Research & Ideas

Illustration of a smartphone app (left side) and a car (right side)

Uberization

Companies such as Uber are disrupting entire industries, but this is good for the economy overall, says an economics prof

Illustration of a billboard depicting a kidney bean with the text

Pssst, Wanna Buy a Kidney?

Most people recoil at the thought of selling human organs. But supplying the right information can change attitudes, a U of T study finds

Photo of open field with an array of seven wind turbines

Cooling Off

Will the Paris climate accord succeed where Kyoto didn’t?

Photo of Soviet poet Oleg Okhapkin sitting in his kitchen

Words of Freedom

U of T is now home to the world's largest digitized collection of Soviet samizdat journals

Why Do Tornadoes Form?

UTSC researcher uses 30 years of climate data to understand what causes these devastating storms

Photo of streetcar and bikers along Queen's Quay

On the Right Track

Prof. Eric Miller wants to use improved data – and more of it – to help cities make better transit decisions

Close-up photo of a teenged boy in a tank top holding a basketball

Team Spirit

Adolescents who play team sports are less likely to experience mental illness later in life, study finds

Illustration of City Hall, the

The 6ix

Rap star Drake popularized Toronto’s new nickname

Illustration of two surgeons operating within a box being opened

A Cut Above

A “black box” for the operating room is leading to improved training for physicians and better knowledge of surgical errors

Illustration of a wooden frame with a tube in the middle, dividing and ending in four pencils depicting four national flags

Say What?

Knowtions aims to make translating complex scientific documents into any language faster and more accurate

Photo of Tom Garside and four fourth-year students

Muscle and Metal

How a unique collaboration is making life better for a student with cerebral palsy

A scene from Cracked: New Light on Dementia. Photo by TK.

Spotlight on Dementia

An innovative blend of research and theatre is enabling scientists to reduce the stigma around a distressing disease

Photo of people crossing a busy city street.

Mobile City

As Toronto's population grows, we will have to embrace alternatives to the car

Photo of a doctor with a mobile phone.

Healthy City

How can we improve the health of some of the city's most vulnerable residents?

James Till (left) and Peter Zandstra celebrate the announcement of U of T's Medicine by Design initiative .

Regenerating the Body

U of T scientists will help usher in a new era of designing and creating cells, tissues and organs, thanks to historic $114-million federal grant

Illustration of a rail car design that could be safer.

Safe Passage

A student’s innovative rail car design would greatly reduce chances of an explosion

Lingo: Hyperpalatable

Some foods are engineered to be so tasty they're difficult to resist, says nutritional scientist Venket Rao

Photo of model for theatre under Gariner Expressway.

Street Theatre

A design for the Gardiner Expressway illustrates how U of T students are reimagining Toronto

Photo of a man sitting at a computer.

Loan Ranger

Online peer-to-peer lending company hopes to change how Canadians obtain loans

Illustration of a man who's head dissolved into geometric shapes. Computer science professor Geoffrey Hinton believes artificial intelligence will soon transform almost everything we do.

Getting Smarter

A U of T computer scientist is helping to build a new generation of intelligent machines

Photo of a rotten orange.

Spoiled Rotten

A familiar problem in the West, food waste is quickly becoming a global issue

Cisgender

Applies to someone who is not transgender, and is often used to signal awareness of gender politics

Illustration of two moving figures before an illustrious gold backdrop.

Architect’s Playground

Benjamin Dillenburger uses computers and 3D printers to create structures that are impossible to draw and almost impossible to imagine

Photo of ChipCare device.

Handheld Lab

U of T startup ChipCare gets set to unveil a revolutionary portable HIV blood-testing device

Image from Grey Matter film poster, depicting the back profile of the director looking at a flag with red, yellow and green colours running vertically

U of T’s World Wide Web

The university’s scholars are collaborating with partners in every region of the globe to answer questions that challenge us all

A U of T medical student examines a patient at the IMAGINE clinic.

Team Health

City residents without a health card get care from U of T undergrads

Homophily

The like-attracts-like nature of social media could be bad for democracy

Photo of a Toronto street with a streetcar passing.

Travel Upgrade

For many Torontonians, the daily commute is a spirit-crusher. What if it could enrich your life instead?

Photo of the paper-thin aerelight.

Bright Idea

A U of T grad's paper-thin lamp technology could revolutionize the lighting industry

Photo of the Dragonfly Telephoto Array.

A New Kind of Telescope

The Dragonfly telescope created at U of T and Yale has led to the discovery of never-before-seen celestial structures