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News

From the College of Natural Sciences

Posts highlighting some of the many articles mentioning College of Natural Sciences faculty and students in the media.

How Do Computers Learn? Sometimes by Driving Cars and Spinning Tunes

How Do Computers Learn? Sometimes by Driving Cars and Spinning Tunes

​Members of The University of Texas at Austin's Learning Agents Research Group have been a resource for members of the media about how to teach artificial intelligence systems to learn.

Computer Scientist Weighs in on Quantum Supremacy

Computer Scientist Weighs in on Quantum Supremacy

Google’s quantum computer. Credit: Google

Google announced earlier this week that a team of researchers made a milestone achievement: "quantum supremacy," or the creation of a quantum computer capable of calculations beyond the capacity of a traditional supercomputer. To put this in perspective, a number of media outlets, including New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, Quanta Magazine, BBC and NPR, relied on the expertise of Scott Aaronson, a professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin.

Graduate Student Uncovers Mystery about Bar-Headed Geese

Graduate Student Uncovers Mystery about Bar-Headed Geese

Bar-headed geese have long been an interest of researchers for their unique ability to survive in a variety of altitudes in their annual migration patterns. In the span of 8 to 12 hours, bar-headed geese experience an elevation change of over 26,000 feet as they travel from the Himalayas to the Tibetan highlands in China and Mongolia.

Freshman Students Explore through Summer Research

Freshman Students Explore through Summer Research

Sophmore Sahran Hashim working with Professor Susan Cameron Devitt at the no mow research site along Lady Bird Lake, west of Lamar Blvd. Photo credit: Marsha Miller.

From combatting an invasive species to tracking pollinators' patterns, undergraduate students get a taste of what real research is like over the summer when they team up with faculty members and graduate students on projects with the award-winning Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) program at UT Austin. UT News featured three different summer projects in their coverage, including the study of insects, zebra mussels and water sampling, and experts at other universities are abuzz about how this program and others like it are allowing "students to delve deeply into real problems."

Faculty Weigh in on Aging Parents and Not-So-Empty Nesters

Faculty Weigh in on Aging Parents and Not-So-Empty Nesters

Two researchers in the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Human Development and Family Sciences were quoted in recent New York Times articles about relationships between parents and their adult children.

Looking Back on Apollo 11, Seeing UT Reflected in NASA History

Looking Back on Apollo 11, Seeing UT Reflected in NASA History

A seminal event in human history occurred 50 years ago this month when humans took their first steps on the Moon. This feat, the culmination of years of work by a multitude of people, happened with the involvement of many who started here in the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences.

Arming Texas for War on Crazy Ants

Arming Texas for War on Crazy Ants

UT scientists are all in for the fight against crazy ants. Image: Crazy Ant (Nylanderia fulva), Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In 2014, the staff at Estero Llano Grande State Park, on the Rio Grande outside Weslaco, began seeing large colonies of ants they did not recognize around the buildings and in the restrooms. Then staffers began noticing the ants driving birds out of their nests — a particularly bad thing at a park that is part of the Rio Grande Valley's World Birding Center.

4 Natural Sciences Graduates Who Aim to Make their Mark in the World

4 Natural Sciences Graduates Who Aim to Make their Mark in the World

Members of the Class of 2019 are tackling the complicated questions shaping our tomorrow, taking what they have learned at UT out into the world. With no shortage of impressive achievements and inspiring stories in this cohort, UT Austin featured four stand-out students from Natural Sciences in its round-up about amazing graduates. Each student demonstrates a distinct commitment to their vision for changing the world. 

First Woman to Win the “Nobel of Math”

First Woman to Win the “Nobel of Math”

This week, King Harald V of Norway presented mathematics' top international award—the 2019 Abel Prize—to Karen Uhlenbeck at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway.

UT Marine Science Institute Teams with SeaWorld San Antonio

UT Marine Science Institute Teams with SeaWorld San Antonio

This month, when SeaWorld San Antonio unveiled and opened Turtle Reef™, featuring non-releasable sea turtles in a first-of-its-kind biofiltration habitat, part of the focus was on its partnership with The University of Texas at Austin, Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, Texas.

The Tool Maker: The Double Life of Everett Stone

The Tool Maker: The Double Life of Everett Stone

A story about how a blacksmith (Everett Stone) learned to forge new tools in the fight against cancer. Photo by Marsha Miller.

For Everett Stone, being a cancer researcher is not so different from being a blacksmith. "I feel like an overarching theme in my career is that I've made many, many tools. Some of them are good enough to be medicines," he says.

Robyn Metcalfe Explores "Food Routes" in New Book

Robyn Metcalfe Explores "Food Routes" in New Book

​In "Food Routes," Robyn Metcalfe, School of Human Ecology lecturer and director of Food+City, explores the surprising places our foods come from and where they may come from in the future. 

Beauty, Bonding and Rethinking Evolution

Beauty, Bonding and Rethinking Evolution

Across the animal kingdom, males and females of the same species are often locked in a battle of the sexes. The instigator is evolution itself. It drives them to develop weapons, tactical tricks and defensive maneuvers that aid in an animal's fight to pass its genes on to a new generation.

Top-Ranked Computer Science at UT Has a Message for the Tech Industry

Top-Ranked Computer Science at UT Has a Message for the Tech Industry

Computer science is so sought-after on certain college campuses that students like Aafia Ahmad, a sophomore computer science major at UT Austin, say they have to compete just to get into popular courses. Photo credit: Joanna Kulesza for The New York Times.

In a New York Times article and on the Bay Area airwaves, University of Texas at Austin computer scientists are speaking out about the increasing demand for classes – and how the department, which is top-ten ranked, is coping with the challenge.

Bullying May Alter Teen Brains; Nostalgia Can Be Good For You

Bullying May Alter Teen Brains; Nostalgia Can Be Good For You

A faculty member and his Ph.D. student from the University of Texas at Austin's Human Development and Family Sciences Department were quoted in several recent news articles highlighting studies they contributed to. Stephen Russell, the department's chair and Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor of Child Development, contr...