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

UT News

Faculty Members Awarded ‘New Directions’ Seed Funding To Explore Emerging Research Opportunities

College of Natural Sciences researchers embarking on bold new research directions are receiving new seed funding.

Photo of UT Tower from north with the gates of Gearing Hall and a studetn walking in the foreground.

McDonald Observatory

HETDEX Opens Massive Cosmic Dataset to Scientists, Novices, and AI

The largest survey ever of the early universe contains 600 million spectra, covering part of the sky equal to 2,000 full Moons.

An illustration mapping the location of more than one million galaxies in relation to the Milky Way. Rainbow colored lines emanate out in all directions from a central point.

Features

Can This Scientist’s Proposal Save Coral Reefs in Our Hemisphere?

Evolutionary expert Misha Matz makes a splash with a controversial proposal that could save Caribbean coral reefs.

A man stands in a large greenhouse next to a large tank of water containing coral

Research

Scientists Map Proteins From Ancient Organism and Discover New Links to Rare Diseases

New ‘treasure map’ of ancient life holds clues to modern human diseases.

Cartoon of a microbe showing all its internal structures.

McDonald Observatory

Black Hole Found that Formed Before Its Galaxy

Findings help explain how black holes millions to billions of times the mass of the sun formed so soon after the Big Bang.

A view of space with galaxies and stars

Research

UT Scientists Help Measure Universe’s Expansion with Gravitational Waves

An era of precision gravitational astronomy has arrived, and UT physicists are helping lead the way.

A technician wearing a facemask makes adjustments to a piece of scientific equipment. The person is visible through a round glass window surrounded by metal and regions lit by purple and green light.

Department of Mathematics

UT Austin Student Team Wins 2026 Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge

UT students won top honors at an actuarial math global competition beating more than 50 other teams.

Four young women in Texas Mathematics burnt orange shirts pose before the UT Tower with the hook 'em horns sign.

Oden Institute

A Match Made in the Cosmos

Thanks to the NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins (CosmicAI), astronomy and AI are solving each other’s problems.

A galactic swirl in outer space

Research

Scientists Find Blood-based Biomarkers for Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is highly aggressive, but extremely difficult to tell apart from other breast cancers.

An illustration of a strand of RNA looks like a red, coiled ribbon with short spokes at regular intervals

Accolades

Award Winners Underscore Outstanding Student Research at Capstone Event

174 students presented their informatics projects spanning areas such as accessibility, AI/ML, archives, data science and UX design.

 School of Computing