National Science Foundation - News

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will use the Antarctica's frigid, harsh, isolated landscape to test a new architecture for astronaut housing on the moon. The agencies are sending a prototype inflatable habitat to the southernmost contient to see how it stands up to a year of use. Officials watched the habitat as it was inflated one last time at a site in Frederica, Del., before it was packed and shipped to McMurd More ...

Viruses living in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) are surprisingly mobile--migrating between Yellowstone hot springs and possibly even reaching worldwide locations, according to a new study. The discovery of the mobility of these extremophiles adds an important new dimension to a growing body of evidence of the ability of viruses, which are the largest reservoir of genetic material on Earth, to move independently of their hosts. The study of t More ...

Although he never worked as a scientist and didn't receive his master's degree in biology until age 70, William T. Golden was one of the most influential figures in post-World War II American science. More ...

Volcano inflating with molten rock at record rate More ...

By adding a few modifications to their successful wastewater fuel cell, researchers have coaxed common bacteria to produce hydrogen in a new, efficient way. Bruce Logan and colleagues at Penn State University had already shown success at using microbes to produce electricity. Now, using starter material that could theoretically be sourced from a salad bar, the researchers have coaxed those same microbes to generate hydrogen. By tweaking their design, improving conditions for the More ...

One of the most fragile detectors for the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment, a particle physics experiment located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research's (commonly known as CERN) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland, has been successfully installed in its final position, and a group of Syracuse University scientists and graduate students have been an essential part of this achievement. More ...

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new search engine that allows anyone to search the content of video-recorded lectures to find a specific subject or word, even if that word is in the middle of the lecture. This powerful new tool uses advanced voice-recognition technology to search the actual spoken words within a recorded lecture. MIT plans to have this technology available to anyone who wishes to see lectures and lessons recorded by its faculty. More ...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center for Sustainability of Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA) is one of two institutions to win the 2007 International Great Man-made River Prize. The prize is awarded by UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization. The UNESCO prize "rewards remarkable scientific research work on water usage in arid areas as well as areas subject to drought and also for the development o More ...

Astronomers funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced their discovery of a fifth planet around the nearby star 55 Cancri, making it the only star aside from the sun known to have five planets. The research results have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Lead author Debra Fischer, assistant professor of astronomy at San Francisco State University, said the fifth planet is within the star's habitable zone, in which wa More ...

A new study conducted by an international team of scientists shows that as plant species around the world go extinct, natural habitats become less productive and contain fewer total plants--a situation that could ultimately compromise important benefits that humans get from nature. The study appears in the Nov. 5, 2007, online issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More ...

Why do people live in places like southern California where homes intermingle with wooded areas and the risk of wildfire is so great? Leading social scientists have a surprising answer: because the emotional benefits interfere with their ability to assess the risks. Recent fire activity in the state of California supports this unusual theory offered by researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). According to the U.S. Forest Service, October wildfires des More ...

Scientists may be one step closer to understanding the atomic forces that cause friction, thanks to a recently published study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Houston, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. More ...

A team of researchers from the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and the University of Washington (United States) has developed a new potential starting point for a drug that could intervene in the deadly cycle of HIV reproduction. More ...

Researchers at Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, in collaboration with scientists representing institutions from around the world, have discovered the closest living relative to primates. More ...

Twenty young scientists from among those taking part in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) have received an additional distinction as winners of Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for the 2006 competition. The PECASE program recognizes outstanding scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of knowledge. This Presidential More ...