Marc Airhart is the Communications Coordinator for the College of Natural Sciences. A long time member of the National Association of Science Writers, he has written for national publications including Scientific American, Mercury, The Earth Scientist, Environmental Engineer & Scientist, and StarDate Magazine. He also spent 11 years as a writer and producer for the Earth & Sky radio series. Contact me
Two lists of academic rankings published this month show that The University of Texas at Austin's programs in the sciences and mathematics are among the best in the country and the world.
When we get sick, we change our social interactions—we keep away from others and we don't share food. It turns out, humans aren't the only species to do it.
The Welch Foundation today announced that Ilya J. Finkelstein, an associate professor of molecular biosciences at The University of Texas at Austin who has been researching the coronavirus and the gene-editing tool CRISPR, will receive the 2021 Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research. Having already made significant scientific contributions in chemistry and biochemistry, he is being recognized as a rising star in his field.
The University of Texas at Austin is gearing up to welcome science enthusiasts everywhere to the Texas Science Festival. The virtual celebration features rapid-fire and deep-dive presentations by world-changing scientists, live hands-on demonstrations, explosive science, telescope viewings, opportunities to interact with experts from Texas' flagship public research institution and more.
Remdesivir is the only antiviral drug approved for use in the U.S. against COVID-19. Photo courtesy of Gilead.
More effective antiviral treatments could be on the way after research from The University of Texas at Austin sheds new light on the COVID-19 antiviral drug remdesivir, the only treatment of its kind currently approved in the U.S. for the coronavirus.
The Association for Computing Machinery, the primary professional organization in the field of computer science, has named two University of Texas at Austin professors — Peter Stone and Lizy Kurian John — as ACM Fellows. The award goes only to highly distinguished computer scientists representing the top 1% of ACM members.
With COVID-19 cases hitting new highs across the country, a new online tool can help families and school leaders estimate how many infected people are likely to show up at a school on a given day anywhere in the United States. The free, interactive dashboard was produced by The University of Texas at Austin COVID-19 Modeling Consortium.
Philip 'Uri' Treisman, founder and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin, has dedicated his career to improving mathematics and science education on a national scale, leading to measurable gains in student performance in these subjects and improvements in course success for elementary school children through university undergraduates. Now he is the recipient of one of the most prestigious awards in American education, the 2020 James Bryant Conant Award from the Education Commission of the States.
The number of virus strains present in each zip code in Houston during the second wave of COVID-19 cases in summer 2020. Number of strains is represented by a spectrum of colors from blue (0 strains) to red (50 strains). Credit: Houston Methodist/University of Texas at Austin.
A study involving more than 5,000 COVID-19 patients in Houston finds that the virus that causes the disease is accumulating genetic mutations, one of which may have made it more contagious. According to the paper published in the peer-reviewed journal mBIO, that mutation, called D614G, is located in the spike protein that pries open our cells for viral entry. It's the largest peer-reviewed study of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in one metropolitan region of the U.S. to date.
After months of thorough analysis, two international scientific teams, including scientists from The University of Texas at Austin, have released an updated catalog of gravitational wave detections, more than tripling the number of confirmed events. Each detection of a gravitational wave represents the discovery of a pair of extremely massive objects—black holes or neutron stars—far out in the universe smashing into each other, shaking the very fabric of space and time so much that sensitive detectors on Earth could feel them, sometimes more than a billion years later.
Read our publication, The Texas Scientist, a digest covering the people and groundbreaking discoveries that make the College of Natural Sciences one of the most amazing and significant places on Earth.