Point of Discovery

Today on Point of Discovery, we're announcing the launch of a new podcast from The University of Texas at Austin on everything you need to know about artificial intelligence.

Astronomers and physicists aren’t freaking out. Okay, well maybe just a little. New data from the James Webb Space Telescope is making them question just about everything.

Austin, Texas was very different the last time a total solar eclipse passed overhead—in 1397. There were bison, wolves and jaguars! Take a trip back in time on the latest Point of Discovery podcast.

Noisy fish near the Texas coast cry out for mates every night. It’s like a daily heartbeat. But then two years ago, they went silent. Hear what happened on the latest Point of Discovery podcast.

I know what you’re thinking. No really. A new non-invasive brain decoder can translate your brain activity into a continuous string of words that’s similar to the story you’re hearing or imagining. It also gets the gist of videos you watch. It relies in part on the kind of AI model behind ChatGPT.

For graduate student Olivia Cooper, the James Webb Space Telescope comes at the perfect time to help launch her career studying galaxy evolution.

Are invasive crazy ants going to conquer the southeastern U.S.? On the latest episode, we ride along with a biologist who may have found a way to beat back these destructive pests.

Here in part 2 of our continuing remembrance of Steven Weinberg, we’re diving a little deeper into what we know because of him. Weinberg was one of the world’s greatest theoretical physicists, and his passing last year was deeply felt not only by us here at The University of Texas at Austin, but by a broad community of scientists and science-loving people. Weinberg summed up the goal of his life’s work as: “to know why things are the way they are.” To him, that meant distilling the rules of physics down to their simplest, most beautiful essence.

Today, in the first of two parts of a special segment, we’re remembering the life and legacy of one of the greatest theoretical physicists of all time — The University of Texas at Austin’s Steven Weinberg, who died in July. We’re exploring who he was as a scientist, writer and mentor — and a deep thinker about our place in the universe. We’ll hear from colleagues who worked with him — fellow UT Austin physicists Katherine Freese, Willy Fischler and Can Kilic — and from his former student John Preskill.

Did you know frogs are also in a pandemic? Today on the Point of Discovery podcast, five ways the frog pandemic is like COVID-19.