https://phys.org/ en-us Latest news from University of Toronto Mississauga Young adulthood—that pivotal period of time around the ages of 17 and 18—often brings a series of firsts: first time living away from home, first love, and, for many in the Western world, the decision to have sex for the first time. Research has established that experiences in this critical time frame, when youth are particularly impressionable, can have an impact that lingers for decades. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-beliefs-libido-gap-men-women.html Social Sciences Mon, 02 Mar 2026 09:10:06 EST news691664582 They say that love is a two-way street, but that may only hold true to a point. It turns out that couples who obsess over equal give-and-take may be sabotaging their relationship, suggests a study involving University of Toronto Mississauga researchers. The findings are contained in a Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin paper authored by Impett, former UTM graduate student Haeyoung Gideon Park and two other researchers from the University of Alberta and the University of Michigan. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-tally-tracking-favors-relationship.html Social Sciences Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:40:04 EST news689867608 You've gone through their photos, scanned their bio and pored over their personalized description. But just who are you swiping right on when you match with someone on an online dating platform? https://phys.org/news/2026-01-swipe-student-authenticity-online-dating.html Social Sciences Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:36:15 EST news687443762 Brain dead after a hard day of work? It turns out it's totally fine to park yourself in front of the TV. It might even make recovery—an essential part of burnout prevention—easier. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-day-tv.html Social Sciences Wed, 07 Jan 2026 11:30:01 EST news687007464 Interracial couples often face unique social pressures—from strangers' stares to family disapproval—and two recent studies from the University of Toronto Mississauga shed light on how these stresses affect the relationship. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-science-scholars-couples-social-stresses.html Social Sciences Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:26:18 EST news685020362 Wearing masks, avoiding large gatherings, shutting down schools—those scenes might sound familiar to anyone who experienced the most recent global pandemic. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-polio-survivors-insight-importance-vaccines.html Vaccination Mon, 08 Dec 2025 10:40:01 EST news684411925 When Sean Grisdale analyzed some 385,000 eviction filings in Toronto and its surrounding areas, he discovered a troubling trend—tenants increasingly faced "no-fault" evictions when they rented from landlords who treated properties as investments. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-eviction-reveals-tenant.html Economics & Business Thu, 02 Oct 2025 13:25:04 EDT news678630302 A new study from the University of Toronto Mississauga reveals that sex work arrests in Toronto have dropped by 99.6% since the early 1990s, even as Canadian laws have grown more restrictive. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-policing-sex-toronto-plummeted-tougher.html Social Sciences Wed, 06 Aug 2025 08:04:04 EDT news673686242 A new study from the University of Toronto Mississauga finds that street trees are unevenly distributed across Canadian cities, with marginalized neighborhoods often seeing fewer and smaller trees and less species diversity. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-street-trees-unequally-canada.html Environment Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:35:59 EDT news671373355 A pandemic-era push to reduce Ontario's prison population disproportionately benefited white inmates, new research shows, leaving Indigenous, Black and other racialized people more likely to remain behind bars—and deepening existing inequities in the province's correctional system. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-covid-exacerbated-racial-inequities-ontario.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 05 May 2025 13:57:04 EDT news665672222 A man downsizes his Día de los Muertos altar to make room for Halloween. A woman decides not to teach her children Swahili so they can learn their father's language instead. Another skips summer gatherings on the reservation to spend time with her husband's family. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-explores-sacrifice-strength-intercultural-relationships.html Social Sciences Wed, 09 Apr 2025 08:58:04 EDT news663407882 A recent study by researchers at the University of Toronto Mississauga offers a more precise way to map urban air temperatures, which could help cities better understand local heat patterns and their potential effects. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-hot-wheels-mississauga-air-temperature.html Environment Fri, 28 Mar 2025 08:53:04 EDT news662370781 At first glance, landscapes like the Great Plains and the Rockies may seem unchanging, but over geological time scales, they're dynamic systems. Plate tectonics raise mountains, while erosion—driven by glaciers, rain and wind—wears them down. But there's an often-overlooked factor in this process: the rock itself. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-role-strength-landscape-evolution.html Earth Sciences Thu, 06 Mar 2025 11:47:03 EST news660484022 A team of researchers from the University of Toronto has identified a gene in fruit flies that regulates the types of connections between flies within their "social network." https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-degrees-kevin-bacon-gene-fruit.html Genetics Tue, 28 May 2024 10:13:12 EDT news636109987 Deep within the forest, monkeys can be very social creatures: they play, fight, vocalize, and even groom one another within their social groups. But as University of Toronto Mississauga primatologist Laura Bolt and her colleagues have recently discovered, these primates are quick to alter their natural social behaviors—and adopt new ones to ensure their survival—when their environments are impacted through deforestation. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-primatologist-monkeys-behavior-survive-deforestation.html Plants & Animals Fri, 08 Mar 2024 12:21:03 EST news629122861 A new study by a University of Toronto Mississauga psychology student has identified an intriguing difference in how babies relate to the voices of male and female adults. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-explores-gender-dynamics-voice-recognition.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:50:21 EST news627061816 Even if you don't know your love language, you've probably heard of the concept. The theory's pervasiveness in pop culture has only increased in the 30-odd years since Baptist pastor Gary Chapman published his book "The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts." https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12-conversation-languages-positive-relationships.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 21 Dec 2023 13:36:04 EST news622388161 We've all experienced dreams that have left us feeling a little anxious—like writing a test we're not prepared for, losing a loved one, or being chased by something threatening. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-vary-cultures-environments-anthropologist.html Social Sciences Tue, 28 Nov 2023 14:16:49 EST news620403404 How much power do home care workers have to resist being exploited by their employers? For Asian women working in this occupation in California, the answer is shaped by several factors, including filial obligations, cultural traditions, language barriers, economic status, state employment regulations, labor unions, immigrant organizations and disability rights groups. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-home-workers-action-disrupt-domestic.html Other Mon, 20 Nov 2023 15:07:24 EST news619715241 Are you addicted to your smartphone? So is most of the world, it seems, based on new research from the University of Toronto. A team of researchers including U of T Mississauga postdoctoral fellow Jay Olson and U of T Scarborough Ph.D. student Dasha Sandra have collected the largest set of data in any study regarding problematic smartphone use. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-track-global-smartphone-addiction-patterns.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 08 Nov 2023 15:20:03 EST news618679201 When it came to learning language, money mattered for pandemic preschoolers, according to a new study out of U of T Mississauga's Child Language and Speech Studies (CLASS) Lab. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-pandemic-posed-vocabulary-preschoolers-reveals.html Social Sciences Wed, 04 Oct 2023 16:18:12 EDT news615655090 A team of anthropologists has found that the skeletal remains of people who lived and died in American public care institutions in the last century have much to tell us about the connection between patient neglect and hip fractures—a connection that may well still exist today in Canada. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08-link-institutionalization-hip-fractures-death.html Medical economics Thu, 31 Aug 2023 10:52:04 EDT news612697921 Most Canadians are familiar with the "aboot" stereotype, and any Canadian who has traveled to the American Midwest might pause a bit when some Americans call the common fruit an "epple." And of course, there's "Tor-on-toh" versus "Tronno." https://phys.org/news/2023-07-linguistics-professor-uncovering-toronto-unique.html Social Sciences Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:52:56 EDT news608831569 Amidst the vast frozen and barren terrain of the Arctic is a unique marine ecosystem supporting a web of diverse natural life that, according to a new study by scientist Kent Moore, is managing to sustain itself against the impacts of climate change—so far. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-underscores-oasis-arctic.html Earth Sciences Fri, 07 Jul 2023 11:01:04 EDT news607946462 In Canada, research shows Indigenous women are 400% more likely than other Canadians to go missing. The problem is so pervasive that the Canadian government does not know how many Indigenous women are missing or have been murdered. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-indigenous-women-hampered-police-apathy.html Social Sciences Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:31:42 EDT news605190698 A new co-authored book by University of Toronto Mississauga professor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah examines how harsh cannabis laws have contributed to racial injustice—and how to repair the communities most affected. https://phys.org/news/2023-04-personalizes-reality-harsh-cannabis-laws.html Social Sciences Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:30:04 EDT news600539401 New research co-authored by a UTM professor shows that children may exhibit signs of accent-based biases as early as age five. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-children-biases-accents.html Social Sciences Fri, 07 Oct 2022 11:20:03 EDT news584360401 While chemotherapy drugs can be lifesaving, they don't work for all patients or for all cancers. But a team of UTM researchers is looking at new ways to use special types of light to target cancer cells resistant to current drug therapy—in an approach that might be easier on some patients than traditional chemotherapy. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-photodynamic-therapy-cancer-treatment.html Oncology & Cancer Wed, 14 Sep 2022 08:56:00 EDT news582364540 "Happy wife, happy life," the saying goes. But the expression is outdated and new research shows that the assumptions behind it are out of step too. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-happy-wife-life-spouse-house.html Social Sciences Tue, 16 Aug 2022 10:32:03 EDT news579864721 Study after study, Diana Peragine has seen the same conclusion throughout her research: an early sexual debut poses a risk to sexual health and sets the stage for a long list of negative outcomes, ranging from unplanned pregnancy and STIs to sexual exploitation and abuse. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08-early-sexual-healthier-sex-life.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 12 Aug 2022 11:42:46 EDT news579523359