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From the College of Natural Sciences
New Gravitational Wave Catalog Reveals Black Holes of ‘All Shapes and Sizes’

New Gravitational Wave Catalog Reveals Black Holes of ‘All Shapes and Sizes’

Today, an international scientific collaboration released the largest catalog ever of collisions involving black holes and neutron stars, raising the total to 90 events. The results suggest that intermediate-mass black holes are more common than scientists previously thought. The catalog also includes the second discovery of an intriguing object that seems too small to be a black hole, yet too large to be a neutron star.

New Model Reveals How Chromosomes Get Packed Up

New Model Reveals How Chromosomes Get Packed Up

To scrunch a chromosome (green), a condensin molecule opens and closes like a pair of fingers (light blue) connected by a hinge (dark blue).

One of the most astounding feats of nature is happening right now in cells throughout your body: noodle-like molecules called chromosomes, which carry part of your genetic blueprints and are about two inches (5 centimeters) long when fully stretched out, get stuffed into the cell's nucleus, which is at least 5,000 times smaller, with plenty of room for a bunch of other chromosomes. 

Ethical Artificial Intelligence is Focus of New Robotics Program

Ethical Artificial Intelligence is Focus of New Robotics Program

Ethics will be at the forefront of robotics education thanks to a new University of Texas at Austin program that will train tomorrow's technologists to understand the positive — and potentially negative — implications of their creations.

Research on Language Learning Yields Mitchell Prize for UT Austin Statisticians

Research on Language Learning Yields Mitchell Prize for UT Austin Statisticians

A cross-disciplinary team including University of Texas at Austin statisticians Giorgio Paulon and Abhra Sarkar have received the Mitchell Prize, a top prize in the field, for their study modeling what happens in the brains of nonnative English speakers learning another language's tonal differences.

MasSpec Pen Shows Promise in Pancreatic Cancer Surgery

MasSpec Pen Shows Promise in Pancreatic Cancer Surgery

Jialing Zhang demonstrates using the MasSpec Pen on a human tissue sample. Photo credit: Vivian Abagiu/Univ. of Texas at Austin.

A diagnostic tool called the MasSpec Pen has been tested for the first time in pancreatic cancer patients during surgery. The device is shown to accurately identify tissues and surgical margins directly in patients and differentiate healthy and cancerous tissue from banked pancreas samples.

First Confirmed Detection of Neutron Stars Crashing into Black Holes

First Confirmed Detection of Neutron Stars Crashing into Black Holes

For the first time, researchers have confirmed the detection of a collision between a black hole and a neutron star.

Discovery about Brain Cells that Promote Healing from Strokes Offers Treatment Insights

Discovery about Brain Cells that Promote Healing from Strokes Offers Treatment Insights

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found a particular type of cell once thought to hinder the recovery process in people who have suffered strokes may actually promote the healing process following a brain injury. The findings, published April 27 in the journal Cell Reports, provides new insights for researchers seeking treatments for stroke and brain injury.

Scientists Discover How Remdesivir Works to Inhibit Coronavirus

Scientists Discover How Remdesivir Works to Inhibit Coronavirus

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.

Texas Coronavirus Scientists Win Award for Research with ‘Great Societal Benefit’

Texas Coronavirus Scientists Win Award for Research with ‘Great Societal Benefit’

Jason McLellan (left) and Daniel Wrapp have been awarded the Golden Goose Award. Credit: Vivian Abagiu.

The world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society has announced that Jason McLellan, a University of Texas at Austin associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, and Daniel Wrapp, a graduate student fellow, were among seven winners of this year's Golden Goose Award. Supported by members of Congress from both parties and a coalition of businesses, universities and scientific societies since 2012, the prize this year went to scientists "whose federally funded research has had a significant impact for the response and treatment of COVID-19."

Researchers Use Framework to Address Inequity in Academia

Researchers Use Framework to Address Inequity in Academia

Kelly Wallace and Julia York, two graduate students studying Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, recently turned their attention from studying animals in the field to studying equity and inclusion in their own academic program. They teamed up on a recent paper to examine diversity and inclusion and develop a framework for other programs to evaluate their own efforts. The paper, "A systems change framework for evaluating academic equity and inclusion in an Ecology and Evolution Graduate Program," appeared in the journal Ecology and Evolution.