Science | Amanda Womac

Nature Illuminated

Deep in the woods on a warm summer evening, a species of beetle signals its mate with a flash pattern unique to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Synchronous fireflies ...Read More

Digitizing Lichens & Bryophytes

Across the planet’s terrestrial surface lives a layer of organisms that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Lichens and bryophytes are hosts to these cryptobiotic ...Read More

Singing in a Silent Spring

Birds respond to a half-century soundscape reversion during the COVID-19 shutdown When the novel coronavirus swept across the country, forcing most businesses to close their ...Read More

Uncovering Microbial Mysteries

Karen Lloyd spends most of her waking hours thinking about mud. Specifically, the mud at the bottom of the ocean and trying to determine how deep into the earth she can dig ...Read More

The Neutron Star Frontier

Although he was interested in astrophysics at a young age, Andrew Steiner was never a big telescope person. Growing up, he preferred books by science giants, such as Carl ...Read More

Systems Deep Dive

Rachel Patton McCord’s interest in science is in her genes. She learned how to be curious about the natural world and how it works from her parents, who were both ...Read More

Forest Gliders

Nestled in hollow tree crevices at the highest elevations of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the park’s more elusive mammals—the Carolina flying ...Read More

Here Be Dragons

When people visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park, they are usually expecting to see charismatic flora and fauna such as pink lady slippers or black bears. Insects rarely ...Read More

Strong Hall Residents Over the Moon

In a corner of Strong Hall, UT’s new state-of-the-art science facility, the past and the future coalesce to form the Visualization Lab, informally known as the “Mission ...Read More

Innovations in Carbon Capture

Neil Williams started his college career as a biology student with hopes of going to medical school. However, all that changed when he took organic chemistry. “I fell in ...Read More