Rejoice icicle lovers. Dr. Freeze has delivered his magnum opus. For the record, Stephen Morris, a professor of physics at the University of Toronto, does not call himself Dr. Freeze. But by his own admission, he is obsessed with icicles. He has observed them in the environment and grown them in his lab. He has accumulated thousands of photos and hundreds of videos of icicles forming under different conditions.

Jason Harlow, David Harrison and Eli Honig compared student performance in two sessions of a large first-year university physics course, one with a normal 12-week term and the other with a compressed 6-week term. Student performance was measured by the normalized gain on the Force Concept Inventory. They found that the gains for the regular-format course are better than the gains for the compressed-format course, and while the differences in gains are small they are statistically significant. Not accounted for are the differences in effectiveness of the different instructors in the two versions of the course.

A study led by atmospheric physicists at the University of Toronto finds that global warming will not lead to an overall increasingly stormy atmosphere, a topic debated by scientists for decades. Instead, strong storms will become stronger while weak storms become weaker, and the cumulative result of the number of storms will remain unchanged.

The University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), as a part of the Stantec Team, has been selected by an interagency scientific review panel to lead a long-term scientific study of the Arctic marine ecosystem along the Beaufort Sea shelf from Barrow, Alaska to the Mackenzie River delta in Canadian waters. The Marine Arctic Ecosystem Study (MARES) stems from increased attention to climate change, energy development, and sustainability in the Arctic region. Information gained will aid government, industry, and communities in making decisions related to regulations, resource management, economic development and environmental protection issues.

University of Toronto physicist Kaley Walker has helped solve the scientific mystery behind the recent increase in ozone-depleting chemicals in the lower stratosphere of the Northern Hemisphere, despite a 25-year old ban on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Employing data from various sources, including the Canadian Space Agency's SCISAT satellite, an international team of scientists used numerical simulations to determine that the recently observed increase in hydrogen chloride (HCl) in the lower stratosphere is due to reduced atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere.

Scientists have discovered that interactions in certain quantum materials could naturally produce the effects needed for ultra-efficient computers and other electronics.The field of spintronics — a short form of spin transport electronics — seeks to understand and power electronic devices using the quantum property known as electron spin rather than an electron’s charge. Spintronics could lead to efficient circuits and electrical devices that do not waste energy through friction and heat.

Ordered crack patterns are so common in nature that they are often overlooked. From tile-like formations in ordinary mud, to the vast polygonal networks that stretch across the polar deserts of Earth and Mars, they are typical features in geomorphology. On smaller scales, crack networks add an artistic flourish to Japanese raku pottery and are found on the paintings of the old masters. Cracking even determines the pattern of scales on the snouts of Nile crocodiles.

Moving charges get deflected by a magnetic field, an effect which underlies such applications as isotope separation and the quantum Hall effect which fixes the International standard for electrical resistance.

Fermi gases in the so-called unitary regime—where the diverging interactions between atoms make their thermodynamics universal—are an excellent test bed for an array of strongly interacting matter systems. Two places to find a unitary Fermi gas are in the crust of a neutron start, and in basement of McLennan.

One of Canada’s most prestigious scholarly awards, the Killam Prize recognizes outstanding career achievement by scholars actively engaged in research. It is administered by the Canada Council for the Arts and comes with a $100,000 prize.

Dan Weaver on climate change, ozone and the magic of sunlight

Dan Weaver is a graduate student at the University of Toronto whose research takes him to PEARL, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory on Ellesmere Island, near Eureka, Nunavut.

What kind of work takes a PhD candidate from U of T's physics department to an experimental lab at the northern edge of Canada? Start with climate, ozone depletion, atmospheric dynamics, and air quality.

Dan Weaver is a graduate student at the University of Toronto whose research takes him to PEARL, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory on Ellesmere Island, near Eureka, Nunavut.

The J-PARC Neutrino Beam Group, which includes the Canadian T2K collaborators, has been honoured with the 2013 Suwa Award in recognition of their contribution to the development of high-energy accelerator science.

This article by Prof. Arun Paramekanti and collaborators was just published in "Nature Communications"

J. Patrick Clancy is one of the two UofT winners of the esteemed Polanyi Prize in 2013.

The company is called QKD Corp. and is based on the theory research of Dr Weedbrook and the experimental work of Dr Xing.

Scientists, industry and government representatives gathered at the University of Toronto recently for the 10-year anniversary of the successful Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment known as ACE.

A group of physicists from Canada have been growing their own icicles in a lab in the hope of solving a mystery that has, up until now, continued to puzzle scientists.

In theory, so-called quantum cryptography provides a totally secure way of sending information. In practice, maybe not. But now physicists have demonstrated how to close a technological loophole that could have left secrets open to eavesdroppers.

Hundreds of U of T students and postdoctoral fellows will benefit from $6.6 million in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council’s CREATE program, which trains the next generation of researchers to tackle Canada’s most pressing scientific challenges.

TRIUMF, a Canadian laboratory for nuclear and particle physics that works in partnership with York University and University of Toronto, announced a new breakthrough in understanding neutrinos -- nature's most elusive particles.

University of Toronto physicist Dick Peltier is the winner of one of five 2013 Killam Prizes, given in honour of his career achievement in science.