Weeks after most students have left UT Austin's campus for the summer, the heart of the Forty Acres is anything but quiet. The steady beeping of a forklift mixes with the drone of power tools and the occasional boom of construction debris being dropped out a third-floor window and into a skiff.
A proposed project to rebuild the Marine Science Institute, which was damaged in Hurricane Harvey, was approved Monday by the University of Texas System Board of Regents. The project will help the institute come back into full operation, according to Marine Science Institute leadership, and it will pay for replacing roofs and mechanical systems, supporting interior and exterior restoration of numerous buildings damaged in the storm, rebuilding a research pier that was destroyed by a drilling ship in the aftermath of the storm and replacing student housing.
The message below is an update from University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute Director and Marine Science Department Chair Dr. Robert Dickey.
For many alumni, memories of their favorite professors or funny stories from long hours in the lab make the Forty Acres a special place to remember. Others recall falling in love among the beakers, telescopes, supercomputers and math study groups here in the heart of campus.
Science, once cloistered away in distant labs and rarefied academic journals, these days is connecting with the masses. One important way is through new crowdfunding initiatives that allow UT Austin community members to invest in facilities and research in new ways.
A building that is 85 years old – and home to a Chemistry Department ranked 12th in the nation – will receive much needed renovations, new laboratories and improved classroom spaces, thanks to the Texas Legislature.
Since its completion in 1931, Welch Hall has hosted chemists and many other members of the College of Natural Sciences family. With the Texas Legislature currently weighing a bill to help renovate Welch, we look at some history and fun facts about a place on campus that nearly every Longhorn knows well.
Take a trip out to Fort Davis, under some of the darkest skies in North America, and meet the telescopes that are making astronomical history. Learn more at McDonald Observatory's website. Video by Jeff Mertz.
Take a glimpse into two of UT's biggest and brightest (literally!) greenhouses. The BOT greenhouse holds a number of exotic plants for taxonomic study, while the Welch greenhouse hosts a variety of rich and important agricultural projects. As these horticulturalists make clear, no two greenhouses are ever the same!
Mike Ronalter and Adam Kennedy discuss the balance between art and craft in their experience as scientific glassblowers in the Department of Chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin. The glassblowing shop is critical for chemistry researchers, with their daily needs for various shapes and styles of glass for their projects.
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.
