News

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

Announcements

Texas Science & Natural History Museum Celebrates Record Attendance in its First Year Since Reopening

The on-campus museum also has opened its newest temporary exhibit, featuring a scale model of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the largest optical telescope in North America.

A dark room has museum-quality installations on its wall that read, "Big Eye on Dark Skies: Hobby-Eberly Telescope" near a 3D spherical telescope replica.

Announcements

New Program to Enhance Accessibility in Astronomy Education

Universo Expansivo, a program of the Giant Magellan Telescope, will increase accessibility for students with vision loss through tactile astronomy kits and lesson plans.

Several small models of planets sit on a desk next to a window

Podcast

Is AI Coming for Our News?

Journalism professor Robert Quigley answers our burning questions about AI and journalism.

A human silhouette made up of the text in a newspaper article shakes hands with a robot silhouette also made up of newspaper text

Research

AI Trained on Evolution’s Playbook Develops Proteins that Spur Drug and Scientific Discovery

EvoRank offers a new and tangible example of how AI may help bring disruptive change to biomedical research and biotechnology more broadly.

A colorful ribbon with twists and turns represents the three-dimensional structure of a molecule

Accolades

Allan MacDonald Named Citation Laureate

The annual recognition highlights researchers with extraordinary citation records and societal impact.

A man in a collared shirt and glasses smiles, seated in front of a blackboard with figures.

Department of Computer Science

Keeping Up with AI’s Increasingly Complex Networking Demands

A new framework called Transcraft makes the process of designing and implementing new network stacks simpler and more adaptable.

A portrait of three men

Announcements

New AI Institute Led by UT Researchers Will Accelerate Cosmic Discovery

Stella Offner and Arya Farahi are among the leads of a new multi-institution institute focused on AI and astronomy.

Four quadrants of scientific-images come together, with webs showing bright spots for star formation, galaxy clustering, identifications of galaxies that are labeled and a futuristic network.

Announcements

Natural Sciences Welcomes New Faculty Across the College

Familiar faces and newcomers alike are among the 13 newest tenured and tenure-track faculty members joining the college.

New faculty members 2024-2025

Features

Transitioning to an Empty Nest? What to Know and How You Can Help Scientists Learn More

As children grow up and leave home to begin college or work, their parents face a transformation of their own. 

A mosaic centers the arms of a young man holding a cardboard box filled with books and clothes and a couple experiencing connection or stress

McDonald Observatory

Early Dark Energy Could Resolve Cosmology’s Two Biggest Puzzles

Michael Boylan-Kolchin and others show “early dark energy” might help solve the Hubble Tension and explain why there are more early galaxies than expected.

Views of the early universe from a computer model