The University of Texas at Arlington hosted 530 of the brightest minds from North Texas’ middle and high schools last month for the 74th Fort Worth Regional Science and Engineering Fair. The fair attracted more students than ever, with the number of participants increasing by more than 25% over 2024. Engineering remains a high-demand field, especially in Texas, where the economy and the population continue to grow.

Rice University chemist Angel Martí has been named a recipient of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s (RCSA) Robert Holland Jr. Award, which honors outstanding contributions to research, leadership and mentorship in the sciences. The award, which includes a $5,000 cash prize, commemorates the late Robert Holland Jr., an engineer and corporate executive who served on RCSA’s board of directors.

A collaborative research team from Toho University, the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, Nihon University, the Global Environmental Forum, and the Museum Park Ibaraki Nature Museum has revealed that a newly introduced parasite is infecting native fish in the Tone River system. Their study also confirms that the golden mussel, an invasive species, acts as the infection source, while non-native fish such as bluegill and channel catfish help sustain the parasite’s life cycle.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student performance is well known, but four years after the pandemic, scores in college classes are not returning to their pre-pandemic levels. A new study might point to an answer.

The award provides graduate students with science policy training and the opportunity to meet with congressional policymakers on Capitol Hill.

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today named Andrew G. Barto and Richard S. Sutton as the recipients of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning.