How Did Electric Eels Become Electric?
Researchers have discovered how electric fish acquired electric organs. Electric fish, like the electric eel, can distinguish other electric fish by species, sex, and even…
University of Texas at Austin News
Saved From Extinction: How the Gulf of Mexico Escaped Global Warming 56 Million Years Ago
Research shows how the Gulf of Mexico survived a prehistoric mass extinction. According to research by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG), an…
Better Sleep: Engineered Mattress Tricks Your Body to Fall Asleep Faster
Throughout the course of a day, people alternate between feeling alert and sleepy. This sensation is actually controlled in part by the ebb and flow…
Tiny Motors Take a Big Step Forward: First-Ever Solid-State Optical Nanomotor
Motors are ubiquitous in our everyday lives — from cars to washing machines, even if we rarely notice them. A futuristic scientific field is working…
Incredible Virus Discovery Offers Clues About the Origins of Complex Life
The first discovery of viruses infecting a group of microbes that may include the ancestors of all complex life has been found, scientists at The…
Electronic Tattoo Offers Highly Accurate, Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring
Blood pressure is one of the most important indicators of heart health, but it’s tough to frequently and reliably measure outside of a clinical setting….
Low-Cost Gel Harvests Drinking Water From Dry Desert Air
More than a third of the world’s population lives in drylands, areas that experience significant water shortages. Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas…
Plastic-Eating Enzyme Could Supercharge Recycling and Eliminate Billions of Tons of Landfill Waste
A new enzyme variant can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days. It was …
Extraordinary Supernova Reveals Secrets to Astronomers – “A Sort of Time Machine”
A multinational team of astronomers led by Benjamin Thomas of The University of Texas at Austin has used observations from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at…
Planet-Scale MRI: High-Resolution Illumination of Earth’s Interior Down to the Planet’s Core
High resolution illumination of Earth’s interior down to the planet’s core with 3D global numerical simulations. Earthquakes do more than buckle streets and topple buildings….
“Chaos Terrains” Could Be Shuttling Oxygen to Ocean on Jupiter’s Moon Europa
Salt water within the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa could be transporting oxygen into an ice-covered ocean of liquid water where it could potentially…
Dinosaur Faces and Feet May Have Popped With Bright Color
New study from The University of Texas at Austin traces the probability of color from modern bids to dinosaurs. Most birds aren’t as colorful as…
Supercomputing Safe and Effective Carbon Capture and Storage
University of Texas researcher identifies factors for safe and effective carbon capture and storage. The road to a stabilized climate is challenging and contentious. A…
Solving a Superconducting Mystery With Supercomputer Computations
New method from Clemson University researcher, enabled by Frontera supercomputer, helps explain role of phonons in copper-based superconductivity. Researchers have known about high-temperature superconducting copper-based…
Misled by a Mars Mirage: Hope for Present-Day Martian Groundwater Dries Up
Liquid water previously detected under Mars’ ice-covered south pole is probably just a dusty mirage, according to a new study of the red planet led…
World’s Largest Flying Animal – With a Wingspan Nearing 40 Feet – Leaped Aloft To Fly
With a wingspan nearing 40 feet, the giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus is the largest known animal to take to the sky. But known from only a…
Fate of Sinking Tectonic Plates Has Long Puzzled Scientists – Now They’ve Found an Answer
Our world’s surface is a jumble of jostling tectonic plates, with new ones emerging as others are pulled under. The ongoing cycle keeps our continents…
New Hydrogel Tablet Can Rapidly Purify Contaminated Water
As much as a third of the world’s population does not have access to clean drinking water, according to some estimates, and half of the…
