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From the College of Natural Sciences
Biologist Earns Career Award from Humboldt Foundation

Biologist Earns Career Award from Humboldt Foundation

The Humboldt Foundation has chosen UT Austin professor of integrative biology Mathew Leibold to receive the Humboldt Research Award in recognition of his lifetime achievements in research. The award is valued at around $70,000.

Spying on Fish Love Calls Could Help Protect Them from Overfishing

Spying on Fish Love Calls Could Help Protect Them from Overfishing

Marine scientists have discovered a way to use the incredibly loud, distinctive sounds that fish make when they gather to spawn--not to catch them but to protect them. Illustration credit: Jenna Luecke/Univ. of Texas at Austin.

About a third of the world's fish stocks are being overfished, meaning they're being harvested faster than they can reproduce, and species that spawn seasonally in large groups are especially vulnerable, easy for fishers to locate and plucked from the water often before they've seeded the next generation.

Chemist Searches for Less Toxic Compound to Preserve Organs

Chemist Searches for Less Toxic Compound to Preserve Organs

A computer simulation shows how DMSO molecules (red, white and yellow) form hydrogen bonds with water molecules (red and white). Credit: Carlos Baiz.

About a third of all deaths in the U.S. could be prevented or substantially delayed by organ transplantation, according to a 2015 report from the U.S. military. The main bottleneck is that there is no practical way to preserve organs for more than a few hours. If you try to freeze a whole organ, water within and between cells forms ice crystals that cause the cells to rupture.

Starving Prostate Cancer With What You Eat for Dinner

Starving Prostate Cancer With What You Eat for Dinner

Curcumin has anti-cancer properties when combined with other nutrients. Photo credit: Steven Jackson; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

When you dine on curry and baked apples, enjoy the fact that you are eating something that could play a role starving — or even preventing — cancer.

Astronomers Prove What Separates True Stars from Wannabes

Astronomers Prove What Separates True Stars from Wannabes

​Astronomer Trent Dupuy of The University of Texas at Austin has shown what separates true stars from wannabes. Not in Hollywood, but in the whole universe. He will present his research today in a news conference at the semi-annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin.

Russell Recognized for Significant Contribution to LGBT Psychology

Russell Recognized for Significant Contribution to LGBT Psychology

Professor and chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences Stephen Russell has received the prestigious Distinguished Book Award from Division 44—the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues.

Physicists Launch Experiment to Probe a Muon Mystery

Physicists Launch Experiment to Probe a Muon Mystery

The Muon g-2 magnet ring with instrumentation, awaiting muons. Credit: Fermilab.

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.

Nancy Moran awarded the 2017 Molecular Ecology Prize

Nancy Moran awarded the 2017 Molecular Ecology Prize

The Editorial Board of the journal Molecular Ecology has selected Professor Nancy Moran of The University of Texas at Austin for its 2017 Molecular Ecology Prize.  The Prize recognizes "an outstanding scientist who has made significant contributions to Molecular Ecology," as selected by an independent award committee.

Computer Scientist Named to UT Austin's Academy of Distinguished Teachers

Computer Scientist Named to UT Austin's Academy of Distinguished Teachers

Kristen Grauman, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, has been inducted into The University of Texas at Austin's respected Academy of Distinguished Teachers for 2017.

Outnumbered and on Others’ Turf, Misfits Sometimes Thrive

Outnumbered and on Others’ Turf, Misfits Sometimes Thrive

Two male sticklebacks of the same age—one from a stream (top) and one from a lake (bottom)—are each highly adapted to their own local environment. According to Bolnick, apart from a dramatic difference in size, the fish also differ in immune traits, body shape, armor to defend against predators, and “basically anything we can think to measure.” Photo credit: Daniel Berner.

It's hard being a misfit: say, a Yankees fan in a room full of Red Sox fans or a vegetarian at a barbecue joint. Evolutionary biologists have long assumed that's pretty much how things work in nature too. Animals that wander into alien environments, surrounded by better-adapted locals, will struggle. But a team of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin was surprised to find that sometimes, misfits can thrive among their much more numerous native cousins.