News

Read the latest news from the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin

Accolades

College of Natural Sciences Faculty Receive NSF CAREER Awards

July 25, 2024 • by Esther Robards-Forbes

The awards from the National Science Foundation support innovative work by earlier-career faculty.

Features

In Robot Soccer and More, UT Students Best the Competition in Eindhoven

July 24, 2024 • by Christine Sinatra

Among hundreds of teams from around the world competing at RoboCup 2024, UT researchers and their robots shine.

Eight people, half of them in Texas Robotics shirts and half in Wisconsin badgers t-shirts, pose on a soccer field, several of them holding small robots in jerseys.

McDonald Observatory

Astronomers Better Identify the Cygnus Loop’s Distance from Earth

July 19, 2024 • by Emily Howard

Knowing how far away this supernova remnant is will help answer fundamental questions about what happens when stars explode.

A ghostly blue feature in the middle of a field of bright stars and the blackness of space

Podcast

AI at Work

July 18, 2024 • by Marc Airhart

Maytal Saar-Tsechansky and Samantha Shorey consider the ways that AI might change how we work and how to prepare for the future.

A hand holds a block with an image of a robotic head and the hand is preparing to drop the block into a gap in a line of blocks, each with an icon representing a work task ssuch as driving, using a hammer, sorting files or stapling

Research

Paving the Way to Extremely Fast, Compact Computer Memory

July 17, 2024 • by Marc Airhart

Materials with high magnetoelectric coupling could be useful in novel devices such as magnetic computer memories, chemical sensors and quantum computers.

Illustration showing two corkscrew-shaped lines twisting in opposite directions, rising up out of a layer of small spheres that represent atoms, each with an arrow pointing in the direction of a feature called its magnetic moment

Oden Institute

Summer School on Quantum Materials

July 10, 2024 • by Joanne Foote

Feliciano Guistino led a week-long workshop for graduate-level students in modern techniques for computational data science and high-performance computing.

Students in a lecture hall discussing a problem and looking at laptop screens

Accolades

Computer Scientist Keshav Pingali Receives Lifetime Achievement Award for Programing Languages

July 8, 2024 • by Esther Robards-Forbes

Pingali has received the Programming Languages Achievement Award by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN).

Research

The Lesser of Two Weevils: Size Differences in Some Insects Lead to Tradeoffs in the Competition for Mates

July 5, 2024 • by Esther Robards-Forbes

The largest males have bigger weapons, but smaller males have other advantages.

Podcast

The University of AI

July 4, 2024 • by Marc Airhart

Art Markman and K.P. Procko consider how artificial intelligence is already changing the college experience, its promise and pitfalls, and future directions.

College students wearing spirit gear that reads "University of AI"

McDonald Observatory

Bass Foundation Gift Strengthens Outreach at McDonald Observatory

July 2, 2024 • by Emily Howard

Updates to Field Station Network member McDonald Observatory will be in the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center and improve and expand the visitor experience.