News

Monday, 02 February 2009

Historicizing HIV

Biologist Sara Sawyer has used phylogenetic analysis to help answer a key question about the evolution of the primate retroviral defense system. Photo: Scott Shulz Sara Sawyer’s eureka moment, as a young scientist, came when thinking about how to apply her interest in the long sweep of evolutionary theory to one of the big questions in HIV resea...

Monday, 26 January 2009

The Lamprey Factor

Biologist Jennifer Morgan studies the regeneration of neural function in lampreys after spinal cord injury. Her work, which is funded by grants from the Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Morton Cure Paralysis Fund, may have implications for treatment of spinal cord injuries in humans. If neurobiologist Jennifer Morgan is right, one of the se...

Monday, 15 September 2008

Oldest Living Lineage of Ants Discovered in the Amazon

AUSTIN, Texas—A new species of blind, subterranean, predatory ant discovered in the Amazon rainforest by University of Texas at Austin evolutionary biologist Christian Rabeling is likely a descendant of the very first ants to evolve. The new ant is named Martialis heureka, which translates roughly to “ant from Mars,” because the ant has a combinat...

Friday, 01 August 2008

Gilbert Endowment Established by Worthingtons

Roger Worthington (B.A. ’83, J.D. ’86) and professor Larry Gilbert AUSTIN, Texas—University of Texas at Austin alums Roger and Ann Worthington have donated $500,000 to establish the Lawrence E. Gilbert, Jr. Excellence Endowment, an endowment for the benefit of Brackenridge Field Laboratory (BFL) and research and education in ecology and biodiver...

Thursday, 24 July 2008

Genes of Attraction

This array shows 306 genes in female swordtails turning on (red), turning off (green) or not changing (black). When females were with attractive males, many of their genes turned off (first column, green). The same genes were turned on when females were with other females (second column, red). The third and fourth columns show gene activity when fe...

Wednesday, 23 July 2008

Scientists Find New Clues to Explain Amazonian Biodiversity

AUSTIN, Texas--Ice age climate change and ancient flooding—but not barriers created by rivers—may have promoted the evolution of new insect species in the Amazon region of South America, a new study suggests. The Amazon basin is home to the richest diversity of life on earth, yet the reasons why this came to be are not well understood. A team of ...

Thursday, 17 July 2008

Global Warming Experts Recommend Drastic Measures to Save Species

AUSTIN, Texas—An international team of conservation scientists from Australia, the United Kingdom and United States, including University of Texas at Austin Professor Camille Parmesan, calls for new conservation tactics, such as assisted migration, in the face of the growing threat of climate change. They report their policy ideas in a paper publi...

Monday, 14 July 2008

Into the Field

Ulrich Mueller, recent recipient of the E.O. Wilson award, crouches above a leafcutter ant mound at the Brackenridge Field Lab in Austin. He's been monitoring ants at the lab for a decade in concert with his work in Central and South America. Photo: Marsha Miller. In his acceptance speech for the E.O. Wilson Award at this year’s annual meeting o...

Monday, 14 July 2008

Giant Cane and the Little Wasp That Could

AUSTIN, Texas—Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin will work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) to investigate biological control for an invasive cane grass that is choking waterways across North America. The introduced European cane, Arundo donax, grows in dense stands in wetlands and rip...

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Kirkpatrick Elected to AAAS

AUSTIN, Texas--Two faculty members at The University of Texas at Austin have been elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. They are Dr. J. Tinsley Oden, an associate vice president for research and director of the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES), and Dr. Mark Kirkpatrick, a professor in the Secti...

Friday, 08 February 2008

Globetrotting: Kristina Schegel

I’m standing on Pipeline, a muddy, puddle-filled road that runs through Soberania National Park in Panama. Dr. Mike Ryan, doctoral student Rachel Page, post doc Kim Hoke, and I came to the road to look for the “foam nests” of túngara frogs. Male túngaras whip-up the meringue-like nests, which hold eggs deposited by their mates, through the eggbeate...

Friday, 08 February 2008

Tree of Life Grows in Seay

Rendering of the Tree of Life installation in the Seay Building. In addition to giving money to the Phyllis L. Richards Endowed Professorship in Child Development, which will support a professor in the Human Development and Family Sciences program, Mr. and Mrs. Dick Rathgeber wanted to give a gift that would inspire further giving. So in colla...

Friday, 08 February 2008

Cool Class: Lizard Island

Sure, communal living on a distant island might bring to mind a certain hit television show. But the 15 students who stayed on Lizard Island this past summer were satisfied to find their intrigue in the incredible coral reefs they snorkeled through each day. For three summers Dr. Mary Poteet, research fellow and lecturer in integrative biology, ha...

Thursday, 13 December 2007

Research Makes Discover's Top 100

Research conducted by University of Texas at Austin professors Andrea Gore and David Crews has been included on Discover magazine’s list of the “Top 100 Science Stories of 2007.” Gore is a professor of pharmacology and toxicology in the College of Pharmacy, and Crews is the Ashbel Smith Professor of Integrative Biology in the College of Natural Sc...

Monday, 10 December 2007

When She's Turned On, Some Of Her Genes Turn Off

AUSTIN, Texas—When a female is attracted to a male, entire suites of genes in her brain turn on and off, show biologists from The University of Texas at Austin studying swordtail fish. Molly Cummings and Hans Hofmann found that some genes were turned on when females found a male attractive, but a larger number of genes were turned off. “When fema...