News

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

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

Accolades

Astronomer Stella Offner Receives Delta Young Astronomer Lectureship Award

Each year, the award is given to one or two international scholars under the age of 45.

A man in a face mask presents a statuette to a woman in a face mask

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

Podcast

A Physicist’s Search for Beauty

Steven Weinberg aimed to distill the rules of physics down to their simplest, most beautiful essence.

Portrait of a man in a suit with arms crossed in front of an illustration of the Standard Model of Physics

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

Announcements

2022 State of the College Address

On March 3, 2022, Dean David Vanden Bout presented to members of the college community his vision and reflections on core college values of community...

Aerial photo of UT Austin campus during sunrise with the UT Tower on the horizon in burnt orange hues.

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

UT News

UT Austin Hires Director for Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Lee Clippard has been selected to serve as executive director of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the official botanic garden and arboretum of Texas.

Lee Clippard in a collared sheet stands in an aboretum