NSF News

A $162 million investment from the U.S. National Science Foundation will drive the creation of advanced materials capable of remarkable things — from being tough enough to withstand the heat of a fusion reactor to processing information at the…

This week, NSF Director Panchanathan had the honor of hosting First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at NSF headquarters. The visit began with the director, prime minister and first lady — renowned for her commitment to…

The U.S. National Science Foundation today launched Assessing and Predicting Technology Outcomes, or APTO, a new $30 million program that will fund research to evaluate the effectiveness of research and development investments and create models and…

Researchers at Oregon State University and Baylor University have made a breakthrough in reducing the energy consumption of the photonic chips used in data centers and supercomputers. The findings are important because a data center can consume up to…

During the last ice age, massive icebergs periodically broke off from an ice sheet covering a large swath of North America and discharged rapidly melting ice into the North Atlantic Ocean around Greenland, triggering abrupt climate change impacts…

The U.S. National Science Foundation recently released guidelines for research security analytics on the agency's research security website. Research security, defined as safeguarding of the U.S. enterprise against the misappropriation of research…

The catastrophic Australian bushfires in 2019 to 2020 contributed to ocean cooling thousands of miles away, ultimately nudging the tropical Pacific into a rare multiyear La Niña event that dissipated only recently. The research was led by scientists…

Chemical and isotopic analyses of copper artifacts from southern Africa reveal new cultural connections among people living in the region between the fifth and 20th centuries, according to a team of researchers at the University of Missouri…

Today, the U.S. National Science Foundation, in partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges announced the three winning teams of this year's Community College Innovation Challenge. A team of expert judges selected the Houston…

Midwestern agriculture causes an oxygen-starved hypoxic zone, and challenges coastal economies by contributing most of the nitrogen in the Gulf of Mexico. State and federal policymakers have tried for decades to provide solutions and incentives, but…

Algae that commonly grow on snow in the Pacific Northwest have been ignored in melt models, but their presence significantly increases snowmelt compared with clean, white snow, according to a study conducted on Mount Baker in the North Cascades…

Newly developed "smart" coatings for surgical orthopedic implants can monitor strain on the devices to provide early warning of implant failures while killing infection-causing bacteria, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers report. The…

A major challenge in human genetics is understanding which parts of the genome drive specific traits or contribute to disease risk. This challenge is even greater for genetic variants found in the 98% of the genome that does not encode proteins. A…

Continents are part of what makes Earth uniquely habitable for life among the planets of the solar system, yet surprisingly little is understood about what gave rise to these huge pieces of the planet's crust and their special properties. U.S…

The U.S. National Science Foundation announced 34 semifinalists for the first-ever NSF Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) competition, spanning nearly all key technology areas and societal and economic challenges highlighted in the "CHIPS and…

Think about what you do with your hands when you're home at night pushing buttons on your TV's remote control, or at a restaurant using all kinds of cutlery and glassware. These skills are all based on touch, while you're watching a TV program or…

In the face of global warming and other environmental changes, corals in the Atlantic Ocean have declined precipitously in recent years, while corals in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are faring better. By describing several species of symbiotic algae…

For the first time, scientists have recorded brain activity in a free-ranging, wild marine mammal, revealing the sleep habits of elephant seals during the months they spend at sea. The new findings, partially funded by the U.S. National Science…

A new study reveals that the mass loss of lake-terminating glaciers in the Great Himalayas has been significantly underestimated due to the inability of satellites to see glacier changes occurring underwater. That has implications for projecting…

Nature documentaries will tell you that lions, cheetahs, wolves and other top predators target the weakest or slowest animals and that this culling benefits prey herds, whether it's antelope in Africa or elk in Wyoming. This idea has been widely…