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Fall 2013

Helping Constitutions Endure

September 19, 2013 by Jessica Sinn

Constitute project website home page with people standing with arms overhead.

Government professor launches Google website at United Nations General Assembly Constitutions are supposed to provide a sustainable structure for politics. Yet only half live more than 19 years. Zachary Elkins, associate professor of government and a leading constitutional scholar, knows what it takes for constitutions to last for generations—and now he’s teaming up with Google […]

How to Jumpstart Your Dissertation

September 5, 2013 by Michelle Bryant

Kathleen Shafer, a Geography and the Environment graudate student and boot camp participant, discovered her dissertation topic in Marfa, Texas while photographing abandoned airfields. Photo courtsey of Kathleen Shafer.

Boot camp helps graduate students avoid pitfalls and get writing Like most graduate students, the hardest part of Kathleen Shafer’s dissertation was getting started. Shafer, a graduate student in the Department of Geography and the Environment, was among 11 graduate students from The University of Texas at Austin to attend Dissertation Boot Camp this summer, […]

That’s Shakespeare, With One ‘S’

August 14, 2013 by Jessica Sinn

English Professor Douglas Bruster. Photo by Marsha Miller.

English Professor Confirms the Bard’s Hand in The Spanish Tragedy For centuries, scholars have been searching for answers to a literary mystery: Who wrote the five additional passages in Thomas Kyd’s “The Spanish Tragedy”? Mounting arguments point to William Shakespeare, but English professor Douglas Bruster has recently found evidence confirming that the 325 additional lines […]

Extinct Ancient Ape Did Not Walk Like a Human, Study Shows

July 25, 2013 by Jessica Sinn

extinct ancient ape

For decades, the movement of an ancient ape species called Oreopithecus bambolii has been a matter of debate for scientists. Did it walk like a human across its swampy Mediterranean island or did it move through the trees like other apes? According to a new study, led by University of Texas at Austin anthropologists Gabrielle […]

Neuroscientist Takes the Quantified Self, and Own Brain, to the Next Level

June 6, 2013 by Daniel Oppenheimer

Close-up photo of Russell Poldrack.

Early this Tuesday morning, and every Tuesday morning through November 2013, neuroscientist Russell Poldrack will wake up, take off his headband-like sleep monitor, and tell it to wirelessly send data about his night’s sleep to a database. Then he’ll log in to a survey app on his computer, and provide a subjective report on how […]

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