When self-propelling objects or living things interact with each other, interesting phenomena can occur. Birds align with each other when they flock together. People at a concert spontaneously create vortices when they nudge and bump into each other. Fire ants work together to create rafts that float on the water's surface.
The University of Texas at Austin is holding its position as one of the best universities in the country, according to the most recent undergraduate rankings from U.S. News & World Report. UT Austin tied for No. 10 among national public universities and remains the top public university in Texas. Overall, the university placed No. 38 among national public and private universities for undergraduates.
Discovery to Impact, The University of Texas at Austin's newly named group leading the university's research commercialization efforts, has been selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to lead a regional, four-state training program for researchers seeking to move their discoveries from the lab to the market. The five-year, $15 million NSF investment in the new Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Southwest Region Hub will strengthen an already robust innovation ecosystem and move more research discoveries to the market through startups.
Contact tracing programs were deployed around the globe to slow the spread of COVID-19, but these programs could not prevent the multiple waves of transmission and loss of life that have occurred since March 2020. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin found that a five-day delay between identifying a case and isolating contacts was the Achilles' heel of a contact tracing program in a large U.S. city.
Just milliseconds after the universe's Big Bang, chaos reigned. Atomic nuclei fused and broke apart in hot, frenzied motion. Incredibly strong pressure waves built up and squeezed matter so tightly together that black holes formed, which astrophysicists call primordial black holes.
Scientists have uncovered what sets the masses of stars, a mystery that has captivated astrophysicists for decades. Their answer? Stars, themselves.
The development of high-speed strobe-flash photography in the 1960s by the late MIT professor Harold "Doc" Edgerton allowed us to visualize events too fast for the eye — a bullet piercing an apple, or a droplet hitting a pool of milk.
What starts here reveals the universe. A world-changing gift of $10 million from visionary philanthropist David Booth increases UT's access to the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will help students in the College of Natural Sciences peer far into the universe.
Rachel Ward was selected as the 2022 recipient of the Peter O'Donnell Distinguished Researcher Award by the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.
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.
