Texas Monthly • 17th April 2024

Rule One of Wind Turbine Repair Work: Don’t Leave Your Phone at the Top

A Big Spring wind turbine technician says the views three hundred feet above West Texas are magnificent—just watch out for the flying ants.

Texas Monthly • 15th March 2024

How to Attract the Charming Hummingbird Moth to Your Yard

Hint: leave those leaves alone!

Texas Monthly • 6th December 2023

Why We're Seeing More Green Jays Across South Texas

Imagine a blue jay who comes back from a Cancún resort with a jaunty new wardrobe. That’s the green jay, one of the most colorful birds in Texas.

Texas Monthly • 6th October 2023

Stopping to Smell the Moonflower, One of Texas’s Most Tenacious (and Poisonous) Plants

Unfazed by extreme weather, this dangerous beauty blooms only at night.

Texas Monthly • 11th August 2023

In This North Texas Town, It’s Always Shark Week

The small city of Sherman, which lies far from the coast, is a fossil hunter’s paradise.

Texas Monthly • 26th June 2023

Hikers Are Dying on Texas Trails in Severe Heat

Recent tragedies in Big Bend and Palo Duro Canyon are a reminder to “respect the desert,” says one ranger.

Texas Monthly • 8th March 2023

The Fight for Fertility Preservation for Cancer Patients in Texas

Twelve states require that insurers pay for egg and sperm freezing before cancer treatment. Attempts to add Texas to the list have failed twice, but now lawmakers are trying again.

Texas Monthly • 8th March 2023

Empire, Wide and Glorious

As we celebrate one hundred years of our state parks, they are more popular than ever. But our booming population is overwhelming the state’s scarce public lands. What will the next century hold for Texas’s “best idea”?

Texas Monthly • 11th November 2022

Where to Watch Thousands of Sandhill Cranes Storm the Texas Skies

Each winter, a wildlife sanctuary near the Panhandle hosts one of the world’s largest gatherings of these beautiful birds.

Texas Monthly • 8th March 2022

Though New to Some Tea Drinkers, Yaupon Is Steeped in History

More than a thousand years after Indigenous Texans began brewing yaupon, the tea—and its aggressive holly plant—is everywhere.

Texas Monthly • 7th July 2020

‘Outcry’ Offers a Nuanced Look at a Wrongful Conviction in Central Texas

The five-part Showtime docu-series avoids the worst pitfalls of the true-crime genre, favoring character over sensationalism.

Texas Monthly • 27th May 2020

In Texas’s Food Deserts, Food Banks Struggle to Do More With Less

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to what one expert calls “a perfect storm”: more hungry people, fewer volunteers, and declining donations.

Texas Monthly • 7th May 2020

New to Backyard Chicken-Keeping? Here’s Some Eggspert Advice

As Texans flock to the hobby in record numbers, we convened a virtual staff roundtable to share tips.

Texas Monthly • 1st May 2020

Lawrence Wright on the Politics of the Pandemic

The Austin author says he wrote his new pandemic thriller as a “cry of warning,” but he never expected it to be released during an eerily similar crisis.

The Texas Observer • 13th January 2020

The Internet Broke Democracy. To Fix It, Design for Human Rights.

"What we’re seeing with the major platforms right now is a scrambled attempt to rebuild the plane while the plane is being flown."

The Texas Observer • 13th January 2020

How the San Antonio Police Are Rethinking Mental Health

A new documentary on policing in San Antonio makes a simple suggestion: Instead of arresting mentally ill people, listen to them.

The Texas Observer • 14th October 2019

Mr. Reynolds' Opus

Walk into composer Graham Reynolds’ East Austin studio, and the first thing you’ll notice, perhaps surprisingly, is the books.

The Texas Observer • 7th May 2018

The Time-Traveler's Guide to the Lower Pecos

Hidden away on private land in Southwest Texas is some of the oldest and best-preserved prehistoric rock art in the world. The Rock Art Rendezvous offers a rare glimpse.

The Texas Observer • 10th July 2017

Ride Like a Girl

Women riders take the reins in the macho world of charrería.

The Texas Observer • 7th January 2019

Plight at the Museum

The best Texas history museum you’ve never heard of is staring down a financial crisis. Will it survive?

The Texas Observer • 4th December 2017

Sunk Costs

Back-to-back record flooding along the Brazos River has forced people in Richmond to make an excruciating choice: Stay or go?

The Texas Observer • 30th August 2019

Two Houston Archives Gather Harvey Memories for Historians of the Future

They’re a time capsule of the destruction wrought by the deadliest storm to hit Texas since 1919.

The Texas Observer • 11th March 2019

Fearless and Funny, Molly Ivins Comes to Life in ‘Raise Hell’

If only she were around today.

The Texas Observer • 5th August 2019

'Seadrift' Dredges Up a Little Known—and Deeply Disturbing—Texas Story

An electrifying new documentary captures a forgotten conflict in the sleepy coastal community of Seadrift.

The Texas Observer • 14th May 2018

The Ghosts of Abandoned Texas Buildings Rise Up in an Eerie New Photo Book

“Lost, Texas” features starkly beautiful photos of once-thriving rural Texas towns.

The Texas Observer • 6th April 2017

'Another Book, Another Month, Another Day Closer to You'

Some 65,600 mothers are incarcerated nationwide, a 131-percent increase since 1991.

The Alcalde • 21st August 2018

View from the Top

“When the Space Station would fly over Texas, Jack would look up and wave and say, ‘Hi, Mommy.’”

The Alcalde • 1st July 2017

A Cure for Clara

In 2014, the average orphan drug cost $118,820 per patient per year. That means families’ campaigning may not end even once they’ve found and funded the cure.

The Alcalde • 1st September 2016

The Precursors

UT's first black undergraduates tell their stories.

The Alcalde • 31st October 2014

Through the Unthinkable

Palliative care is often confused with hospice—a narrower subtype of palliative care focused on the end of life—but increasingly, it isn’t only for people who have a terminal prognosis.

The Alcalde • 1st November 2013

A Classroom at the Edge of the World

"If you don't know what you're doing in Svalbard, Svalbard will kill you."

The Alcalde • 11th January 2013

The Alcalde: 40 Acres Field Guide | Multimedia Feature

UT is an urban university in the heart of the city, yet the campus and its environs teem with fascinating plants and animals—from tropical parakeets to the world's weirdest cactus.

The Alcalde • 28th February 2012

Star Power

The one thing Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't like to talk about is his time at the University of Texas.

The Alcalde • 2nd January 2012

Minds on Fire

What happens when disadvantaged adults learn to read Shakespeare and debate philosophy? How the Free Minds Project is changing lives through the humanities