Research

NASA’s final space shuttle mission launched today carrying four astronauts and some unusual passengers – yeast cell growth experiments developed by Canadian researchers at the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research. The Micro-4 project will study simple yeast cells to better understand human disease. The genetic makeup of a yeast cell [...]

With the final launch of the Atlantis, NASA retires its space shuttle program. We spoke to Professor Chris Damaren of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies about the end of an era in manned space travel. Damaren researches spacecraft dynamics and control systems. He also serves as  Vice-Dean, Graduate Studies in the Faculty [...]

An international experiment with contributions from physicists at the University of Toronto is announcing results that could solve a long-standing puzzle in particle physics and may even turn the Standard Model on its head. The team has detected the first indication of oscillation from muon-type neutrinos to electron-type neutrinos. “Two other modes of neutrino oscillation [...]

Four University of Toronto scientists will be part of an international team developing a new tool to search for signs of life on Mars. continued

Canadian scientists have found more evidence that a massive planet — eight times the size of Jupiter — is in fact part of another solar system. In an article in an upcoming edition of the Astrophysical Journal, Lafrenière and University of Toronto astronomers Ray Jayawardhana and Marten van Kerkwijk say they have confirmed that, in [...]

An international team of astronomers has uncovered a supernova whose origin cannot be explained by any previously known mechanism and which promises exciting new insights into stellar explosions. SN2005E was first spotted on January 13, 2005 in the nearby galaxy NGC1032. Since then, scientists have carried out various observations of it using different telescopes including [...]

Astrophysicist Ray Jayawardhana of U of T’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics is the recipient of the 2009 Steacie Prize, one of Canada’s most prestigious honours for rising stars in science and engineering. “I’m surprised, honoured and humbled,” said Jayawardhana. “The Steacie Prize is a wonderful recognition of the frontline astrophysics research going on at [...]

Richard Bond, one of the world’s leading cosmologists,

Space is a very dangerous place. There are millions of rocks floating in space, banging into minor planets and asteroids. Some of these space rocks bounce towards Earth and permeate the protective atmospheric layer. When this happens, the rocks, called meteoroids, begin their fiery passage through the Earth’s atmosphere. When you wish upon a shooting [...]

A two-tonne telescope, dangling beneath a 33-storey balloon 60 kilometres above the earth, has given a team of international researchers a glimpse at the birth of stars and maybe even the origins of the universe. continue