News

​ 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.

Amy Pavel joined the College of Natural Sciences faculty in spring 2022 as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University and research scientist at Apple. She obtained her Ph.D. and undergraduate degrees at the University of California at Berkeley.

Salt marshes are a hot but unpredictable commodity in the carbon market. Salt marshes store a vast amount of carbon, and industries and businesses are looking to this habitat to offset CO₂ emissions by buying carbon credits, restoring marsh or conserving marsh. The problem lies in the fact that carbon accumulation rates for salt marshes vary wildly, making it challenging to put a consistent price per acre of salt marsh for a carbon offset amount.

Ed Buskey has been selected to serve as director of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, which this year is celebrating more than 75 years on the Texas Gulf Coast. Buskey has been interim director of the institute since June of 2021, and he served previously as chair of the Department of Marine Science and associate chair of the Marine Science Institute.

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.

A new study by The University of Texas at Austin and the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds younger LGBQ adults are physically healthier but have worse psychological health than older LGBQ people.

A dozen offerings from The University of Texas at Austin were ranked among the nation's best "Degrees of the Future 2022" by Gizmodo. The ranking came in a new special report from the technology, science and culture publication dedicated to "honoring the universities preparing students for tomorrow."

Scientists have uncovered what sets the masses of stars, a mystery that has captivated astrophysicists for decades. Their answer? Stars, themselves.