Research & Ideas

Digging Deep

How many new dinosaur species can one person help find? Professor David Evans is up to eight

Illustration of a heart, ear, and brain.

How Music Gets Inside

At its simplest, music is just sound. And sound is just vibration. So how does it get inside us, and influence us?

Photo by Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources - Forestry Archive

Debugging

A forestry prof believes a local parasite could help protect Ontario’s ash trees from a deadly invader

Illustration of a vivid night sky: a planet at the top with a figure in silhouette small at the centre.

Planet Hunters

With the discovery of hundreds of worlds around other stars, will we find that Earth is not alone in bearing life?

Photo by Dave Brosha

Timing is Everything

Modern life is 24-7, but there may be negative consequences to defying our body's internal clock

Seeing Red

Colours affect our emotional state, and maybe our motor control as well, new research has found

Illustration of great inventions and inventors in a tree.

The Next Big Idea

Ten concepts that could shape the future: from digital credentials to safer drugs to DNA-tailored diets and more

Photo of Mars

Life on Mars?

Scientists are trying to determine if methane in the Martian atmosphere came from living organisms

Iciclology 101

Most icicles have the same carrot shape. But differences in temperature, wind conditions and water composition affect their final form

Photo by Tim Lawrence, http://www.flickr.com/photos/20842847@N00/

Easing Depression

Studies find that electrical stimulation to one side of the brain helps improve depression

Planetary Mysteries

Discoveries of new planets outside our solar system are forcing astronomers to rethink theories of how planets form

Smashing!

Now that the Large Hadron Collider is working, U of T physicists are preparing to sift through mountains of data in search of the elusive Higgs boson

Photo of an hourglass

The True Nature of Time

A century after Einstein proposed his theory of relativity, scientists are still debating how time works

We Are Star Stuff

A large asteroid could destroy all life on earth. But a "rain" of extraterrestrial debris long ago may have led to the conditions that started it, says a U of T geologist

The World’s Largest Telescope

As scientists prepare the next-generation space telescope, University of Toronto astronomers are pushing for an even larger ground-based scope

A Healing Spark

A tiny electrode implanted in the brain may help patients with Alzheimer’s disease, depression and other disorders

Julie Payette

Ms. Universe

Astronaut Julie Payette prepares for her second journey into space

Illustration of a baton pass in a relay, where the baton is a test tube

Wiki Science

Faster and more open collaboration among scientists could yield a wealth of discoveries

God’s Laboratory

This spring, an international team of physicists, including several from U of T, will launch the most ambitious science experiment ever devised. Their goal: to unlock the secrets of the universe

A Bad Wrap

Food packaging is a potential source of chemicals in the bloodstream

Can a Brain Change?

Dr. Norman Doidge argues that the brain is far more malleable than previously thought

Trash Talk

Can new technology make Toronto's garbage problem disappear?

Poplar Science

An international team has decoded the genetic sequence of a tree

Flash Physics

Prof's online animations help students prepare for experiments

Of Mice and Men

U of T team finds that few protein-coding genes remain to be discovered, but a single gene can spawn thousands of different proteins

The Iceberg Cometh

Ocean tides dislodged huge Arctic icebergs, contributing to climate cooling thousands of years ago

Bismuth Bullets

Researchers concerned lead alternative may be entering the food chain

Seeing Anew

Retinal stem cells can be transplanted in mice and chicks, researchers find

Breathing Underwater

Joe MacInnis has spent his life exploring the world's oceans. Now he wants to save them