI Everywhere

Before we know it, artificial intelligence will be all around us. Are we ready?

David Rokeby in glasses and a black T-shirt, standing in front of a screen, with multiple colours in various patterns projected on the screen

The Theatre of Tomorrow

A U of T lab is working with actors, writers and directors on how they could harness AI and other emerging technologies to generate new ideas and – just maybe – reinvent theatre

Coloured graphite drawing of a woman asleep in bed under a green and yellow leaf-patterned blanket, next to a blue alarm clock and a blue-shaded lamp.

Improving Your Shuteye

Anthropologist and sleep expert David Samson offers five useful ideas for getting a better night’s rest

Suman Roy, wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the words

Hunger Pains

Food bank use in Toronto is soaring. Can a U of T Scarborough lab help?

Illustration of a gamer's desk, depicting a video game console, monitor, two controllers, an open notebook, and a video game character wielding a sword coming out of the console, next to a stoppered potion bottle with red liquid

Game Time

Most of today’s students play video games. Why not study them, too?

A grassy field full of white clovers in a Toronto park, surrounded by trees and condo buildings in the distance

Cities Are Driving Evolution

Globally crowdsourced study shows that white clovers are biologically adapting to city life, demonstrating the profound impact of urbanization

Close up of Prof. Gillian Hadfield in a black turtleneck sweater, smiling against a solid dark-brown background

Will AI Be a Force for Good?

New technologies are difficult to regulate. With artificial intelligence, it may be time to rethink our approach, says Gillian Hadfield

Researcher in safety goggles and a lab coat examining one of five test tubes with different coloured lids, four of them containing DNA fragments suspended in liquid and the fifth containing a longer DNA chain

The Power of Information

The world produces mountains of data every day. A new U of T institute will help us make better sense of it all

Black and white closeup of Chen Yang looking at the camera

From Anxiety to Action

U of T students are collaborating with faculty on research that could improve the mental health of youth worldwide

People fishing along the shoreline

Hunger in the North

Too many people in Nunavut don’t get enough to eat. Anthropologist Tracey Galloway believes Inuit communities, not southern governments, have the solution

Collage of parts of the face of people from different races and a small, seated figure with a bent head coloured in black

Blurring the Blue Line

Student Rachel Bromberg and alum Asante Haughton are helping to create a response service for mental health crisis calls in Toronto that relies less on police

Illustration of a giant vial of insulin and a tiny figure standing on the cap looking down a hole in the centre, through which shines a light

The Miracle of Insulin

A century after U of T scientists discovered the life-saving extract, researchers are finding new ways to improve the lives of people with diabetes

Photo of front campus field and Convocation Hall with flower emoji illustrations floating above

Clearing the Air

U of T wants to drastically cut carbon emissions by 2050. It’s enlisting on-campus ingenuity for help

Abstract illustration showing a red-coloured body and face, with small black and white pieces flowing from inside body out of the mouth, and the U.S. Capitol Building dangling on puppet strings from one hand

The Extremism Machine

Online disinformation poses a danger to society. Researchers at U of T’s Citizen Lab are tracking it – and trying to figure out how to stop it