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  • Spring 2016

    Spring 2016: Premium Blend

    Found in everything from space shuttles to dental fillings, composite materials have thoroughly infiltrated modern society. But their potential is still greatly untapped, offering researchers ample opportunity for discovery.

  • Fall 2015

    Fall 2015: Collision Course

    Within the particle showers created at the Large Hadron Collider, answers to some of the universe’s mysteries are waiting.

  • Spring 2015

    Spring 2015: Almost Human

    Model systems like pigeons can help illuminate our own evolutionary and genomic history.

  • Fall 2014

    Fall 2014: Small Wonder

    UT Arlington's tiny windmills are bringing renewable energy to a whole new scale.

  • Winter 2014

    Winter 2014: Overdue for an Overhaul

    The stability of our highways, pipelines, and even manholes is reaching a breaking point.

  • 2012

    2012: Mystery solved?

    Scientists believe they have discovered a subatomic particle that is crucial to understanding the universe.

  • 2011

    2011: Boosting brain power

    UT Arlington researchers unlock clues to the human body’s most mysterious and complex organ.

  • 2010

    2010: Powered by genetics

    UT Arlington researchers probe the hidden world of microbes in search of renewable energy sources.

  • 2009

    2009: Winning the battle against pain

    Wounded soldiers are benefiting from Robert Gatchel’s program that combines physical rehabilitation with treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

  • 2009

    2007: Sensing a solution

    Tiny sensors implanted in the body show promise in combating acid reflux disease, pain and other health problems.

  • 2006

    2006:Semiconductors: The next generation

    Nanotechnology researchers pursue hybrid silicon chips with life-saving potential.

  • 2005

    2005: Imaging is everything

    Biomedical engineers combat diseases with procedures that are painless to patients.

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Star search

The Value of F's

Oft-overlooked class of stars may have potential to sustain life 

f-type-star

Despite their massive size and hot temps, F-type stars could harbor life.

In the search for other habitable planets, one scientist thinks we should leave no stone—or star—unturned.

Typically, researchers looking for habitable planets focus on stars that are abundant, small, and cool. That disqualifies F-type stars, which are more massive and hotter than our sun. (Stars fall into seven lettered categories according to their surface temperatures, though that’s not all that distinguishes them.) It’s widely assumed that the increased ultraviolet radiation of F-type stars makes sustaining life in their planetary environments difficult. Plus, there just aren’t very many of them.

But physics Professor Manfred Cuntz thinks there is some potential.

“F-type stars are not hopeless,” he says. “There is a gap in attention from the scientific community when it comes to knowledge about these stars, and that is what our research is working to fill.”

Dr. Cuntz, then-Ph.D. student Satoko Sato, and their collaborators from the University of Guanajuato argue that since F-type stars have a wider habitable zone—the area where conditions are right for general Earth-type planets to develop and sustain life—they warrant additional consideration. In fact, the researchers found that, in several cases, the potential damage from ultraviolet radiation inflicted on the carbon-based macromolecules necessary for life was similar to—or even lower than—that on Earth.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN CHRISTENSEN/CORBIS

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