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Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

All content by Jennifer Liu
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Forum Editor’s last explainer

Jennifer Liu May 10, 2019

You know how sometimes you pause, take a good look around and just wonder how you got there? Because I have no idea how I got here. All I remember is sitting in an airport lounge the summer after freshman...

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UT still struggles with representation

Jennifer Liu May 6, 2019

As of fall 2018, there are 51,832 students enrolled at UT. These students represent all 50 states, and 124 countries. Our total alumni measure nearly 500,000.  Despite these figures, representation...

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Conversations about sexual assault require understanding Title IX

Jennifer Liu April 29, 2019

President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law as part of the larger education amendments of 1972 and as a follow-up to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law states that “No person in...

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Lawmakers, students discuss end to hazing

Jennifer Liu April 15, 2019

Last October, a car accident took Nicky Cumberland’s life. He was on his way back from a Texas Cowboys retreat that involved alleged hazing. The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel.  An...

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Let’s keep the discussion going

Jennifer Liu March 25, 2019

We started off this semester with the goal of encouraging greater participation in campus-wide discourse, and our first two forum pages were centered around free speech on campus —— specifically,...

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West Campus leasing culture frustrates students

Jennifer Liu February 25, 2019

One of the most notorious problems many UT students struggle with doesn’t have to do with the University directly — housing. When students who choose to live off-campus start searching for...

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Fight for the rights of all students

Jennifer Liu January 28, 2019

The Daily Texan Forum is a space for members of the UT-Austin community to voice their opinions and have them heard. We publish op-eds submitted to us by non-Daily Texan staff members with the goal of...

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Wading the waters after the city-wide boil notice

Jennifer Liu and Molly Bolf October 28, 2018

The boiling advisory is over, but the threat of losing access to potable water is not. The city-wide boiling notice that was put into effect last Monday reminded Austin residents that clean water is a...

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CapMetro neglects student commuters with Remap

Molly Bolf and Jennifer Liu October 22, 2018

Countless UT students rely on the bus system to get around campus and the city. For those who live in Riverside or North Campus and don’t have cars or other modes of transportation, buses are the...

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Sick? Your syllabus doesn’t care.

Molly Bolf and Jennifer Liu October 15, 2018

The official attendance policy at UT is “regular attendance at all class meetings is expected.” Often   departments agree on an attendance policy and all professors within that department...

A UT program wants to change the face of science education

Jennifer Liu April 27, 2018

UT is paving the way for some super-smart future Longhorns. UT-Austin has one of only twenty Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECs) located in the U.S., six of which have been around...

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Dysfunctional cells are paving the way for more effective HIV treatment

Jennifer Liu April 25, 2018

If you want to learn about your body’s immune system, you need to look at its control center — the lymph nodes. That’s where the various cells that comprise the immune system come together...

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Blockchain places power back in patients’ hands

Jennifer Liu April 20, 2018

Blockchain and bitcoin go together like peanut butter and jelly, but blockchain and healthcare are more like peanut butter and pickles. The technology has immense potential, but it should be approached...

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Tiny carbon nanotube membranes could tackle global problems

Jennifer Liu April 20, 2018

Although carbon nanotubes are tiny, they have the potential to fix big problems.  Carbon nanotubes are cylindrical carbon molecules with nanometer-sized diameters. A collaboration between UT-Austin,...

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McCombs’ Health Informatics & Health IT program trains students passionate for both healthcare, technology

Jennifer Liu April 16, 2018

This academic year, the Health Informatics and Health IT certification program, designed to prepare post-baccalaureate students for work in health informatics and health information technology, moved from...

UT program uses oil drilling data to make US oil production more efficient

Jennifer Liu April 11, 2018

UT’s Rig Automation and Performance in Drilling consortium is taking on the Herculean task of making the U.S. the world’s largest oil producer.  The consortium is an industry affiliates...

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Psychology study links neurotic traits with Trump and Brexit voters

Jennifer Liu March 30, 2018

A joint study conducted by UT-Austin and Queensland University of Technology found there was a clear link between regional neuroticism and voting behavior in the 2016 United States presidential election...

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UT researchers’ MasSpec Pen wins prestigious SXSW Interactive Innovation Award

Jennifer Liu March 28, 2018

The UT-born MasSpec Pen, a cancer-detecting pen developed by assistant chemistry professor Livia Eberlin and her team, isn’t slowing down anytime soon. The pen won this year’s SXSW Interactive...

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Artist takes up residence in engineering professor’s office as part of collaborative program

Jennifer Liu March 23, 2018

UT chemical engineering professor Brian Korgel has always had a creative side. As the director of education and outreach at UT’s Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials, he has used his creativity...

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Peregrine falcon Tower Girl becomes UT’s resident reality TV star

Jennifer Liu March 9, 2018

In addition to “UT’s favorite avian resident,” the University’s beloved Tower Girl can now add “TV star” to her resume. Earlier this week, UT’s Biodiversity...

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Technical Ethics – How UT is bringing ethics to computer science

Jennifer Liu March 6, 2018

Alison Norman and Sarah Abraham, two computer science lecturers, are hoping to program ethics into the core of computer science at UT. CS109, Ethical Foundations of Computer Science, is a one hour course...

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UT researchers are behind new touchscreen force sense technology that will soon be part of your phone

Jennifer Liu March 1, 2018

Force sense technology describes the pressure-sensing capability of touchscreen displays, and you might have heard about it in regards to Apple’s relatively new Force Touch and 3D Touch technologies....

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UT chemical engineers find that yeast provides way to produce sustainable plastics

Jennifer Liu February 28, 2018

UT scientists aren’t loafing around: Chemically engineered yeast are rising to the occasion and producing chemicals for sustainable plastics. By rewiring the metabolism of Yarrowia lipolytica,...

Biomedical engineers improve method to develop more effective vaccines

Jennifer Liu February 23, 2018

T-cells might seem like just a small part of the human immune system, but they have the power to attack cancerous cells and other infectious invaders. Chenfeng He, a graduate student in the Jiang Lab...

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Biomedical engineers improve method to develop more effective vaccines

Jennifer Liu February 21, 2018

T-cells might seem like just a small part of the human immune system, but they have the power to attack cancerous cells and other infectious invaders. Chenfeng He, a graduate student in the Jiang Lab...

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Military teams of humans and robots aren’t too far from reality

Jennifer Liu February 16, 2018

Researchers from UT-Austin and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory have teamed up to develop a new technique, called Deep TAMER, to teach robots and computer programs how to perform tasks with feedback from...

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Using Twitter to fight the flu

Jennifer Liu February 16, 2018

This past week, an update released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that influenza-like illness activity has reached 7.7 percent. To put this in perspective, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic...

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UT-Austin researchers make progress toward understanding climate change

Jennifer Liu February 8, 2018

Analyzing marine sediment samples collected from the Gulf of Mexico, scientists are gathering information to make new connections about climate change. Dr. Terrence Quinn, director of the University...

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Meltdown and Spectre are two computer chip vulnerabilities that raise concerns

Jennifer Liu February 1, 2018

The flu isn’t the only health scare that’s going around this season. Two recently discovered computer chip vulnerabilities — ominously nicknamed Meltdown and Spectre — pose gigantic...

UT researchers develop method to SLAY antibiotic resistance

Jennifer Liu January 24, 2018

In response to the dilemma of bacterial antibiotic resistance, a research laboratory at UT-Austin has developed a novel method of screening named SLAY, for Surface Localized Antimicrobial Display. “Antibiotic-resistant...

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UT professor awarded grant by France’s President Macron to ‘Make Our Planet Great Again’

Jennifer Liu January 19, 2018

One UT professor will travel to France to continue her research on climate change, thanks to a grant from French President Emmanuel Macron. On June 1, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the...

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UT researchers recreate moon’s magma ocean

Jennifer Liu December 6, 2017

New research from the Jackson School of Geosciences illuminates the history of the moon’s landscape.  In a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters last month, a team of researchers...

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The most powerful supercomputer at any US university is right here at UT

Jennifer Liu November 17, 2017

Everything is bigger in Texas, and our computers are no exception. In 2011, UT won a competition held by the National Science Foundation to develop and house the first Stampede supercomputer. It was...

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UT astronomers find evidence of exocomet tails 800 light-years away

Jennifer Liu November 8, 2017

UT astronomers found evidence of six exocomets, or comets outside Earth’s solar system, 800 light-years away, using NASA’s Kepler space telescope. Comets are small, icy solar system bodies...

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UT, Columbia researchers develop device that could improve wireless technologies

Jennifer Liu November 2, 2017

UT-Austin and Columbia University researchers have invented a millimeter-wave circulator that could enable tetherless virtual reality and self-driving cars. Circulators transmit microwave and radio...

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UT researchers develop ‘e-tattoo’ health devices

Jennifer Liu October 19, 2017

It’s not often that tattoos are thought of as being as functional as they are decorative, but a group of researchers at UT-Austin are about to change that. They are developing “e-tattoos”...

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New Digital Service Center comes to Austin

Jennifer Liu October 16, 2017

Austin is about to be home to a 34,000-square-foot digital powerhouse.  Siemens will invest $14 million annually towards a new Digital Service Center in Austin, which will serve as a hub for their...

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UT-Austin lab joins a global neuroscience research effort

Jennifer Liu October 4, 2017

A new global research effort to study the brain’s decision-making process includes one UT-Austin neuroscience lab.   The International Brain Laboratory, IBL, is a virtual laboratory launched...

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Girl Scouts of Central Texas takes the task of building prosthetics into their own hands

Jennifer Liu September 29, 2017

The Girl Scouts of Central Texas is taking the task of building prosthetics into their own hands. In collaboration with Wayside Sci-Tech Preparatory School, a group of girl scouts is building prosthetics...

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Cassini spacecraft ends 13-year mission with death dive into Saturn

Jennifer Liu September 20, 2017

On Sept. 15, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft ended its 13-year mission with a “death dive” into Saturn. But this wasn’t a suicide mission: Cassini was actually following planetary protection...

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Hurricane Harvey could cause mental health problems

Jennifer Liu September 15, 2017

Hurricane Harvey devastated huge areas of Texas, displacing families from their homes, causing irreparable damages to buildings and needlessly claiming innocent lives. When disaster strikes, it can be...

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Hurricane Harvey floods streets with floating fire ants

Jennifer Liu September 7, 2017

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, houses and buildings were left in ruins, forcing people out of their homes to seek shelter elsewhere. But humans weren’t the only species forced to adapt to the flooding.  Harvey...

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UT Southwestern researchers develop new method of diagnosing Autism Spectrum disorder using blood biomarkers

Jennifer Liu August 30, 2017

Southwestern Medical Center are working to develop blood protein tests that could help diagnose those on the autism spectrum with greater than 90 percent accuracy. According to the group’s study,...

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UT Southwestern researchers develop new method of diagnosing autism spectrum disorder using blood biomarkers

Jennifer Liu August 7, 2017

A group of researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center are working to develop blood protein tests that could help diagnose those on the autism spectrum with greater than 90 percent accuracy. According...

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UT researchers make waves, save lives in study of Nepal’s glacial lakes

Jennifer Liu August 7, 2017

A June report from UT researchers measures the risk posed by lakes in the Himalayas in order to protect nearby communities from flooding. UT engineering professor Daene McKinney worked over the course...

Telemedicine takes off in Texas

Jennifer Liu July 19, 2017

A bill passed this May could completely change the game for the delivery and accessibility of health care to Texans. Telehealth is a health service provided to a patient through audiovisual communication,...

Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co may make Austin home to new Information Technology hub

Jennifer Liu July 6, 2017

A pharmaceutical giant is considering making Austin home to a new Information Technology hub, which could open doors for UT alumni. Merck & Co, worth $39.5 billion, already has three other hubs in...

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Texas Health Catalyst and the fight against endometriosis

Jennifer Liu June 18, 2017

Teams of UT faculty and Austin-area companies are crossing their fingers after submitting their proposals to Texas Health Catalyst on June 8 in hopes of being chosen as one of this year’s awardees. “Texas...

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