The Next Big Idea 10 concepts that could - University of Toronto ...

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Leading Edge U of T – are developing an instrument designed to answer that question, among others. The instrument is called the Mars Atmospheric Trace Molecule Occultation Spectrometer (MATMOS). While the Martian atmosphere is predominantly carbon dioxide, MATMOS will measure other gases that occur only in trace amounts. The instrument will fly aboard a robotic orbiter scheduled for launch in 2016. Members of the team – including professors Barbara Sherwood Lollar of geology, Kimberly Strong and Kaley Walker of physics and Jonathan Abbatt of chemistry – will analyze the MATMOS data. Sherwood Lollar says there are two possibilities for the methane’s origin: biological, indicating that microbial life exists (or has existed) below the planet’s surface, or geological. If geological, the methane could stem from volcanic activity on Mars or from chemical reactions that take place when sub-surface water reacts with the surrounding rocks – something that Sherwood Lollar has studied extensively on our own planet. The MATMOS detector will measure precisely how much methane is found in different regions on Mars, and how the concentrations vary from season to season. Scientists may then be able to pinpoint which regions are actually producing the methane, and perhaps target those areas for future rover missions. MATMOS will also measure other trace gases, such as sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, and other molecules containing carbon, sulphur and nitrogen. The relative concentrations of methane and these gases will help researchers determine if the methane’s origin is biological or geological. Leading scientists agree that the discovery of any trace of life on Mars – present or past – would be a tremendous breakthrough. But even if no signs of life are found, it would still be an important finding. Although Mars is a cold, dry planet today, scientists believe it may have been much warmer and wetter billions of years ago. If that’s the case, “scientists are eager to understand why life arose on Earth, but not on Mars,” Sherwood Lollar says. – Dan Falk New Year’s Revolution A proposed new calendar would give February an extra week and start every month on a Monday. Christmas would always fall on a Thursday new year’s day this year is on a Saturday. In 2011, it falls on a Sunday. Every year, the dates of many important events – and some religious holidays – don’t change, but the day of the week they land on does. A new calendar devised by Irv Bromberg, a professor in U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, does away with this: it ensures that the same date always falls on the same day of the week. In Bromberg’s calendar, New Year’s Day is always on a Monday and Valentine’s Day is always a Sunday. Every month of every year starts on a Monday. Bromberg proposes more significant changes, too. All months in his calendar – which he has dubbed Symmetry454 – have either four or five weeks of seven days. January and March, for example, slim down to 28 days, while February bulks up to 35. Each quarter follows the same pattern: a four-week month, followed by a five-week month and then another four-week month. In total, a Symmetry454 year has only 364 days. Bromberg compensates by giving every sixth or fifth year (depending on an arithmetic rule), a whole extra week at the end of December. Bromberg – who, as a hobby, has refined or created several calendars – says businesses would benefit from Symmetry454 because each quarter has exactly 91 days (except the last quarter in a leap year), and the same number of weekdays and weekends. Businesses might also like that the midpoint of the quarter always falls on the same day. Schools and universities wouldn’t have to create a new academic schedule each year. Monthly fees such as rents might have to be pro-rated according to the month, though. In the much longer term, Bromberg says his calendar would require fewer adjustments than the Gregorian calendar, which will begin to seriously drift from true solar time around the year 6000. Although Bromberg does not expect the world to adopt the Symmetry454 calendar in his lifetime, he does think it could catch on among computer enthusiasts. A programmer in Brazil has already found a way to incorporate it into the Linux operating system, he says. – Scott Anderson 20 WWW.MAGAZINE.UTORONTO.CA
Leading Edge The Big Idea How Cities Compare Urban centres have a huge impact on their residents’ well-being. So how can we make them better The year 2009 marked a watershed moment: for the first time in history, half the world’s population lived in cities. But while global urbanization is often associated with vast mega-cities such as Tokyo, Cairo and São Paolo, a majority of the world’s city-dwellers actually live in compact metropolitan areas with fewer than 500,000 residents. In developed nations, many cities now function as economic hothouses, bringing together high concentrations of expertise, capital and entrepreneurs. A World Bank study in 2006 noted that different-sized cities often specialize – in pharmaceuticals or post-secondary education, for example – or act as a transportation hub or financial centre. At the same time, growing urbanization in developing nations is exacerbating problems of poverty, congestion and pollution. Even wealthy cities increasingly suffer from a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor. The upshot is that local governments will become ever more crucial players in global affairs, perhaps even eclipsing their regional or national counterparts. With this ongoing shift, says Patricia McCarney, a development expert at the Munk School of Global Affairs, city officials worldwide are anxious to learn how their counterparts elsewhere deliver vital local services, from water treatment to transit, policing and garbage collection. By exchanging knowledge about best practices, she says, cities can improve their quality of life and attractiveness to international investors. It was this sort of thinking that led to the creation of the Global City Indicators Facility, a database of comparable statistics that allow cities to track their effectiveness on everything from planning and economic growth to transportation, safety and education. The project has the backing of the World Bank, whose officials have pushed for more reliable data to support its lending in heavily urbanized regions, such as Latin America. Two years after the launch of the Global City facility, McCarney’s team tracks more than 100 indicators and has signed up 125 cities of all sizes and from every part of the world, from Dallas to Kabul. McCarney – who travels extensively to promote the project – is aiming to reach the 1,000-city mark in time for Milan’s 2015 Expo on sustainable development. The project has posed all sorts of methodological challenges, not least of which is settling on a precise definition of the term “city.” Metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations, especially those experiencing high growth, tend to spill over political boundaries. McCarney says her group chose to focus solely on municipal statistics that correspond to existing municipal boundaries. For large cities, they have formulated a way of aggregating data across a region to build indicators that apply to sprawling urban areas, such as Greater Toronto. Each year, Global City publishes a statistical compendium, which is distributed to the members, as well as to the project’s funders. “Good, comparable data on cities didn’t exist until now,” says McCarney, patting the latest volume with a satisfied grin. “This is a first.” The index is a boon to international development agencies, urban researchers and businesses looking to set up new facilities. McCarney notes that some municipalities also use the data to counter much-hyped but less rigorous city rankings, which may provide misleading snapshots about what some cities have to offer. But she observes her index’s most meaningful benefit is that it provides members with a forum to exchange ideas on how cities can function. “The exciting part is that the cities themselves have started to build a network,” she says, “and Toronto is now at the hub.” – John Lorinc illustration: nick higgins Lingo Sexsomnia People talk in their sleep and walk in their sleep – but have sex in their sleep Some do, according to Dr. Colin Shapiro. A study conducted at the Sleep Research Laboratory at the University Health Network’s Toronto Western Hospital, where Shapiro is head of neuropsychiatry, found that as many as one in 12 patients reported engaging in sexual activity while sleeping. The research found that the phenomenon was about three times more common in men as women. The term “sexsomnia” falls under the category of sleep disturbances known as parasomnias. winter 2011 21
Page 1 and 2: The Aviator Canada’s first pilot
Page 3 and 4: How an alumni perk Rupen Seoni MSc
Page 5 and 6: Contents Winter 2011 40 The Aviator
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Page 9 and 10: Letters Canadian and aboriginal stu
Page 11 and 12: President’s Message Investing in
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Page 19 and 20: LifeonCampus A Neural Network for a
Page 21 and 22: LifeonCampus Power Down Keeping a c
Page 23: “In hockey, banning all hits to t
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Page 29: “I will achieve my goals. But I r
Page 32 and 33: Computers That Understand Speech Ne
Page 34 and 35: Clean Power Solid oxide fuel cells
Page 36 and 37: Education for All Why do some immig
Page 38 and 39: Chris Spence, the director of educa
Page 40 and 41: will naturally predominate in a giv
Page 42 and 43: simple changes in kindergarten peda
Page 45 and 46: Aviator Brave, dashing and touched
Page 47 and 48: photo: city of toronto archives, fo
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Page 51 and 52: “By the time Gilbert and Sullivan
Page 53 and 54: All about Alumni top photo: courtes
Page 55 and 56: All about Alumni The Two of Us Ange
Page 57 and 58: University of Toronto Alumni Premie
Page 59 and 60: Our Thanks to You Because the world
Page 61 and 62: Margaret and Andrew Stephens J. W.
Page 63 and 64: In Honour The University of Toronto
Page 65 and 66: Lasting Legacies The University of
Page 67 and 68: Great Journeys April 10-18 Waterway
Page 69 and 70: Group home and auto insurance Insur

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