https://phys.org/ en-us Latest news from University of Texas at Austin The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX)—which recently completed the largest survey ever taken of the early universe—has released all of its immense, information-rich database to the public. Built from more than half a petabyte of raw and processed data, it will allow astronomers to study how the first galaxies formed and evolved, measure how gas and stars were distributed within these galaxies, map the large-scale structure of the cosmos, and investigate rare and unexpected objects not easily found in traditional surveys. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hetdex-massive-cosmic-noon-dataset.html Astronomy Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:33:25 EDT news699708781 Faculty in the Cockrell School of Engineering have developed a rare printer as part of a larger project to speed up production and lower costs of manufacturing semiconductors critical to modern electronics. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-tabletop-3d-printer-semiconductor-patterning.html Electronics & Semiconductors Sat, 30 May 2026 15:50:01 EDT news699115290 Artificial intelligence chatbots need to work on their social judgment, recent events suggest. At one end of the spectrum, they're facing lawsuits for recommending dangerous actions. At the other end, the models can be so nice they're considered sycophantic. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-misbehaving-chatbots-personality.html Internet Fri, 29 May 2026 13:00:02 EDT news699276901 For Americans dreaming of owning a home, this decade has been brutal. From the end of 2019 to the end of 2022, the median sales price for homes sold in the U.S. soared 35%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It's dipped only slightly since then. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-pandemic-loan-fraud-housing-prices.html Economics & Business Fri, 29 May 2026 07:00:02 EDT news699250021 Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have uncovered key principles that govern how DNA "origami" structures fold, findings that could make nanoscale materials faster and easier to manufacture. DNA origami is a technique that uses strands of DNA to self-assemble into tiny, programmable shapes. Although the method has shown promise for applications ranging from drug delivery to advanced materials, scientists have struggled to consistently achieve high yields, especially as structures become more complex. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dna-insights-nanostructures-medicine-materials.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 27 May 2026 16:40:06 EDT news699118021 A University of Texas at Austin-led team has reconstructed the most detailed map to date of the molecular machines that carried out the functions of life in an ancient ancestor that gave rise to all complex life on Earth, including us, shedding new light on genetic causes of human diseases. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-reconstructed-15billionyearold-protein-network-reveals.html Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 27 May 2026 11:00:01 EDT news699029585 From JPMorgan Chase to Tesla, whistleblowers have become a central force in corporate accountability, flagging everything from misleading disclosures to safety risks. Regulators have responded in kind, with the Securities and Exchange Commission handing out whistleblower awards as high as $20 million. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-whistleblowing-bigger-rewards-backfire.html Economics & Business Wed, 20 May 2026 12:00:10 EDT news698496063 When Ted Lasso became the coach of last-place AFC Richmond on a popular television show, he jumped in with a can-do coaching style that ignited a team ready for change. Like Lasso, new leaders are more likely than their predecessors to improve motivation and organizational performance—but only if employees already believe change is needed. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-leaders-room.html Economics & Business Wed, 13 May 2026 15:06:33 EDT news697903562 Data centers could potentially account for 3% to 9% of Texas' water use by 2040, according to a new white paper from The University of Texas at Austin that recommends greater transparency in the industry's water use and better coordination among stakeholders to reduce the impact of data centers on the state's water supply. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-centers-texas-big.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 07 May 2026 07:40:02 EDT news697358222 Regulators often move in and out of revolving doors between government and the industries they oversee. They can bring valuable expertise. But their ties also can raise questions about whose interests their knowledge ultimately serves. In one recent case, staffers at the U.S. Treasury Department—who previously worked at Big Four accounting firms—helped draft tax regulations that benefited their former clients. The officials later returned to those firms with promotions and higher pay. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-revolving-doors-weaken-sec-oversight.html Economics & Business Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:20:06 EDT news696608582 A new fiber probe developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin delivers two major innovations in health monitoring to help both patients around the world and the clinicians who care for them. The probe can track three key biomarkers simultaneously, enabling faster, minimally invasive patient monitoring. All that in a tiny package—the probe is the smallest of its kind with a diameter of only 1.1 millimeters. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-tiny-fiber-probe-key-biomarkers.html Thu, 23 Apr 2026 16:20:07 EDT news696174781 Think you're shopping intelligently for a used car? New research from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin suggests you might be overly influenced by the first digit on the odometer, when you're determining the car's worth. The study is published in the Journal of Marketing Research. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-consumers-pay-extra-cars-multiples.html Economics & Business Thu, 23 Apr 2026 07:00:01 EDT news696141122 A newly discovered mechanism renders antibiotic-resistant bacteria vulnerable by disabling both their individual resistance and a process known as cross-protection, the ability of resistant bacteria to shield nearby, otherwise sensitive strains. This occurs because resistant bacteria can degrade antibiotics in their surroundings, reducing drug levels and allowing other microbes to survive. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-defense-antibiotics-cystic-fibrosis-lung.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:40:01 EDT news695977858 The launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021 pushed the horizon of seeing the early universe, unveiling cosmic events just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Among the most striking discoveries are supermassive black holes—some reaching 100 million times the mass of our sun. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-webb-red-dots-reveal-giant.html Astronomy Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:20:03 EDT news695571121 Warren Buffett advised that you should never invest in a business you can't understand. But that hasn't stopped many investors. New research from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin might help them better understand the complications of companies they're investing in. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-investors-complex-businesses-positive-sides.html Economics & Business Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:00:03 EDT news695450041 From the Wright brothers' first flight to the speedy development of COVID-19 vaccines, collaboration has been key to innovation. Paradoxically, even competitors can benefit from collaboration—when they hold different pieces of the same puzzle. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-knowledge-firewalls-alliance-firms-weaken.html Economics & Business Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:40:04 EDT news695041455 In an era when most TikTok videos are prerecorded, can a band with a new single create a tighter bond with fans by debuting via livestream instead? Can a business do the same when promoting a new product? https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-online-viewers-livestreams.html Business Thu, 09 Apr 2026 20:40:04 EDT news694959170 The largest group of wild chimpanzees known to scientists has permanently split in two. In a study published in Science, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and other institutions report the first clearly documented permanent fission in wild chimpanzees and the sustained intergroup violence that followed. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-chimpanzee-empire-falls-rare-instance.html Plants & Animals Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:00:16 EDT news694942321 The Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) has discovered tens of thousands of gigantic hydrogen gas halos, called "Lyman-alpha nebulae," surrounding galaxies 10 billion to 12 billion years ago. Known as Cosmic Noon, this is an epoch in the early universe when galaxies were growing their fastest. To spur this growth, they would have needed access to vast reservoirs of hydrogen gas, a key building block for stars. However, until recently, astronomers had only found a handful of these essential structures. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-astronomers-thought-early-universe-full.html Astronomy Mon, 06 Apr 2026 11:40:03 EDT news694687773 For patients with heart failure, blood pumps can be lifesaving. But the very forces that sustain circulation can also harm it, damaging red blood cells through hemolysis and compromising the body's oxygen supply. Now, supercomputer simulations are revealing how red blood cells deform under stress, offering new insights that could lead to safer, more effective blood pump designs. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-supercomputer-simulations-reveal-early-red.html Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:40:02 EDT news694363861 Despite the hype about streaming services, traditional broadcast television still dominates advertising dollars. This year, advertisers will spend $139 billion on "linear" TV—where viewers watch programs at scheduled times—compared with $33 billion on streaming or "connected" TV. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-tv-ads-smart-tvs.html Consumer & Gadgets Thu, 02 Apr 2026 08:40:01 EDT news694337644 When the environment changes dramatically, animals from mollusks to crows can make big changes in their behavior that enable them to survive. For example, marmots and ground squirrels in California are spending more time in wet vegetation and on steep slopes to counteract warmer temperatures. Polar bears, losing their floating ice habitats, are spending more time on land and adding birds' eggs and reindeer to their diets. And lake trout in Ontario, which rely on external water temperatures to maintain a healthy internal temperature, shift to cooler, deeper waters and eat smaller prey when the water becomes hotter than usual. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-behavioral-flexibility-affects-animal-evolution.html Evolution Wed, 01 Apr 2026 18:10:08 EDT news694277401 Is your houseplant thirsty? Are crops getting enough water? Is a forest at high risk of wildfire? Leaf health can answer all these questions, and researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed new technology to measure hydration levels with greater accuracy and without hurting the plant. The researchers developed an electronic tattoo for leaves that uses the hyperflexible and sustainable material graphene to track hydration levels. It sticks on the leaves without harming them, a major improvement over current methods that work only with dead or dried-out leaves or provide indirect measurements. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-graphene-leaf-tattoo-sensor-tracks.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:10:07 EDT news694108141 A paleontologist from The University of Texas at Austin has discovered the fossilized remains of Ice Age animals that have never been found in Central Texas before—and he came across the bones while snorkeling for fossils in an underground stream. The new fossils are from a giant tortoise and an armadillo relative called a pampathere that was about the size of a lion. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-ice-age-animals-slice-earth.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:20:03 EDT news693672121 A study of 1.4 million real workplace interactions with artificial intelligence reveals teachable differences between routine and sophisticated AI use that offer organizations a concrete road map for identifying and scaling high-impact AI capability. The joint study by KPMG LLP—the U.S. audit, tax, and advisory firm—and the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin identifies distinct, observable patterns in how high‑impact users frame problems, guide AI reasoning, and apply AI across complex tasks that KPMG is applying internally and in its work for clients. The study is published in Harvard Business Review. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-analysis-million-interactions-employees-sophisticated.html Economics & Business Sun, 22 Mar 2026 13:00:07 EDT news693155775 Cute, green, and sporting two sprigs of hair on his head, a mischievous baby dinosaur named Dooly is one of the most beloved cartoon characters in South Korea. So, when researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the Korean Dinosaur Research Center discovered a new species of baby dinosaur from Korea's Aphae Island, they knew exactly what to call it: Doolysaurus. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-fossil-ray-reveals-species-baby.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 19 Mar 2026 07:00:05 EDT news693041222 Green investors often boast that they can support sustainability without sacrificing returns. But new research from Texas McCombs suggests otherwise. It also offers governments opportunities to raise more money from those investors for sustainable projects. The work is published in the Journal of Financial Economics. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-investors-pay-green-bonds.html Economics & Business Wed, 18 Mar 2026 07:00:01 EDT news693034502 A new study published in The Lancet Global Health reveals a previously underappreciated tension at the heart of international climate negotiations: policies designed to protect developing countries from bearing an unfair share of the cost of cutting carbon emissions could inadvertently deprive those same countries of millions of life-saving air quality improvements. The leaders of the study also identify a promising way to resolve this dilemma. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-climate-action-million-premature-deaths.html Environment Mon, 16 Mar 2026 18:30:02 EDT news692881022 In recent years, scientists have discovered that some chemotherapy drugs not only kill cancer cells directly, but at least in some patients, mysteriously also trigger their immune system to attack the cancer. That would seem all but impossible, given that the immune system has a built-in safety mechanism called "self-tolerance" that blocks it from attacking a person's own cells, even abnormal cells (ones that have become cancerous). https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-experimental-chemo-drug-triggers-viral.html Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:50:05 EDT news692464921 A new type of robotic hand developed at The University of Texas at Austin demonstrates such sensitive touch that it can grasp objects as fragile as a potato chip or a raspberry without crushing them. The technology, called Fragile Object Grasping with Tactile Sensing (FORTE), combines advanced tactile sensing with soft robotics. The breakthrough could improve robot performance when a light touch is needed, such as in health care and manufacturing. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-robot-sensitive-potato-chip.html Robotics Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:00:05 EDT news692365801