NASA launched the New Horizons craft in January 2006 to explore the outermost edges of our solar system for the first time.

On July 14 (Tuesday), the craft will make its closest approach to Pluto and will head toward the Kuiper Belt, a band of debris left over from the formation of our solar system that is located nearly 4 billion miles from Earth’s orbit.

Director of the UNT Astronomy program and NASA Ambassador Ron DiIulio is available for...

DENTON, Texas (UNT) -- How can iPads and other technology help a nonverbal child with autism communicate? Can equine therapy help individuals on the autism spectrum thrive? What can parents and caregivers do to best potty train an autistic child? Answers to some of the latest questions circulating in the autism world will be addressed in one of the largest state conferences for families, educators and professionals who interact with young children with autism.

Nearly 300 individuals are expected to attend the University of North Texas' annual "...

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- The New York Times reporter and columnist Dan Barry won the 2015 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest top prize for "The Boys in the Bunkhouse," published in the Times in March 2014. The contest is sponsored by the University of North Texas' Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference.

The contest is co-sponsored by The Dallas Morning News, and has been offered by the Maybo...

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- The University of North Texas' Printing & Distribution Solutions won five awards at the 2015 In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association Conference, the nation's largest conference for print shops housed in larger organizations which they service.

PDS won four In-Print awards, the only awards given exclusively to in-plant printers. A team of jurors selected 67 winners from 400 entries in several different categories. Gold, silver...

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- Gulin "Eva" Gelogullari, a graduate student at the University of North Texas, has received a $30,500 Rotary Global Grant to study at Tel Aviv University in Israel during the 2015-16 academic year.

Gelogullari, a master's student in UNT's Department of Media Arts, will use her grant to enroll in Tel Aviv University's one-year...

DENTON, Texas (UNT) -- The year was 2000, and a personal friend of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush – Charles C. Francis – was breaking a barrier for gay-rights advocates by holding a meeting with the governor and 11 other gay Republican men and women. It was the first time a Republican presidential candidate had ever formally and publicly met with a group of openly gay and lesbian individuals. On the agenda for the group known as the "Austin 12": a frank conversation about gay and lesbian issues, sharing personal stories as gay and lesbian Republicans and a discussion about Bush's presidenti...

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- Emmanuela Akosua Opoku, a doctoral student in the University of North Texas' Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, has been awarded a $5,000 P.E.O., or Philanthropic Educational Organization, International Peace Scholarship. Seven UNT students have received the scholarship since 2002.

Opoku, a native of Ghana, entered UNT in the 2014 fall semester to enroll in the doctoral program in environmental ethics and philosophy. Sh...

Presidential candidates began offering opinions over the weekend on whether or not South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its capitol building.

Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, associate professor in the UNT Department of Political Science, is available to discuss candidates offering opinions on controversial topics. He can be reached at 940-565-2329 or mes@unt.edu.

"This is un...

A gunman shot and killed nine people at one of the nation's oldest black churches on the evening of June 17 (Wednesday), according to media reports, and police are investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime. Experts at the University of North Texas are available to comment on the shooting from various angles. Check back for updates to this page with additional experts.

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- Associate Professor of Biology and neurological studies, Nicoladie Tam, was awarded a 2015 UNT Scholarly Works Outstanding Contributor Award because her research article "Computational optimization problems in social interaction and empathetic social emotion" was one of the most viewed items in the UNT Scholarly Works institu...