News: Integrative Biology

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

Features

Turtle Pond Offers Research Site for Undergraduates

A new long-running project allows undergraduate students to gain hands-on experience with ecological research in the heart of the UT Austin campus.

Professor Havird and his students take samples from the turtles to learn more about their ecology and health.

Announcements

CDC Taps UT for National Disease Outbreak Response Network

Lauren Ancel Meyers and colleagues will help scale up decision-support tools that were successful in earlier outbreaks for use across jurisdictions.

A scientist points to a pandemic model visualization in front of a standing audience

Research

AI Tech Accurately Diagnoses Knee Arthritis from Medical Images

Vagheesh Narasimhan and Prakash Jayakumar trained an AI on x-ray images from tens of thousands of people in the UK Biobank.

Two x-rays of knees

Biodiversity Center

Meet the 2023 Stengl-Wyer Scholars, Fellows and Grant Awardees

Three postdoctoral fellows, four graduate students and numerous labs at UT and the Wildflower Center received awards this year.

A scientist kneels in a tree-lined area with marked gardens near equipment as he measures the rate of calcium carbonate precipitation in the soil.

Announcements

Philanthropic Gift Establishes Historic UT Commitment to Monitoring Texas’ Natural Resources

A transformative donation allows for the expansion of a Texas Field Station Network to study biodiversity and sustainability.

A young man in a hat holding equipment leads a group of students down a creek at a Hill Country-based field station

Research

Five Lessons from UT Austin Science about Planning for Living with Heat

In our endless summer, research on heat impacts offers insights on how best to adapt.

CNS Scientists have been applying their research in ways that will help communities respond to heat.

Research

Female Butterflies See UV Light Thanks to a Gene Hiding in an Unusual Place

In some species, female and male butterflies apparently perceive colors differently.

A butterfly with black and white striped wings

Research

Tropical Trees Use Social Distancing to Maintain Biodiversity

Researchers discovered that adult trees in a Panamanian forest are three times as distant from trees of their species as would be predicted.

An aerial shot of a forest shows species of trees clustered together near a river

Research

Some Frogs Use Toxins to Deter Predators, but Evolution Doesn’t Supply Free Lunch

Poison frogs are able to withstand a toxin which they use to deter predators, but not without a cost.

Anthony’s poison frog (Epipedobates anthonyi). CREDIT: David Cannatella

Research

Genes That Shape Bones Identified, Offering Clues About Our Past and Future

An application of AI to medical imaging datasets has revealed genetics of the skeletal form for the first time.

Image of human skeleton imposed over DNA double helix