National Science Foundation - News

Using novel light-scattering techniques, researchers have found the first evidence that early stage pancreatic cancer causes subtle changes in part of the small intestine. The easily monitored marker may ultimately allow early detection for a disease notorious for having few obvious symptoms, the primary reason pancreatic cancer killed more than 33,000 Americans last year. The new detection techniques, developed with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), produce an optic More ...

A recent discovery by astronomers suggests Pluto's companion planet Charon, is the equivalent of an outer solar system ice machine. Evidence shows frigid geysers shoot up through cracks in Charon's crust and re-coat parts of its surface in ice crystals. More ...

Around the world, students learn about the wave nature of light through the interference patterns of "Young's double-slit experiment," first performed over 200 years ago and still considered among the most beautiful physics experiments. Using an analogous experiment, researchers at Brown and Stanford Universities have shown that a simple analytical model can describe the wave nature of surface plasmon polaritons. Their work suggests that plasmonic devices cannot easily circumvent th More ...

Children with Tourette's syndrome may have to put up with some unwanted movement and verbal tics, but neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, have found that they are much quicker at processing certain mental grammar skills than are children without the disorder. More ...