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On a recent spring Saturday at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, families strolled along paths surrounded by a riotous mix of bluebonnets, winecups and evening primrose. Avid gardeners stood in line for a chance to shop the center's annual native plant sale. And a teen in a glittering dress posed for quinceañera pictures beside a pond.

Finding new strategies to battle COVID or cancer, developing tools for the fight against climate change, working to understand a human brain transformed by alcoholism or Alzheimer's disease—this is just a small sample of the type of work scientists at UT Austin do every day. It can be a lot for the individuals involved, with plenty of setbacks and stress along the way. Researchers, like so many people, could use a break right about now.

At the intersection of life sciences research, teaching and public engagement rests a growing network of University of Texas at Austin field stations—all of which have a role in discovering strategies for environmental resilience and insights about the natural world. The latest addition is one of Austin's most treasured outdoor destinations and the official state Botanical Garden and Arboretum of Texas: the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Imagine biological and chemical imaging tools so advanced that they are able to show the molecular details of a virus as it attaches to and enters cells, or the alignment of vanishingly tiny crystals at an atomic level so as to lend insights for new solar energy technology.

The University of Texas at Austin and other partners of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) announce the fabrication of the sixth of seven of the world's largest monolithic mirrors. These mirrors will allow astronomers to see farther into the universe with more detail than any other optical telescope before. The sixth 8.4-meter (27.5 feet) mirror — about two stories high when standing on edge — is being fabricated at The University of Arizona's Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab and will take nearly four years to complete.

Being a marine scientist entails coping with extremes, from scuba diving deep in the ocean to interacting with living organisms that are among the planet's most mysterious creatures. Nonetheless, Hurricane Harvey was a whole new extreme for The University of Texas's Marine Science Institute. 

Weeks after most students have left UT Austin's campus for the summer, the heart of the Forty Acres is anything but quiet. The steady beeping of a forklift mixes with the drone of power tools and the occasional boom of construction debris being dropped out a third-floor window and into a skiff.

A proposed project to rebuild the Marine Science Institute, which was damaged in Hurricane Harvey, was approved Monday by the University of Texas System Board of Regents. The project will help the institute come back into full operation, according to Marine Science Institute leadership, and it will pay for replacing roofs and mechanical systems, supporting interior and exterior restoration of numerous buildings damaged in the storm, rebuilding a research pier that was destroyed by a drilling ship in the aftermath of the storm and replacing student housing. 

​The message below is an update from University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute Director and Marine Science Department Chair Dr. Robert Dickey.

For many alumni, memories of their favorite professors or funny stories from long hours in the lab make the Forty Acres a special place to remember. Others recall falling in love among the beakers, telescopes, supercomputers and math study groups here in the heart of campus.