Weddell seals spend 95 percent of their time swimming under Antarctic sea ice. They can dive to great depths and hold their breath for stretches as long as an hour at a time, even while pursuing their prey at rapid speeds. Despite this physical prowess, the seals are just as vulnerable as humans to drowning if they can't find a breathing hole in the underwater darkness.
With an advance that one cryptography expert called a "masterpiece," University of Texas at Austin computer scientists have developed a new method for producing truly random numbers, a breakthrough that could be used to encrypt data, make electronic voting more secure, conduct statistically significant polls and more accurately simulate complex systems such as Earth's climate.
Fatima Fakhreddine of the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin has been chosen to hold an endowed Dads' Association Centennial Teaching Fellowship for 2016-2017. The fellowship recognizes excellence and commitment in the teaching of undergraduates.
Nancy Lee, M.D., (Math, '71) is a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health and Director of the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In honor of National Women's Health Week, we talked to her about her journey from math student to national advocate for women's health.
Scientists have identified genetic mutations that appear to be a key culprit behind a suite of birth defects called ciliopathies, which affect an estimated 1 in 1,000 births. In a paper published online this week in Nature Genetics, a team of researchers led by The University of Texas at Austin's John Wallingford reveals that these mutations prevent certain proteins from working together to smooth the way for cells to communicate with one another.
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have for the first time revealed how a group of drugs that are being developed to treat hepatitis C works. Pharmaceutical companies might be able to apply these new insights to future drugs designed to address a deadly disease.
Microbiologists have cracked the genetic code of how bacteria broke down oil to help clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The findings, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, reveal that some bacteria have far greater potential for consuming oil than was previously known.
Philip 'Uri' Treisman, founder and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, has been honored with two major education awards nationally: the Ross Taylor/Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award from the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics and a Piper Professorship from the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation.
Evolutionary biologist James Bull of The University of Texas at Austin has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
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.
