Point of Discovery

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 of astronomy and physics faculty members to debate and discuss the meaning of these emerging problems in the data. The panelists were Kim Boddy, Mike Boylan-Kolchin, Karl Gebhardt, Can Kilic and Julian Muñoz. Have a listen and then decide: is cosmology really in crisis? For a deeper dive into some of the issues raised in this episode, head over to this recently released video from the American Museum of Natural History’s Isaac Asimov Panel Debate, titled: “JWST’s Cosmic Revolution.” It features Mike Boylan-Kolchin, UT alum Neil DeGrasse Tyson and others. Research related to today’s debate: James Webb Space Telescope Images Challenge Theories of How Universe Evolved Cosmic Dawn: The JWST is Changing our Calculus of the Cosmos Hobby-Eberly Telescope Reveals Galaxy Gold Mine in First Large Survey Did the James Webb telescope ‘break the universe’? Maybe not Episode credits Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear Cover image: JWST’s image of spiral galaxy NGC 628, which is 32 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. The spiraling filamentary structure looks somewhat like a cross section of a nautilus shell. Read more. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), and the PHANGS team. About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 animals respond to solar eclipses; biologist David Ledesma about the plants and animals that lived in Central Texas 600 years ago; and archaeologist Fred Valdez about what Native Americans might have made of that last solar eclipse. Resources for watching the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse April 8 Total Solar EclipseInteractive Solar Eclipse Map for April 8Total Eclipse of the HornsTotalityHow to View a Solar Eclipse SafelySolar Eclipse Across AmericaDig deeper into eclipse science Lunar and solar eclipses make animals do strange thingsEpisode credits Yasuni Soundscapes – Ecuador 2018Charlie HarperPodington BearCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 black drum. He’s developing ways to continuously record sound in the water to monitor the health of the ecosystem. As fate would have it, two years ago, his approach was put to the test. Read a Q&A with Philip Souza See a map of the Mission-Aransas Estuary Learn more about the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 strokes, to communicate intelligibly again. The scientists behind it are also wrestling with thorny issues this technology brings up, concerning privacy and the ethical use of AI. Show Notes If you liked this episode, check out our earlier episode featuring Alex Huth talking about an earlier iteration of this research. Through the Good Systems initiative, The University of Texas at Austin is bringing together researchers from a broad range of disciplines to explore ways to ensure that artificial intelligence develops in a way that is beneficial, not detrimental, to humanity. Learn more about Good Systems here. Episode Credits Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 images JWST is collecting, the complicated legacy of the telescope’s namesake, why her fellow scientists are just as inspiring as JWST itself and what this moment means to her. Show Notes First images from the JWST: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages Caitlin Casey’s full interview with KUT’s Texas Standard: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/a-ut-researcher-is-behind-the-james-webb-telescopes-biggest-project-of-2022/ Read more about COSMOS-Web: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.07865 Episode Credits Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 Texas at Austin’s Brackenridge Field Laboratory. Watch a related video from UT News: Defending Texas from the Next Invasion Episode Credits Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 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 About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Stitcher, Amazon Podcasts, or Google Podcasts. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart. About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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), World Science Festival Interview with Professor Steven Weinberg (2001), Nobel Prize Committee Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Stitcher, Amazon Podcasts, or Google Podcasts. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart. About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 give us new sympathy for our slimy, bug-eyed friends. A 2019 study in Science found that a chytrid fungus has contributed to declines in about 500 frog species around the world. Read more: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aav0379 Our theme music was composed by Charlie Harper - https://www.charlieharpermusic.com/ Other music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen to all our episodes at: https://point-of-discovery.simplecast.com/ Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen to all our episodes at: https://point-of-discovery.simplecast.com/ Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 podcast, to jointly interview one of the world’s experts on physical punishment, Liz Gershoff. She’s a professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences and the director of the Population Research Center. She’s been studying the effects of physical discipline on children for two decades and advocating for an end to the practice. If you’re interested in digging deeper, check out Into the Fold Episode 22: Restorative Discipline in Schools: https://hogg.utexas.edu/into-the-fold-episode-22-restorative-discipline-in-schools Listen to other great episodes of Into the Fold here: https://soundcloud.com/hoggfoundation Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen to all our episodes at: https://point-of-discovery.simplecast.com/ Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 like the way we humans are less active when we’re feeling lousy. Ants on the other hand are more proactive: when sick, they will actively self-isolate in a way that helps protect the rest of the colony. By studying how social behavior changes in various animals, scientists are hoping to better understand the effectiveness of different strategies humans use, like social distancing, to combat the spread of diseases like COVID-19. Today on the show we’ll meet Sebastian Stockmaier, a recently minted PhD scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, who has spent seven years studying vampire bats and how their social behaviors change when they feel sick. Watch a video of a vampire bat tricked into feeling sick: https://youtu.be/lCr52sn76Wg Watch a video of vampire bats “contact calling”: https://youtu.be/p9NcOGy8kJY A collection of vampire bat videos: https://socialbat.org/videos/ Read the new review paper in the journal Science, “Infectious diseases and social distancing in nature”: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6533/eabc8881 Music for today’s show was produced by: • Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Photo credit: Josh Moore, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 long baffled biologists is called mobbing, in which a gang of hyenas team up to steal prey from much more powerful lions. When UT Austin computer scientists Risto Miikkulainen and Padmini Rajagopalan simulated hyenas and lions on a virtual African savannah, they found something surprising. Watch a video of real-life hyenas mobbing (courtesy of Michigan State U.): https://youtu.be/Rs7AXFa4sN0 Read more: Evolution of Complex Coordinated Behavior (July 2020) https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ai-lab/downloadPublication.php?filename=http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/rajagopalan.cec2020.pdf&pubid=127822 Music for today’s show was produced by: • Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ • Pogmothoin (a.k.a. Tom Griffin) - https://freesound.org/people/pogmothoin/ Photo credit: Stephanie Dloniak. About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 team recently found that the virus was circulating in China and in Seattle, Washington weeks earlier than previously thought. (Read more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/early-spread-of-covid-19-appears-far-greater-than-initially-reported ) Greg Ippolito is a research assistant professor of molecular biosciences and an expert on how our immune systems respond to pathogens. He is working with doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital to test the efficacy of a potential COVID-19 treatment called convalescent plasma therapy. (Read more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/covid-19-convalescent-plasma-therapy-is-safe-with-76-of-patients-improving ) Jason McLellan is an associate professor of molecular biosciences whose team created a critical component in several COVID-19 vaccines currently in clinical trials. (Read more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/covid-19-vaccine-with-ut-ties-arrived-quickly-after-years-in-the-making ) He and his team is also developing a therapy for COVID-19 based on special antibodies from llamas. (Read more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/antibodies-from-llamas-could-help-in-fight-against-covid-19 ) Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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, geoscientists, chemists, biologists and aerospace engineers have pooled resources to form the UT Center for Planetary Systems Habitability, a cross-campus, interdisciplinary research unit. Learn more: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/university-welcomes-new-center-for-planetary-habitability Have a question about COVID-19? We have experts on all aspects of the pandemic and the virus that causes it. Record your question and email it to us here: utexasscience@gmail.com Please keep your recordings to 20 seconds or less if you can. We’ll answer as many as we can on the next Point of Discovery podcast. Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 right now: in rediscovering life, the people we're closest with and the universe. To listen to the full episodes that we drew these excerpts from, or to read the transcripts, visit the links below. Beauty and the Yeast: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/beauty-and-the-yeast The Science of Relationships: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/the-science-of-relationships Can Sound Save a Fish?: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/can-sound-save-a-fish Eyewitness to a Cosmic Car Wreck: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/eyewitness-to-a-cosmic-car-wreck A Love Letter from Texas Scientists to the Periodic Table: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/a-love-letter-from-texas-scientists-to-the-periodic-table Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 to have a positive impact and fewer unintended consequences. He shares his team’s vision for the future in this latest episode of our miniseries, The Next 50 Years. Check out more podcasts and essays in this series: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Learn about the Good Systems initiative: https://bridgingbarriers.utexas.edu/good-systems/ Peter Stone also chaired the first technical report of the AI100 Study: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/experts-forecast-the-changes-artificial-intelligence-could-bring-by-2030 Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery . Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tags/the-next-50-years Learn about the ongoing TIGER Study, which explores how genes may alter a person’s response to exercise and diet interventions: http://tigerstudy.org/ Read about a 2015 summary report on the genetics of weight loss by some of the leading experts in this field, including Molly Bray: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/weight-loss-programs-tailored-to-a-person-s-genome-may-be-coming-soon Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen Have you heard our other news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.

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 and Robin Gutell, published a stunning new tree of life in 2003 based not just on the physical traits but also the genetics of 3,000 species from across all known groups of life. The unique circular layout which first appeared in the journal Science has come to be known as a Hillis plot. To download a printable version of the Hillis plot and see tattoos and other artistic renderings, visit: http://www.zo.utexas.edu/faculty/antisense/DownloadfilesToL.html Learn about the computational approaches that enabled this new type of tree of life: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/300/5626/1692.full and https://cns.utexas.edu/news/tree-of-life Music for today’s show was produced by: Podington Bear - https://www.podingtonbear.com/ Chuzausen - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen Have you heard our other news? Now you can listen to Point of Discovery on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bWQkQ9jBV0cyKeyqeKwdA About Point of Discovery Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences and is a part of the Texas Podcast Network. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, Amazon Podcasts, and more. Questions or comments about this episode or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart.