Dark Matter
Department of Physics
Rivaling the dread-inducing powers of darkness itself, dark matter — the mysterious cosmic force that’s incapable of interacting with light — makes up more than a quarter of the universe, and it’s celebrated every Dark Matter Day on October 31. UT physicists Katherine Freese and Scott Kravitz are among those working to determine whether the true essence of dark matter may in fact be weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). WIMPS may sound passive, but as Freese has said: “All these WIMPs flying around in the galaxy, there could be a billion going through your body every second.”
Creepier still, the search for dark matter requires going a lot more than six feet under. Kravitz works with LUX-ZEPLIN, the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector underground. As the deputy physics coordinator on the project, he reports: “If you think of the search for dark matter like looking for buried treasure, we’ve dug almost five times deeper than anyone else has in the past.”
Bat Signal
Department of Computer Science
Austin is known for its iconic urban population of Mexican free-tailed bats. Alonso Narro Delgado, a graduate student currently pursuing his master’s in computer science online, was part of a team of researchers, led by UNAM in Mexico, that recently discovered these bats have photoluminescent bristles on their feet.
Don’t expect the bats to light up the night sky, since under regular light, they look like any other bat species. Only under ultraviolet light will their toes glow in the dark, making them the first type of free-tailed bat to exhibit this trait.