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(STARFORGE)
The stars aligned for a breakthrough discovery.
A collaborative team led by researchers from the University of Texas at Austin has found that star formation is a self-regulatory process. This understanding could lead to more information on star formation within our own and far away galaxies.
Every population of stars in our galaxy, and in the dwarf galaxies surrounding us, has the same balance for the mass distribution of stars, or what astronomers call the initial mass function. This has confused astronomers for decades since the stars in other galaxies were born under different conditions over billions of years.
So the researchers carried out simulations that were the first of their kind. Essentially, they follow the formation of individual stars in a collapsing giant cloud while also capturing how these newly formed stars interact with their surroundings by giving off light and shedding mass in a phenomenon known as “stellar feedback.”
“For a long time, we have been asking why,” said Dávid Guszejnov, a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Astronomy at UT. “Our simulations followed stars from birth to the natural endpoint of their formation to solve this mystery.”
The research was completed on two of the most powerful supercomputers in the world and was part of an initiative known as the STARFORGE Project, which is co-lead by UT Austin and the Carnegie Observatories.
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Popular
Pickleball, soccer and poker a just a few things that have boomed in the capital city.
Austin is way past its days as being known soley for live music.
With the unprecedented migration of Californians, city dwellers and more into the U.S's newest "boomtown," the city has quickly transformed and built on its preexisting "weird" reputation to become a city of many identities.
Here are just a few things Austin has become known for this year.
Tech
While Austin is a hub for live music, wanderlust travelers and wacky sports, it’s gained the most attention for its recent rep as the nation’s next Silicon Valley.
Startups and big tech like Dell have long called Austin home, but Elon Musk led a migration from California to Austin when he moved Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Company and his foundation to the capital city. In October, he officially announced the new Tesla headquarters would be at the site of the new gigafactory that is completing phase 1 of construction this month.
And while Tesla's relocation has dominated EV news in the capital city, another Austin startup is currently working on extracting precious lithium from Bolivia to boost the electric vehicle industry.
Some companies have revolutionized local issues: Austin startup ICON has helped create affordable homes with 3D printing technology in Austin and even teamed up with NASA, while robots have seeped into everyday aspects of Austin life from surgeries to grocery shopping.
The surge in tech has brought in droves of talent and even fueled Austin's hot housing market during the pandemic. A U.K. study recently found the city to be the best place to move to in the world, while a LinkedIn study found that Austin leads the country in tech migration. And tech salaries are following—the city saw that Austin's average tech salaries are nearing that of California despite vastly different costs of living.
Jiu jitsu
This summer, Austin became the unlikely site of Brazilian jiu-jitsu beef as Danaher Death Squad, a famed professional crew of grapplers, split into two after a decade of working together. Formerly located in New York and Puerto Rico, the group's two new sects located separately in Austin, a burgeoning "Mecca of jiu jitsu."
Legend Gordon Ryan teamed with coach John Danaher to form a new studio, aptly named "New Wave Jiu Jitsu," in North Austin, while former teammates Craig Jones and even Ryan's brother, Nicky Ryan, opened an elite studio with the tongue-in-cheek title "B-Team Jiu Jitsu."
The B-Team is using their renowned and wacky sense of humor to attract the "Olympians" of the sport from all over the world, while New Wave's Ryan is training for big-name titles as New Wave's studio construction is underway.
While the two gyms haven't announced any rivalry bouts yet, they're both training for the WNO World Championships in 2022. And coupled with dozens of jiu jitsu gyms in the metro and Austin-based jiu jitsu media site Flo Grappling, the fast-growing sport is quickly taking off in Austin.
Poker
What happens in Vegas may not always stay in Vegas anymore.
Private poker houses in Austin and Dallas are quickly gaining steam where Texas Hold ‘Em got its name.
Austin is quickly becoming a hub for poker thanks to a loophole in Texas’ gambling law that allows poker games to be played in private residences. Instead of taking a cut from the pot like traditional gambling ventures, private poker houses don't make money from the results of a game; instead, they get their revenue from membership and hourly fees.
One poker house, Texas Card House, used to stand alone in Austin like a small town saloon; now, around 20 are found around town.
Texas Card House was founded in 2015 with just five tables and has since expanded to include a Youtube channel with over 30,000 subscribers and regular visits from big-time poker players like Brad Owen and Doug Pope.
But they no longer hold a “royal flush” on Austin poker culture: The Lodge, based just up the road in Round Rock, is the largest poker house in Texas, and interested Austinites can find anything from poker lessons and beginner pots to $15,000 buy-ins in the Texas capital.
Crypto and NFTs
One crypto-art curator is merging physical pieces by local artists with digital NFTs. (Apollo the Curator)
Everybody who's somebody knows what an NFT is by now—at least, that's what Austin's most crypto-hip population tends to say as the once-mysterious trend grows in popularity in the city.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, were a mystery to the general public when self-proclaimed "Crypto Queen" and former girlfriend to Elon Musk Grimes sold $6 million crypto art in early March. The tokens usually take in the form of digital art or collector's items and serve as a "certificate of authentication" that can't be hacked using cryptocurrency Ethereum.
The tokens have since broken into mainstream culture, at least in the tech verse, as anyone from University of Texas athletes to local artists began cashing in on the craze. Draped high above Austin city streets, Sam Feldman, founder of crypto explainer marketcap.guide, created billboards that double as NFTS available for sale with positive mantras like "Bitcoin is a peaceful revolution."
Austin NFT whiz Apollo the Curator has brought local artists into the scene by combining in-person art competitions and physical pieces with a digital copy of art. Meanwhile, late Austin artist Daniel Johnston's iconic "Hi, How Are You" art has been sold as an NFT and local country singer Parker McCollum has created a fan club NFT product.
Popular sports venues, including Formula 1 track Circuit of the Americas and the University of Texas' Campbell-Williams Field, have also joined in on the movement.
And after a name, image and likeness bill was passed this summer to allow collegiate student-athletes to capitalize off of their reputation, UT athletes like football star Bijan Robinson and local business NiftyHorns are selling digital trading cards in the growing NFT market.
Soccer
Austin’s futbol fandom gained national attention when MLS team Austin FC became the city’s first professional sports franchise this year. Despite a season with just nine wins, fans consistently flooded the team’s brand-new Q2 Stadium with a sold-out crowd of over 20,000. Hundreds regularly flocked to away games across the country, and many more stuck to watch parties at home at local bars and restaurants.
But the most steadfast soccer fans will argue that Austin has always been a “soccer city.” In 2019, the city was the world’s No. 1 market for the Women’s World Cup TV ratings, and fans were rewarded with a U.S. Women’s National Team match to christen the Q2 pitch back in June.
Since then, the stadium has seen two appearances from the U.S. Men’s National Team and national teams from Mexico, Chile, Jamaica and Qatar, each in front of sold-out crowds.
And behind the scenes, teams like women’s semipro club FC Austin Elite, the University of Texas’ soccer team and even a Liga Verde Austin FC supporters’ league have kept the soccer spirit alive and well in Austin.
Pickleball
Austin saw its first Major League Pickleball season this November. (Major League Pickleball)
Austin FC may have been the city’s first major league team, but it was Major League Pickleball that became Austin’s first professional sports league as they launched this year.
Founded in the 1960s, pickleball is a racquet sport that resembles life-sized ping pong. Less intense than tennis and easy to learn, the fast-growing sport has quickly spread in Austin for its inclusivity and supposed addictive qualities.
Professional pickleballers, some of whom train in Dreamland’s Dripping Springs full time, went head-to-head at the venue in November in front of enthusiastic fans for the MLP’s first season.
The sport can be seen at 20+ parks and rec centers around Austin, including popular pickleball hangouts like Bouldin Acres. And Austin will soon be host to Texas’ largest pickleball venue as Austin Pickle Ranch opens its 32-court multipurpose venue early next year.
Roller derby
Street skating and roller derby converge in pandemic-era Austin. (Claire Partain/Austonia)
Austin invented a new era of roller derby in the early aughts as the first-ever professional flat-track roller derby league, Texas Rollergirls, was founded in 2003. Channeling the funky nature of Austin and unapologetic girl power, the league transformed into a popular form of wacky entertainment, complete with outlandish names like "Shutem Up Buttercup" and halftime band performances.
The Rollergirls' influence quickly spread beyond Austin, helping create new leagues around the world and inspiring a documentary. And even though the pandemic forced bouts to be canceled, many athletes stayed on their wheels and went "full circle" as they took to outdoor skating.
Skate parks, once reserved for mostly-male skateboarders, saw an influx of roller derby athletes, trick skaters and newbies around the city as quarantine raged on. Spurred on by viral TikToks, the sport grew across the country—but especially in Austin, where roller roots run deep.
Texas Rollergirls has been postponed from in-person events since February 2020 but is hoping to resume operations in early 2022 if COVID conditions allow it.
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(Forbes)
At the cutting edge of tech, music and business are many successful leaders who not too long ago weren't old enough to drive or vote.
These wunderkinds were honored in Forbes' prestigious "30 under 30" lists, which highlights hundreds of top young entrepreneurs in categories from social media to science, in the 2022 rendition of the list on Wednesday. Some of the Class of '22 were as young as 14, while the average honoree was around 28 years old. Thirteen of these burgeoning business moguls were from Austin, which has seen such distinguished 30 under 30 alumni as former UT basketball player Kevin Durant get top spots on the 10-year-old list.
Here's a look at the 13 Austinites who made the cut:
Science—Celine Halioua, Loyal founder, 27
Celine Halioua, founder of Loyal and #ForbesUnder30 honoree, discusses how she created a company which helps prevent undue aging and cancer in dogs, and whose research could also potentially help humans. https://t.co/rfbFS4dq72 pic.twitter.com/3MaBGnE4Eb
— Forbes (@Forbes) December 1, 2021
Earning the top spot in the science category was Celine Halioua, a former University of Texas student and founder of biotech company Cellular Longevity. The company, normally called Loyal, was founded by Halioua in 2019 and aims at finding compounds that can prevent undue aging and cancer in dogs, something that Halioua hopes will one day translate into human benefits.
As the frontrunner for the Science category's Class of '22, Halioua earned a photoshoot and video interview. Like many others on the list, Halioua's youth may give her an edge up in creating new ideas and technologies.
"It's been very fun learning how to modernize an old industry," Halioua said in the interview.
Halioua, who grew up in Austin around 15 cats, rescue dogs and even pet squirrels, said her company looks to extend the lifespan of dogs, but more broadly she hopes to combat the issue of "not having free will," an opinion she formed when talking to brain cancer patients at a neuro-oncology clinic at 18.
She also said creating anti-aging medicines for dogs can be a "proving ground" for creating the first explicit anti-aging drug cleared for humans because veterinary medicines are much more likely to be approved.
There's never been a drug approved for aging for any species, dog or human," Halioua said. "My core goal in life is to get the first drug approved."
The Bay Area-based company is pre-revenue, but it's already generated over $38 million in venture capital and has its first anti-aging drug poised to reach clinical trials next year.
Science—William Gilpin, UT Austin professor, 29
Is chaos actually hard to predict? For NeurIPS this year I made a database of 131 known strange attractors, and trained state-of-the-art forecasting models on each one, to try to figure this out (1/N):
— William Gilpin (@wgilpin0) October 12, 2021
Paper: https://t.co/6tZ9MGAAI3
Dataset + Code: https://t.co/EpK4ZfWTEF pic.twitter.com/ehvPCBhDm3
University of Texas' incoming physics professor William Gilpin knows how to find beauty—and practicality—in chaos.
Using "chaos theory to understand biological complexity," Gilpin, who was inspired by ocean waves and fluids, has revolutionized a machine learning technique for neuroscience recordings.
"Is chaos really hard to predict?" Gilpin asks in a recent viral Tweet, as he showcases his methods that have helped analyze fitness trackers and predict prices of stocks and ponds.
Sports—Megan Lindon, Austin FC marketer, 29
How cool is this? @AustinFC’s Megan Lindon makes #ForbesUnder30 list! https://t.co/uLQ2YUXBWB #VERDE pic.twitter.com/s6e42Xk6OJ
— Tyler Feldman (@TylerFeldmanTV) December 1, 2021
Ever seen Austin FC's signature Verde Van rolling around town? The mobile one-stop shop for Austin FC merchandise is the brainchild of Lindon, the senior manager of marketing who helped make the team the top-selling hub for merch across the MLS in its first year.
Lindon oversaw brand campaigns and retail partnerships, such as its jersey sponsor YETI, for the new team. Although she might not be responsible for all the hype, it's tough to tell whether Austin FC would be as recognizable nationwide without Lindon's efforts.
Games—Jacob Wolf
Really thrilled to be named a part of @Forbes 30 Under 30 Games Class of 2022, alongside some other very young talented esports folks — @scump, @onfireScarlett, and @TSMWalter, to name a few.https://t.co/3v2Wqq8hz1
— Jacob Wolf (@JacobWolf) December 1, 2021
Move over, sports commentators—esports reporting is entering its golden era, and the self-proclaimed "world leader" in esports coverage is based in Austin with Jacob Wolf at the helm.
At 24, Wolf, the company's chief reporter, has already been compared to "ESPN's NBA news king Adrian Wojnarowski," according to the Forbes report. He's also won the Esports Awards Journalist of the Year title in 2018 and has been nominated five times, leads the company's news team with hard-hitting investigative pieces and has founded a production company that will co-produce a podcast set to release in 2022.
Wolf sits on the list now, but he was criticized by a Forbes reporter in the past for having "zero corner" in the esports market—a notion that was quickly shut down by Wolf and longtime esports fans alike.
Manufacturing & Industry—Topher Haddad and Winston Tri, Albedo co-founders
Good Morning Twitter! This year for Thanksgiving we've made some 10cm synthetic imagery. Let us know what you think. pic.twitter.com/MPmh93tctW
— Albedo (@Albedo) November 24, 2021
"The next generation of Earth observation is coming soon," satellite imagery company Albedo's website boldly reads over a crystal-clear aerial view of an alpine forest.
Two under-30 entrepreneurs—Topher Haddad and Winston Tri—set out to create commercially-available satellite imagery that has nine times better resolution than what's out now. From that, Austin-based Albedo was born.
After raising $10 million in a seed round by Initialized Capital, the company is gearing up to launch its first satellites in 2023.
Venture Capital—Brandon Allen and Marcus Stroud, TXV Partners co-founders
Grateful to be on the @ForbesUnder30 for 2022! Thank you to all the LP’s, founders, and operators that have joined us on this journey building @TXVPARTNERS. Super grateful. pic.twitter.com/0XI1xZBSgs
— Marcus Stroud (@Marcus_Stroud) December 1, 2021
Austin can't have its startup-savvy culture without its venture capitalists, something Princeton graduates Brandon Allen and Marcus Stroud know all too well.
Now 27 and 28, the former Princeton roommates formed TXV Partners in 2019 and haven't looked back since, investing over $20 million into businesses including fitness app Future Fit and the similarly-named fitness startup Future as well as Data.World, Oura, Kambr and Trax. The duo, which has since tacked on another partner, has been focused on local businesses for years and will continue to do so as they boost Texas' best exercise startups.
Retail and eCommerce—Benjamin Smith, Disco founder, 28
Everything is better in a set. 🎁
— Disco™ (@letsDiscoskin) November 27, 2021
If you're not shopping our biggest sale of the year, you're missing out. Get 30% off site-wide + free shipping on all orders. pic.twitter.com/kBmI56ZjMu
Men need skincare, too—even if they sometimes aren't comfortable enough to address it.
That's the issue that Austinite Benjamin Smith hopes to tackle with his skincare line Disco, which provides sets and products from anti-aging cream to cleansers to help men feel their most "dapper."
Smith, who struggled with acne throughout early adulthood, strayed from the overly-masculine packaging of many men's beauty products and instead opted for a sleek, simple look that can be seen online and at Nordstrom. The company has been featured in GQ and the Wall Street Journal and is expected to see $10 million in revenue at the end of 2021 after an original $5 million in funding.
Finance—Jeron Davis, RLJ Equity Partners, 28
Forbes 30 under 30 in Finance should be renamed Forbes 30 under 30 in Blockchain!
— nicola 💾 (@iamnotnicola) December 1, 2021
Congrats!https://t.co/LNJ7qogdlt
Although he's based in Maryland, Jeron Davis has found success as a senior associate at RLJ Equity Partners, a firm founded by Austin billionaire Robert L. Johnson.
Davis is a former investment banker at Citigroup Global Markets, Inc., where he made a$4.6 billion leveraged buyout of Petco and a $2.2 billion sale with CenturyLink. With RLJ, Davis made a $60 million LBO of Pro-Vac and $31 million TechMedia buyout.
Education—Chandler Bolt, Self Publishing School founder, 28
- NEW IGTV -
— Self-Publishing School (@Self_Pub_School) November 23, 2021
Chandler Bolt answers: Should You Write A Book??? 🤔 https://t.co/cuv4PQlQFa #authors #selfpublishing #selfpublished #selfpublishingschool pic.twitter.com/eq2OQs8Uv6
Investor and Self Publishing School founder Chandler Bolt holds a five-year company and has helped 6,000+ writers publish their own books—and he's just 28.
His company, which helps writers work—from creating a writing timeline to arranging speaking engagements after publishing—charges $6,000 to bring writer's works into fruition.
The Austin-based Self Publishing School has been an INC 5000 company for three years in a row among the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. But Bolt's not stopping there, he's also published six books of his own, hosts two podcasts, and has a YouTube channel about the self-publishing process.
Energy—Thomas Sherman and Daniel Vassallo, CRCL Solutions co-founders
💡ATI Company Spotlight: CRCL Solutions💡
— ATX Tech Incubator (@ATI_UT) September 9, 2021
Congrats to CRCL Solutions for winning a National Science Foundation SBIR award! CRCL will investigate how AI can be used to improve atmospheric modeling for the renewable energy industry.
For more, visit: https://t.co/SVKzscHxL4
Texas' renewable energies are growing fast—but when the wind turbines aren't turning, it can hard to predict how much the state will be able to use.
Using artificial intelligence, CRCL Solutions founders Thomas Sherman and Daniel Vassallo are helping power traders reduce risk and increase profitability by forecasting usage of ERCOT's solar and wind energies. Eventually, the duo hopes to help create carbon neutrality by erasing some risks from the fluctuating renewable energy market.
And their efforts are gaining national attention: so far, they've received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Austin Energy Incubator.
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