CNS welcomes new tenured and tenure-track faculty members this fall. Whether searching for insight into the fundamental nature of spacetime, studying cellular mechanisms that lead to disease, or determining ways to strengthen disadvantaged families, these industrious and trailblazing scientists build on the college's reputation in research and teaching.
With the turning of a shovelful of earth a mile underground, a new era in international particle physics research officially begins.
Physicists have been puzzled ever since an experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the late 1990s found that muons, elementary particles produced when cosmic rays hit our atmosphere, have slightly different magnetic properties than predicted. If true, it could mean a shakeup is in store for the theoretical framework that physicists use to describe the universe.
Three world-changing alumni of the College of Natural Sciences have been selected for induction into the college's 2017 Hall of Honor. Two distinguished alumni, Gail Dianne Lewis and Alan Stern, have been excelling in their chosen fields for decades. Meanwhile, emerging leader Franziska Roesner has only just begun to make her mark. All are building a better world.
Microbial biofilms—dense, sticky mats of bacteria that are hard to treat and can lead to dangerous infections—often form in medical equipment, such as flexible plastic tubing used in catheters or in tubes used to help patients breathe. By some estimates, more than 1 million people contract infections from medical devices in U.S. hospitals each year, many of which are due to biofilms. A study from The University of Texas at Austin suggests a possible new way to prevent such biofilms from forming, which would sharply reduce incidents of related hospital-borne infection.
The University of Texas at Austin mourns the loss of renowned physicist and professor emerita Cécile DeWitt-Morette, who was a faculty member in the Department of Astronomy and the Department of Physics. DeWitt-Morette received international acclaim for her work in theoretical physics and for the educational institution she established in Europe, L'École de Physique des Houches, which helped launch many of the world's leading physicists and mathematicians.
A research team led by physics professor Keji Lai at the University of Texas at Austin has discovered that a material he studies has an unusual property that could one day lead to cell phones and other electronic devices that are smaller, lighter and more energy efficient.
Andrew Potter, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, has received the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation. The award will support theoretical research and education towards understanding and controlling the dynamics of complex quantum systems
Mark Raizen, a professor of physics at The University of Texas at Austin, and his team have developed the world's highest resolution atom lens, a key component of a new kind of microscope called an atom microscope, which can image the surface of a material at the atomic scale and reveal its chemical composition.
Salt, snowflakes and diamonds are all crystals, meaning their atoms are arranged in 3-D patterns that repeat. Today scientists are reporting in the journal Nature on the creation of a phase of matter, dubbed a time crystal, in which atoms move in a pattern that repeats in time rather than in space.
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.
