Media Releases
Below is a selection of recent press releases. For all the latest news please visit www.utoronto.ca/news
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University of Toronto ranked first in Canada, 24th in the world
TORONTO, ON - The University of Toronto is the top university in Canada and one of the best in the world, reports the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014. This year, the prestigious ranking – which analyzes the top universities worldwide on research output, the quality of faculty and the quality of education – placed U of T 24th in the world, up from 28th in 2013. Harvard University remained the top-ranked university. The University also…
With low taxes and large investment needs, Torontonians must make hard choices
TORONTO, ON – Toronto does not face a fiscal crisis by any means. But with low residential taxes, high public expectations for City services, and significant infrastructure maintenance and investment needs, Toronto’s candidates and voters face tough choices during this October’s elections. This is the conclusion of a new paper by Enid Slack and André Côté of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG). The first in a Pre-Election Perspectives series, the paper assesses the state of the City’s…
U of T scientist to play key role on Mars 2020 Rover Payload Mission
TORONTO, ON -- NASA announced last week that the next rover, being sent to Mars in 2020, will carry seven highly sophisticated instruments to conduct unprecedented science and exploration technology investigations on the Red Planet. The instruments were selected from 58 proposals received from researchers and engineers around the world and Rebecca Ghent of the University of Toronto’s Department of Earth Sciences is on the team behind one of the carefully chosen winners: a ground-penetrating radar known as RIMFAX. The…
Money talks when it comes to acceptability of “sin” companies, study reveals
TORONTO, ON – Companies who make their money in the “sin” industries such as the tobacco, alcohol and gaming industries typically receive less attention from institutional investors and financial analysts. But new research shows social norms and attitudes towards these types of businesses are subject to compromise when their share price looks to be on the rise. A paper from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management found that institutional shareholdings and analysts' coverage of sin firms were low…
“Killer sperm” prevents mating between worm species
TORONTO, ON - The classic definition of a biological species is the ability to breed within its group, and the inability to breed outside it. A study published today in the journal PLOS Biology offers some important clues about the evolution of barriers to breeding. The vast majority of the time, mating across species is merely unsuccessful in producing offspring, though there are exceptions. Breeding a horse and a donkey, for example, may result in a live mule offspring, but…
At last, hope for ALS patients?
TORONTO, ON — U of T researchers have found a missing link that helps to explain how ALS, one of the world’s most feared diseases, paralyses and ultimately kills its victims. The breakthrough is helping them trace a path to a treatment or even a cure. “ALS research has been taking baby steps for decades, but this has recently started changing to giant leaps,” said Karim Mekhail, professor in the Temerty Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Laboratory Medicine and…
University of Toronto to host 50 Punjab teachers for teacher training course
TORONTO, ON – The government of the Indian State of Punjab is sending 50 of its teachers to the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto for an intensive four-week teacher development program from July 28 to August 22, 2014. At OISE, the teachers, will be led by top OISE faculty and researchers through an innovative professional learning experience, custom designed by OISE’s Continuing and Professional Learning Office to improve and enrich their teaching skills,…
Earlier Stone Age artifacts found in Northern Cape of South Africa
TORONTO, ON - Excavations at an archaeological site at Kathu in the Northern Cape province of South Africa have produced tens of thousands of Earlier Stone Age artifacts, including hand axes and other tools. These discoveries were made by archaeologists from the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa and the University of Toronto (U of T), in collaboration with the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa. The archaeologists’ research on the Kathu Townlands site, one of the richest early…
Astronomers come up dry in search for water on exoplanets
TORONTO, ON – A team of astronomers has made the most precise measurements yet of water vapour in the atmospheres of Jupiter-like planets beyond our Solar System and found them to be much drier worlds than expected. The team, including Dr. Nicolas Crouzet of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto, has found that the abundance of atmospheric water vapour is between ten and a thousand times less than what models predict. “The low water vapour levels…
New research: When it hurts to think we were made for each other
TORONTO, ON - Aristotle said, “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” Poetic as it is, thinking that you and your partner were made in heaven for each other can hurt your relationship, says a new study. Psychologists observe that people talk and think about love in apparently limitless ways but underlying such diversity are some common themes that frame how we think about relationships. For example, one popular frame considers love as perfect unity (“made for each…