arts and science

Meet Vass Bednar: TEDx speaker

Picture: 
photo of Vasiliki Bednar at TEDx

Vass Bednar is serious about making public policy fun.

A staff member at the School of Public Policy & Governance and a Master of Public Policy (MPP) graduate, Bednar believes policy-makers should be more “inclusive, experimental, and daring.”

Posted Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Leading breakthroughs in speech recognition software at Microsoft, Google, IBM

Picture: 
photo of sound waves

Groundbreaking work on speech recognition software by the University of Toronto’s Department of Computer Science (DCS) is transforming Microsoft, Google and IBM.

At a conference in Asia recently, Microsoft’s Chief Research Officer demonstrated an almost instantaneous translation of spoken English to Chinese speech – with software that maintained the sound of the speaker’s voice. It was the latest in a series of breakthroughs in the field involving U of T faculty and students.

Posted Monday, November 26, 2012

Dinosaur hunting around the world

Sub-title: 
Meet Professor David Evans
Picture: 
photo of Professor Evans in the Sahara

Earlier this year, Professor Ray Jayawardhana, Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics, was named the University of Toronto President’s Senior Advisor on Science Engagement. Since then, Jayawardhana has been building partnerships with groups in the Greater Toronto Area aimed at promoting outreach by U of T scientists.

Posted Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Archaeologists identify spear tips used in hunting a half-million years ago

Sub-title: 
Findings suggest hunting with stone-tipped spears began much earlier than previously believed
Author: 
Sean Bettam
Picture: 
photo of researchers examining spear points

 A University of Toronto-led team of anthropologists has found evidence that human ancestors used stone-tipped weapons for hunting 500,000 years ago – 200,000 years earlier than previously thought.

“This changes the way we think about early human adaptations and capacities before the origin of our own species,” says Jayne Wilkins, a PhD candidate in U of T's department of Anthropology and lead author of a new study in Science.

Posted Friday, November 16, 2012

Celebrating Fall Convocation 2012

Author: 
Gavin Au-Yeung
Picture: 
photo of chancellor with Dean Meric Gertler

The installation of the Honourable Michael Wilson as the 33rd Chancellor of the University of Toronto marked the opening ceremonies of fall Convocation on the morning of Nov. 12, launching a week of celebration for thousands of students, their families and faculty mentors.

Posted Monday, November 12, 2012

Killer ants in the Peruvian Amazon

Sub-title: 
Engaging the public in science
Picture: 
photo of an ant on a plant

Earlier this year, Professor Ray Jayawardhana, Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics, was named the University of Toronto President’s Senior Advisor on Science Engagement and since then, Jayawardhana has been building partnerships with groups in the Greater Toronto Area aimed at promoting outreach by U of T scientists.

Posted Monday, November 12, 2012

Alumni return to support student entrepreneurs

Sub-title: 
Symposium: The U of T Student as Inventor and Entrepreneur
Author: 
Gavin Au-Yeung
Picture: 
photo of Graeme Ferguson, Cynthia Goh and Neil Reid at symposium

University of Toronto students have invented products and launched companies that create everything from crop protection to ultra-fast surgical lasers and earthquake-resistant building materials.

On Nov. 12, U of T’s Institute for Optical Sciences (IOS) celebrates that strong tradition of research, innovation and commercialization success with a symposium for student inventors and entrepreneurs that features alumni who have led successful technology-based companies aimed at improving quality of life.

Posted Monday, November 12, 2012

Natalie Rothman: Brokering Empire

Sub-title: 
Award-winning author examines concepts of East and West
Author: 
Kurt Kleiner
Picture: 
photo of Professor Rothman

The University of Toronto Scarborough’s Natalie Rothman is the winner of two of the most important prizes awarded by the American Historical Association for her book Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects Between Venice and Istanbul.

Rothman, an associate professor of history in the department of historical and cultural studies at UTSC, won both the Adams Book Prize and the Marraro Book Prize for the work, which explains how the modern distinction between Europe and the East began to take shape in sixteenth century Venice.

Posted Wednesday, November 7, 2012

U.S. election: Janice Gross Stein and Mark Kingwell

Sub-title: 
CBC's Carol Off to moderate Democracy in the Year of Election
Picture: 
photo of Professor Stein and Professor Kingwell

On the eve of the U.S. election, two of Canada’s most admired and provocative thinkers discuss the state of democracy and the choice American voters face – are they choosing between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney or between two equally tarnished visions of the city on the hill?

PEN Canada hosts as CBC Radio’s Carol Off moderates a conversation with the University of Toronto’s Mark Kingwell, professor of philosophy, and Professor Janice Gross Stein, director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at U of T.

Posted Monday, November 5, 2012

Super-rare, super-luminous supernovae

Sub-title: 
Probably explosion of universe’s earliest stars
Author: 
Kim Luke
Picture: 
artist rendering of supernovae

The most-distant, super-luminous supernovae found to date have been observed by an international team, including Raymond Carlberg of the University of Toronto’s Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics. 

The stellar explosions would have occurred at a time when the universe was much younger and probably soon after the Big Bang.

Posted Thursday, November 1, 2012
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