Seagrasses are more efficient at storing carbon in the soil or sediment, acre for acre, than a tropical rainforest. That could make them a powerful tool for slowing the rapid rise of atmospheric CO2. The ability to quantify how much carbon a specific seagrass bed stores over time could help governments, businesses and environmental groups better manage these natural carbon sinks. Ken Dunton, a marine biology professor and Preston Wilson, an engineering professor may have found one weird trick to...
May 22, 2025•15 min•Ep. 59
We’re celebrating the launch of “AI for the Rest of Us”, a podcast to help get you up to speed on the essentials of artificial intelligence. Every two weeks, we’ll sit down with UT faculty experts and get them talking, in simple terms, about how AI might transform healthcare, work, the ways we learn and how we make big decisions. Co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital...
May 30, 2024•3 min
Over the past year and a half, data and images from the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, have been flooding in. And floating around in that sea of data (and from other instruments over the past 20 years) are at least three big problems: There appear to be too many big, bright galaxies, too soon after the Big Bang. No one can agree on how fast the universe is (or was) expanding. And we don’t know what most of the universe is made of. The University of Texas at Austin brought together a panel ...
Apr 11, 2024•15 min•Ep. 58
Here in the U.S., many of us are eagerly awaiting the April 8th, 2024 total solar eclipse, the last of its kind to cross our paths (at least in the contiguous U.S.) until the year 2045. Austin, Texas, where we produce Point of Discovery, is right in the path of totality. And this eclipse feels even more special because the last total solar eclipse in Austin happened before there was an Austin, in the year 1397. On today’s show, we talk to bird biologist Peter English about the strange ways that ...
Mar 08, 2024•13 min•Ep. 57
On today’s show we talk with Philip Souza, a Ph.D. student in the lab of Simon Brandl at the Marine Science Institute, and a Stengl-Wyer fellow. His research is focused on the sounds that fish along the Texas Gulf Coast make to attract mates or defend territory. He works in the Mission-Aransas Estuary near Port Aransas, whose oyster reefs and other habitats support rich communities of fish, many of which have a big impact on the Texas economy — including spotted sea trout, catfish, red drum and ...
Sep 08, 2023•15 min•Ep. 56
On today’s show we talk with Alex Huth, assistant professor of neuroscience and computer science at The University of Texas at Austin, and Ph.D. student Jerry Tang about a new system that can read a person’s thoughts in real time and produce a stream of continuous text. The system they developed, called a semantic decoder, relies in part on the kind of AI model behind ChatGPT. It might one day help people who are mentally conscious yet unable to physically speak, such as those debilitated by str...
May 01, 2023•13 min•Ep. 55
For graduate student Olivia Cooper, the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, comes at the perfect time to help launch her career studying galaxy evolution. Cooper works with University of Texas at Austin associate professor Caitlin Casey on the biggest project in JWST’s first year—COSMOS-Web—which is designed to take the deepest images of the universe to date and reveal some of the earliest galaxies to form after the Big Bang. We talk with Cooper about the breathtaking i...
Dec 13, 2022•12 min•Ep. 54
Over the past 15 years or so, tawny crazy ants from South America have been popping up across the southeastern U.S. like paratroopers dropping in from an invading army. Where they take hold, they’re like an ecological wrecking ball and they cause headaches for homeowners. Podcast host Marc Airhart joined biologist Edward LeBrun in the Texas Hill Country to test a new weapon in the battle against the destructive tawny crazy ant. Show Notes LeBrun studies invasive species at the University of Texa...
Jul 13, 2022•16 min•Ep. 53
In addition to original interviews, today’s episode features excerpts from three interviews: On the Shoulders of Giants: Steven Weinberg and the Quest to Explain the World (2021), World Science Festival Physicist Steven Weinberg on His Search for a "Final Theory" (1993), Fresh Air The Bill Moyers Interview: Steven Weinberg (1990), Bill Moyers Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear On Monday, March 21, UT Austin is hosting a mem...
Mar 09, 2022•11 min•Ep. 52
On Monday, March 21, UT Austin is hosting a memorial lecture in honor of Steven Weinberg, featuring his fellow Nobel Laureate, MIT’s Frank Wilczek. This event is free and open to the public, both in-person and virtually via Zoom. Find out more and register here . Donate to the Physics Theory Group, in memory of Steven Weinberg In addition to original interviews, today’s episode features excerpts from two videos: On the Shoulders of Giants: Steven Weinberg and the Quest to Explain the World (2021...
Feb 21, 2022•11 min•Ep. 51
Until COVID-19, few people alive today had experienced the chaos and destruction of a really bad pandemic, one that has at times ground businesses, schools and social lives to a near standstill and killed millions globally. But did you know that we aren’t alone in being battered by a global infectious disease? Frogs are also struggling through their own pandemic that, according to biologist Kelly Zamudio, has several eerie parallels with COVID-19. Perhaps our own encounters with a pandemic will ...
Jan 13, 2022•11 min•Ep. 50
To hear the full TX512 show, go to the episode from July 21, 2021 titled “The Texas Podcast Network” Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2LENTUXmG4TTNhbc5mSNu2 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-texas-podcast-network/id1541588194?i=1000529545464 Google: https://txsci.net/tx512 Texas Podcast Network: https://www.utexas.edu/texas-podcast-network Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is...
Aug 16, 2021•12 min
Physical punishment, or spanking, is widely practiced in the U.S. and around the world, although it appears to be decreasing. Parents, caregivers and school administrators who use it say the goal is to prevent unwanted behaviors and teach children to make better choices. But does it actually work? And what long term effects does it have on the physical and mental health of people who are punished this way? In today’s special episode, we’re teaming up with Ike Evans, producer of the Into the Fold...
May 12, 2021•40 min•Ep. 49
When we get sick, we change our social interactions—we keep away from others and we don’t share food. It turns out, humans aren’t the only species to do it. According to a new review in the journal Science, when highly social animals — such as ants, mice and bats — get sick, their social interactions change, too. For example, sick vampire bats groom each other less, move less and call out less, and this may help reduce the spread of disease. It’s not active social distancing, but rather more lik...
Mar 03, 2021•11 min•Ep. 48
Evolutionary biologists never have enough time. Some of the most mysterious behaviors in the animal kingdom—like parenting—evolved over thousands of years, if not longer. Human lifespans are just too short to sit and observe such complex behaviors evolve. But computer scientists are beginning to offer clues by using artificial intelligence to simulate the life and death of thousands of generations of animals in a matter of hours or days. It’s called computational evolution. One behavior that’s l...
Oct 12, 2020•11 min•Ep. 47
We asked you, dear listeners, to send us your most burning questions about COVID-19. And you didn’t disappoint. You asked: When will it be safe for my 12-week-old baby to meet her grandparents? Can you catch it twice? Is the virus mutating and will that make it harder to develop vaccines? In today’s episode, our three experts get to the bottom of these questions, and more. Meet our experts: Professor Lauren Ancel Meyers is an epidemiologist and leader of the UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. Her ...
Aug 20, 2020•13 min•Ep. 46
In these next few decades, will humans finally find life in space? We asked University of Texas at Austin astronomer Caroline Morley and her answer just might surprise you. Morley shares her vision for the future in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in the Next 50 Years series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Scientists from across UT Austin are joining forces in the hunt for life on other planets. Astronomers, geoscie...
Jun 07, 2020•12 min•Ep. 45
Can we simulate life — in all its messy complexity and at the scale of each individual atom — in a computer? Even the most powerful supercomputers today can only simulate a tiny portion of a single living cell for a few nanoseconds. Carlos Baiz is a biochemist at the University of Texas at Austin who says it might someday be possible to simulate an entire living cell for hours or longer. But he says there are two big catches. Baiz shares his vision for the future in this latest episode of our mi...
Apr 28, 2020•11 min•Ep. 44
Daily life has changed for many of us due to the coronavirus pandemic. During this unusual time, when it’s harder to connect physically with important people in our lives, it can be helpful to step back and spend a little time thinking about the things that still bind us together, like the wonder of the natural world and the hope that scientists offer us as we take on societal challenges. We’ve put together a compilation from our previous episodes that we hope will help you find some solace righ...
Mar 27, 2020•28 min•Ep. 43
Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more a part of our daily lives. But will AI have mostly positive or negative impacts on society? Some potential unintended consequences include home service robots that accidentally break your fine china, or systems that increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Peter Stone co-leads the Good Systems initiative at the University of Texas at Austin, which is trying to hash out guiding principles for building AI systems that are more likely t...
Mar 10, 2020•10 min•Ep. 42
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to be able to follow a specific diet or exercise plan and others fail? The answer might have to do with factors unique to each person, like their microbiomes and genetics. Geneticist Molly Bray is working toward a future where each person gets a diet and exercise plan optimized just for them. She shares her vision for how this would work in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: http...
Feb 13, 2020•7 min•Ep. 41
We know absolutely nothing about roughly 80 percent of the different types of life on Earth. Biologist David Hillis aims to discover all those missing species—by some estimates 5 to 10 million—possibly in the next few decades. Sound impossible? He shares his vision for how this would work in this first episode of our new miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Hillis, along with colleagues Derrick Zwickl...
Jan 08, 2020•10 min•Ep. 40
If you've been listening to our podcast for a while, you probably have noticed that we haven't had a new episode for a few months. We’ve taken that time to step back and reflect on our show, both what has changed over the last few years (we’re now in our fifth year of production – yay!) and where we're going in the future. In this month’s episode, producer and host Marc Airhart chats with senior editor Christine Sinatra about the podcast. We also share some exciting news: we’re kicking off a new...
Dec 18, 2019•7 min
Why do so many first-year students struggle in college? Who is most likely to fail? And what can professors and staff do to help them get over the hump? “I didn't know what was going on. And I just felt out of place as a whole,” said Ivonne Martinez, a first-year student at UT Austin who was in danger of failing Freshman Calculus. “I was like, What am I doing? And that kind of made me panic.” In today’s show, math professor Uri Treisman and chemistry professor David Laude describe ways they supp...
Sep 20, 2019•16 min•Ep. 38
Virtually everyone contracts RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) as a child, but few people have even heard of it. It’s actually one of the leading causes of infectious disease deaths in infants. Now a team of researchers, including molecular biologist Jason McLellan, are using a radically new way to develop a potential vaccine against RSV. This method, called structure-based vaccine design, is already changing the way many vaccines are now being developed. To see a cool image of the shape-shiftin...
Aug 01, 2019•11 min•Ep. 37
Kristen Grauman, professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, and her team have taught an artificial intelligence agent how to do something that usually only humans can do—take a few quick glimpses around and infer its whole environment. That will be a critical skill for search and rescue robots that can enter a dangerous situation—like a burning building—and relay information back to firefighters or other personnel. To see an animation of how the new AI agent creates a fu...
Jun 17, 2019•8 min•Ep. 36
One thing that sets humans apart from even the smartest of artificially intelligent machines is the ability to understand, not just the definitions of words and phrases, but the deepest meanings in human speech. Alex Huth, a neuroscientist and computer scientist, is trying to build an intelligent computer system that can predict the patterns of brain activity in a human listening to someone speaking. If a computer could begin to extract the same kinds of meaning from a set of words as a human do...
Apr 26, 2019•11 min•Ep. 35
We’re celebrating the 150th anniversary of the periodic table. Join us as we tour the cosmos, from the microscopic to the telescopic, with four scientists studying the role of four elements—zinc, oxygen, palladium and gold—in life, the universe and everything. Emily Que is a chemist who helped capture, for the first time on video, zinc fireworks that burst from an egg when it’s fertilized by sperm. Astronomer Michael Endl is searching for chemical signs of life in the atmospheres of exoplanets. ...
Mar 06, 2019•16 min•Ep. 34
Scientists often talk about the people who mentored them, and the students and postdocs they supervise, in ways that sound like a family. Today, in the second of a two-part conversation, we listen in on two members of a well-known scientific lineage: Bill Press, a professor of computer science and integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin and his former doctoral adviser, Kip Thorne, one of the recipients of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of gravitational waves. ...
Feb 25, 2019•12 min•Ep. 33
What’s it like for a scientist to work as an advisor on a major Hollywood film? In this first of a two-part conversation, Kip Thorne talks with his former graduate student Bill Press about the impact that a film like Interstellar can have on the public, balancing scientific accuracy and entertainment and what winning the Nobel Prize really says about a scientists’ worth. (BTW, Interstellar star Matthew McConaughey is also a UT Austin alum) Special thanks to the family of Bryce DeWitt and Cécile ...
Jan 22, 2019•9 min•Ep. 32
