News: Research

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

Research

A More Nuanced Approach is Needed to Manage Coral Reef Ecosystems

Instead of focusing entirely on biomass and one-size-fits-all solutions, researchers recommend finding which fish provide the most useful functions in each reef system and protecting...

A school of colorful fish swim over a coral reef

UT News

Invading Hordes of Crazy Ants May Have Finally Met Their Kryptonite

UT Austin scientists have demonstrated how to use a naturally occurring fungus to crush local populations of invasive tawny crazy ants.

Ants swarm on a larger, dead insect

Research

New Phononic Crystal Might Enable Better Mobile Communications

UT Austin researchers' new acoustic component, made of aluminum nitride and configured into periodic phononic crystals, allows engineers to direct high frequency elastic waves along...

Light colored pattern on a dark orange background. A path zigs from the right to left like a backward letter Z.

Department of Computer Science

Computer Science Researcher Aims to Automate Software Development

Isil Dillig works to improve the security and reliability of software systems and automatically generate programs from high-level specifications.

Portrait of a woman

Department of Molecular Biosciences

New Vaccine Advances Could Help Against More Viral Illnesses

Jason McLellan and his team advance understanding of human metapneumovirus (hMPV) and human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), which can help them develop vaccines.

Two scientists in lab coats looking at a computer screen

Research

Dried Bacteria Could Revolutionize Testing, Laboratory Science

What if there were a way to make proteins, enzymes and reagents right in the lab, in small amounts, on demand?

Microscopic image of e.coli bacteria stained blue against a black background

Department of Molecular Biosciences

Gene Editing Gets Safer Thanks to Redesigned Protein

Scientists have redesigned a key component of a widely used CRISPR-based gene-editing tool, called Cas9, to be thousands of times less likely to target the...

Illustration of a protein interacting with DNA

Research

Some Trees May Play an Outsized Role in the Fight on Global Warming

A new study shows that nitrogen-fixing trees could help forests remove more heat-trapping COS from the atmosphere than previously thought.

Sunlight peeks through the trees

Department of Molecular Biosciences

A New Way to Disarm Antibiotic Resistance in Deadly Bacteria

Scientists have found a new way to impair antibiotic resistance in bacteria that cause human disease, including E. coli, K. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa.

Microsope image of a bacterium that has burst open

Texas Scientist

Charging Ahead

Chemists and physicists are making steady progress on developing new materials that may prove key for our future energy needs.

Illustration of a lightning bolt containing cacti and a cloudy sky