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  News From the National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) — For more information about NSF and its programs, visit www.nsf.gov

NSF Funded News

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Showing releases 126-150 out of 738.

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Public Release: 1-Jul-2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Mapping the benefits of our ecosystems
We rely on our physical environment for many things -- clean water, land for crops or pastures, storm water absorption, and recreation, among others. Yet it has been challenging to figure out how to sustain the many benefits people obtain from nature -- so-called "ecosystem services" -- in any given landscape because an improvement in one may come at the cost of another.
National Science Foundation/Water Sustainability and Climate Program

Contact: Jiangxiao Qiu
jqiu7@wisc.edu
608-265-8001
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Public Release: 1-Jul-2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Surprise superconductor
Superconductivity is a rare physical state in which matter is able to conduct electricity -- maintain a flow of electrons -- without any resistance. This phenomenon can only be found in certain materials under specific low-temperature and high-pressure conditions. New research found unexpected superconductivity that could help scientists better understand the structural changes that create this rare phenomenon.
National Science Foundation, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Deep Carbon Observatory, US Department of Energy

Contact: Viktor Struzhkin
vstruzhkin@gl.ciw.edu
202-478-8952
Carnegie Institution

Public Release: 1-Jul-2013
Journal of Environmental Management
Tallying the wins and losses of policy
In the past decade, China as sunk some impressive numbers to preserve its forests, but until now there hasn't been much data to give a true picture of how it has simultaneously affected both the people and the environment. Michigan State University has capitalized on their long history of research in the Wolong Nature Reserve to get a complete picture of the environmental and socioeconomic effects of payments for ecosystem services programs.
National Science Foundation, NASA

Contact: Sue Nichols
nichols@msu.edu
517-432-0206
Michigan State University

Public Release: 1-Jul-2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Psychology influences markets
When it comes to economics versus psychology, score one for psychology. Economists argue that markets usually reflect rational behavior -- with the dominant players in a market, such as hedge-fund managers, almost always making well-informed and objective decisions. But psychologists say that markets are not immune from human irrationality. A new analysis by Caltech researchers supports the latter case, showing that markets are indeed susceptible to psychological phenomena.
German Research Foundation, National Science Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Human Frontier Science Program

Contact: Deborah Williams-Hedges
debwms@caltech.edu
626-395-3227
California Institute of Technology

Public Release: 1-Jul-2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Improving crop yields in a world of extreme weather events
When plants encounter drought, they naturally produce abscisic acid (ABA), a stress hormone that helps them cope with the drought conditions. Specifically, the hormone turns on receptors in the plants. A research team led by Sean Cutler at the University of California, Riverside has identified an inexpensive synthetic chemical, quinabactin, that mimics ABA. Spraying ABA on plants improves their water use and stress tolerance, but the procedure is expensive. Quinabactin now offers a cheaper solution.
National Science Foundation, Syngenta Biotechnology, Inc., Japanese Society for Promotion of Science

Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala
iqbal@ucr.edu
951-827-6050
University of California - Riverside

Public Release: 1-Jul-2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
New forensic technique may help track illegal ivory
A new method for dating elephant ivory, described in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could make it easier to enforce the international ban on ivory and save the African elephant from extermination say researchers. The method might also be applied to endangered rhinoceroses and other wildlife.
National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society

Contact: Kim Martineau
kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu
646-717-0134
The Earth Institute at Columbia University

Public Release: 1-Jul-2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Nuke test radiation can fight poachers
University of Utah researchers developed a new weapon to fight poachers who kill elephants, hippos, rhinos and other wildlife. By measuring radioactive carbon-14 deposited in tusks and teeth by open-air nuclear bomb tests, the method reveals the year an animal died, and thus whether the ivory was taken illegally.
National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, University of Utah

Contact: Lee J. Siegel
lee.siegel@utah.edu
801-581-8993
University of Utah

Public Release: 30-Jun-2013
Nature Climate Change
El Nino unusually active in the late 20th century
Reliable prediction of El Nino response to global warming is difficult, as El Nino varies naturally over decades and centuries. Instrumental records are too short to determine whether recent changes are natural or attributable to increased greenhouse gases. An international team of scientists now show that recent El Nino activity is the highest for the past 700 years, possibly a response to global warming. The work is published in the June 30, 2013, online issue of Nature Climate Change.
National Science Foundation, National Basic Research Program of China, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology

Contact: Talia S Ogliore
togliore@hawaii.edu
808-956-4531
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Public Release: 30-Jun-2013
Nature Methods
Diamond catalyst shows promise in breaching age-old barrier
In the world, there are a lot of small molecules people would like to get rid of, or at least convert to something useful, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison chemist Robert J. Hamers.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Robert J. Hamers
rjhamers@wisc.edu
608-262-6371
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Public Release: 28-Jun-2013
Molecular Systems Biology
Mimicking living cells: Synthesizing ribosomes
Synthetic biology researchers at Northwestern University and Harvard Medical School have for the first time synthesized ribosomes from scratch in a test tube. The researchers took an approach different from their predecessors: they mimicked the natural synthesis of a ribosome, allowing natural enzymes of a cell to help facilitate the man-made construction. The technology could lead to the discovery of new antibiotics targeting ribosome assembly and the creation of tailor-made ribosomes to produce new proteins with exotic functions.
National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, US Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research

Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

Public Release: 28-Jun-2013
Nature Communications
Large-scale quantum chip validated
A team of scientists at USC has verified that quantum effects are indeed at play in the first commercial quantum optimization processor.
Lockheed Martin Corporation, US Army Research Office, National Science Foundation; Army Research Office

Contact: Robert Perkins
perkinsr@usc.edu
213-740-9226
University of Southern California

Public Release: 28-Jun-2013
Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy
Detached-eddy simulations and analyses on new vortical flows over a 76/40 double delta wing
Numerical simulations were performed on the massively separated flows of a 76/40° double delta wing using detached-eddy simulation. A new type of cross-flow vortex is proposed. Detailed analyses were made on the inviscid cross-flow instability generating the cross-flow vortex, which differs from that of the swept blunt wing. The analyses showed that the cross-flow vortices influence the pressure distribution, which can cause a 10–20 percent deviation from the averaged distribution.
National Science Foundation of China

Contact: LI Qin
qin-li@vip.tom.com
Science China Press

Public Release: 27-Jun-2013
Nano Letters
Tiny nanocubes help scientists tell left from right
A team of scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Ohio University has developed a new, simpler way to discern molecular handedness, known as chirality, which could improve drug development, optical sensors and more.
US Department of Energy Office of Science, National Science Foundation

Contact: Karen McNulty Walsh
kmcnulty@bnl.gov
631-344-8350
DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Public Release: 27-Jun-2013
Annals of Neurology
A second amyloid may play a role in Alzheimer's disease, UC Davis researchers find
A protein secreted with insulin travels through the bloodstream and accumulates in the brains of individuals with Type 2 diabetes and dementia, in the same manner as the amyloid beta plaques that are associated with Alzheimer's disease, a study by researchers with the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center has found.
National Science Foundation, American Diabetes Association

Contact: Phyllis Brown
phyllis.brown@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
916-734-9023
University of California - Davis Health System

Public Release: 27-Jun-2013
Environmental Science & Technology
Scientists discover thriving colonies of microbes in ocean 'plastisphere'
Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans -- a vast new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have dubbed the "plastisphere."
National Science Foundation

Contact: Media Relations Office
media@whoi.edu
508-289-3340
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Public Release: 27-Jun-2013
54th AIAA Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference
Smart Materials and Structures
'Shields to Maximum, Mr. Scott'
Running hundreds of simulations on TACC supercomputers, UT mechanical engineering professor Eric Fahrenthold assisted NASA in the development of ballistic limit curves that predict whether a shield will be perforated when hit by a projectile of a given size and speed. The framework they developed also allows them to study the impact of projectiles on body armor materials and to predict the response of different fabric weaves upon impact.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Faith Singer-Villalobos
faith@tacc.utexas.edu
512-232-5771
University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center

Public Release: 27-Jun-2013
International Conference on Educational Data Mining
Researchers track facial expressions to improve teaching software
Research from North Carolina State University shows that software which tracks facial expressions can accurately assess the emotions of students engaged in interactive online learning and predict the effectiveness of online tutoring sessions.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Matt Shipman
matt_shipman@ncsu.edu
919-515-6386
North Carolina State University

Public Release: 27-Jun-2013
Intergalactic Interactions
Spiral galaxies like Milky Way bigger than thought, says CU-Boulder study
Let's all fist bump: Spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way appear to be much larger and more massive than previously believed, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA/Hubble Space Telescope, NSF

Contact: Michael Shull
michael.shull@colorado.edu
303-492-7827
University of Colorado at Boulder

Public Release: 27-Jun-2013
Science
Researchers discover global warming may affect microbe survival
Arizona State University researchers have discovered for the first time that temperature determines where key soil microbes can thrive -- microbes that are critical to forming topsoil crusts in arid lands. And of concern, the scientists predict that in as little as 50 years, global warming may push some of these microbes out of their present stronghold in colder US deserts, with unknown consequences to soil fertility and erosion.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Sandra Leander
sandra.leander@asu.edu
480-965-9865
Arizona State University

Public Release: 27-Jun-2013
Nature Communications
Keeping networks under control
The need to ensure the proper functioning of the world's many underlying networks -- such as the Internet, power grids and global air transportation -- is increasing. But controlling networks is very difficult. A Northwestern University research team has developed the first broadly applicable computational approach identifying interventions that can both rescue complex networks from the brink of failure and reprogram them to a desired task. The approach to control could have a transformative impact on the complex networks field.
National Science Foundation, NIH/National Cancer Institute

Contact: Megan Fellman
fellman@northwestern.edu
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

Public Release: 26-Jun-2013
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Chapman University unearths data in animal habitat selection that counters current convention
Scientists have long presumed that animals settle on breeding territories according to the ideal free model. But settlement data often show that, in fact, animals do not select high quality habitat. Indeed, here we report that young common loons have a striking tendency to settle on breeding lakes that resemble their natal lake in terms of both size and pH.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Sheri Ledbetter
sledbett@chapman.edu
714-289-3143
Chapman University

Public Release: 26-Jun-2013
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Comparing genomes of wild and domestic tomato
You say tomato, I say comparative transcriptomics. Researchers in the US, Europe and Japan have produced the first comparison of both the DNA sequences and which genes are active, or being transcribed, between the domestic tomato and its wild cousins.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Andy Fell
ahfell@ucdavis.edu
530-752-4533
University of California - Davis

Public Release: 26-Jun-2013
Nature
Location of upwelling in Earth's mantle discovered to be stable
A study published in Nature today shares the discovery that large-scale upwelling within Earth's mantle mostly occurs in only two places: Beneath Africa and the Central Pacific. These upwelling locations have remained remarkably stable over geologic time, despite dramatic reconfigurations of tectonic plate motions and continental locations on the Earth's surface. The study describes a plate tectonic "quadrupole," which defines two points of "net convergence" and two points of "net divergence" of tectonic plate motions.
National Science Foundation, Norwegian Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo, Norway

Contact: Talia S Ogliore
togliore@hawaii.edu
808-956-4531
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Public Release: 26-Jun-2013
Nature
How visual attention affects the brain
New work at UC Davis shows for the first time how visual attention affects activity in specific brain cells. The paper, published June 26 in the journal Nature, shows that attention increases the efficiency of signaling into the brain's cerebral cortex and boosts the ratio of signal over noise.
National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health

Contact: Andy Fell
ahfell@ucdavis.edu
530-752-4533
University of California - Davis

Public Release: 26-Jun-2013
PLOS ONE
Social animals have more social smarts
Lemurs from species that hang out in big tribes are more likely to steal food behind your back instead of in front of your face. This behavior suggests that primates who live in larger social groups tend to have more "social intelligence," a new study shows.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Karl Leif Bates
karl.bates@duke.edu
919-681-8054
Duke University

Showing releases 126-150 out of 738.

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