News

This spring, science and research take center stage at the Texas Science Festival. Happening Feb. 21 through March 4, the event is open to all and offers something for everyone—with options to join in or out of Texas. Participants of all ages will engage with, understand and be invigorated by scientific discovery at this year's event, themed around "Impact and Ideas to Transform Lives."

Traditionally, it has been assumed that cultivating food leads to a loss of biodiversity and negative impacts on an ecosystem. A new study from researchers at multiple universities, including The University of Texas at Austin, defies this assumption, showing that community gardens and urban farms positively affect biodiversity, local ecosystems and the well-being of humans that work in them.

A new examination of ancient and current species of reptiles conducted by a University of Texas at Austin paleobiologist reveals the serious impact of the disappearance of even a few species of reptiles in some island areas. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has startling conclusions about how, on smaller islands in the Caribbean where human impact was greatest, extinctions have led to the loss of up to two-thirds of the supports for the ecosystem that native reptile species once provided there.

Three faculty members in the College of Natural Sciences and three others at The University of Texas at Austin have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society.

Nancy Moran, an evolutionary biologist at The University of Texas at Austin, will receive the 2023 Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Felicity Muth, a UT Austin assistant professor of integrative biology whose work focuses on cognition, didn't always know what animal she would ultimately work with to better understand the living world.

​The Teaching Excellence Award in the College of Natural Sciences seeks to promote and recognize outstanding teaching in the college by honoring faculty members who have had a positive influence on the educational experience of our students. 

The National Science Foundation has selected The University of Texas at Austin for a pilot grant to establish the UT Center for Pandemic Decision Science (CPDS). The new interdisciplinary center will bring together scientists, engineers, clinicians and policymakers to tackle the grand challenge of preparing the world to combat future pandemic threats.

​ SMITHVILLE, Texas – At a site where scientists have been conducting research for decades, the recent Pine Pond Fire in Bastrop County damaged outdoor habitats within The University of Texas at Austin's Stengl Lost Pines Biological Station (SLP). No one was hurt and no buildings burned in the fire.

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.