Further Findings

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Further Findings is highlighting ways The University of Texas at Austin and its people touched or were touched by the mission. Know of others? Let us know.

Peter Shelus was visiting The University of Texas at Austin campus in 1971, attending an astronomy conference. More important, he was looking for a job.

He was completing a post-doc assignment at the Manned Space Center (now Johnson Space Center) in Houston and job…
Read more…

The research consortium known as MCC died a long time ago, though it was the spark that fueled Austin’s rise as a technology center. Now the last visible reminders of the company are being removed.

The name of the company’s former headquarters building is being changed from the MCC building to the West Pickle Research building. It’s at 3525 W. Braker Lane, across MoPac Boulevard from the main Pickle Research Campus.

The new name reflects the building’s ownership by The University of…
Read more…

David Kirk

Many residents of New Orleans could not go home after Hurricane Katrina devastated their neighborhoods.

This was not such a bad thing for people being released from prison, says David Kirk, an assistant professor of sociology at The University of Texas at Austin.

In fact, Kirk’s recent research, published in the June issue of American Sociological Review, indicates that those not returning to the old neighborhood had a better chance of staying out of prison than those who went back to…
Read more…

John Wallingford

The new Neko Case, vintage Jimi Hendrix, the Black Keys and the polyester-clad classic “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack.

An iPod playlist gone rogue?

No, it’s the soundtrack of John Wallingford’s developmental biology laboratory on a typically eclectic day.

“My philosophy is to make a lab a very fun place because I need my people to be here all the time,” he says.

Music is a key ingredient in lab fun. It helps the students stay alive while doing painstaking bench work.

“You’re going to…
Read more…

The spring 2009 semester has ended and that’s a good time to take another look at some of the research that came out of University of Texas at Austin labs in the past few months.

Here’s a roundup of some of the more interesting discoveries in exercise, psychology, business and statistics.

Add crunch to your post workout recovery

In a study of well-trained cyclists, exercise physiologist Lynne Kammer found that a bowl of whole grain cereal is as good as a sports drink…
Read more…

Ricardo Ainslie

Kay Randall writes about a documentary film that Ricardo Ainslie, an educational psychology professor, made about an epidemic of kidnappings in his hometown, Mexico City in the feature story that will be posted Monday on the university’s main Web page.

Here’s the top of the story:

This isn’t fiction and these aren’t actors. The torture is real.

The film is “¡Ya Basta!” (”Enough!”), and it’s a disturbing, intimate documentary of an epidemic of kidnappings and related crimes that started in…
Read more…

Richard Matzner, digs black holes

Pablo Munguia, digs pen shell clams

Today, Further Findings points readers to two research stories–one in outer space and the other under the sea–posted elsewhere on The University of Texas at Austin Web site.

Aaron Dubrow, the science writer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), writes about the research of Richard Matzner, an astrophysicist at the university.

Matzner uses TACC’s Ranger supercomputer to simulate binary black hole mergers and search for gravitational waves. The waves were predicted by Einstein’s theory…
Read more…

Michael Starbird

As part of Further Findings’ Getting Started series, Michael Starbird, a mathematics professor at The University of Texas at Austin, explains how he got involved with numbers.

“I was brought up in southern California and my father taught mathematics, physics and astronomy at a community college and he would bring mathematical and physics problems to the dinner table,” he said. “My brother and I talked about them.

“Mathematics was just a part of daily life. In fact, I often look back…
Read more…

Linda Schele

David Stuart

Two University of Texas at Austin researchers are prominently featured in “Cracking the Maya Code,” an episode of Nova on PBS. The episode, first aired in April 2008, is rebroadcast at 7 p.m. May 5 on KLRU. It also is available online at Hulu.com.

David Stuart\'s Take Five video

The program follows the efforts of archeologists who for more than a century tried to figure out the meaning of symbols, called glyphs, inscribed in Maya ruins in Central America and…
Read more…

We thought there might be an item that stood out in the 1,300 boxes or so of papers, film, movie props and costumes that Robert De Niro donated to the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

We asked curators of collection, which has just been opened to researchers and the public, if they came across anything that was pretty darned cool.

From Robert De Niro? An actor known for his preparation, focus and intensity? Are you talkin’ to me?

How…
Read more…