News

A new hunting ground for medically important compounds may be the genome of a stressed-out, poisonous evergreen shrub. Rhazya stricta is a relative of a plant currently mined for chemotherapies and holds promise for future cancer therapies, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Austin, King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Saudi Arabia and two institutions in Canada, University of Ottawa and Université de Montréal.

A $2 million recruitment grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) has paved the way for The University of Texas at Austin to welcome a scientist experienced in cutting-edge molecular biology technologies that are used to study disease and DNA repair.

Ila Fiete, associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience, is the first faculty member from The University of Texas at Austin to receive recognition through a new program from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). She joins 83 early-career scientists from across the nation who have been chosen for the Faculty Scholars Program.

Like many predators, the fringe-lipped bat primarily uses its hearing to find its prey, but with human-generated noise on the rise, scientists are examining how bats and other animals might adapt to find their next meal. According to a new study, when noise masks the mating calls of the bat's prey, túngara frogs, the bat shifts to another sensory mode—echolocation.

​The New Horizons spacecraft brought humanity face to face with the last unexplored planet in our solar system: Pluto. What we're learning is amazing. But, time and again, the mission almost didn't happen. University of Texas at Austin alumnus Alan Stern describes the challenges, and the joys, of the last first mission to a planet.

Alzheimer's disease, the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, has proven especially thorny for researchers: no cure has been found, nor has there been any treatment proven to slow the progression of the disease once it sets in. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have taken a back-to-the-beginning approach, examining what happens at the start of a chain reaction that occurs before onset of the disease.

This week, the College of Natural Sciences celebrates Discovery Education Week, which focuses on teaching, curriculum and science communication at UT Austin. In this post, Yan Jessie Zhang, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, and Tyler Stack, a biochemistry graduate student, reflect on ways to "instill passion and mastery" in science students.

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have demonstrated a method for making three-dimensional images of structures in biological material under natural conditions at a much higher resolution than other existing methods. The method may help shed light on how cells communicate with one another and provide important insights for engineers working to develop artificial organs such as skin or heart tissue.

The College of Natural Sciences is currently celebrating Discovery Education Week to promote and discuss science education throughout the college.

​Iranian authorities released Omid Kokabee, former doctoral student in physics at The University of Texas at Austin, on Monday after more than five years of imprisonment according to reports by multiple outlets including the Associated Press.