EurekAlert! National Science Foundation - NSF Funded Research News

NSF Funded Research News

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 20-Oct-2026 11:16 ET (20-Oct-2026 15:16 GMT/UTC)

10-Sep-2026

NC State receives $20 million NSF grant to develop AI-enabled learning technologies

North Carolina State University
Grant and Award Announcement

The National Science Foundation awarded North Carolina State University a five-year, $20 million grant to support research on AI tools that can generate interactive narratives effective at engaging K-12 students and improving learning.

10-Sep-2026

WVU physicist advances quantum materials research with NSF CAREER award

West Virginia University
Grant and Award Announcement

With support from a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award, West Virginia University physicist Subhasish Mandal is working to supply future quantum technologies with materials that will be required to build quantum computers and other advanced technologies.

10-Sep-2026

AI-assisted imaging tool for breast cancer could tailor screening for women according to individual risk

NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An artificial intelligence model that analyzes women’s past and recent annual 3D mammograms is more effective at predicting five-year risk of developing breast cancer than a tool that uses only the most recent, single 3D mammogram, as well as an AI model that analyzes 2D mammograms, a new study shows.

Journal: American Journal of Roentgenology

9-Sep-2026

New gene-editing tool speeds regeneration of hard-to-breed perennial crops

Texas A&M AgriLife Communications
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Editing a plant’s genes is only half the battle. Before a new, improved trait can ever reach a farmer’s field, scientists must be able to grow a whole plant from just a few edited cells — a process that can be slow, unreliable and, for some plant species, impossible.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Energy

9-Sep-2026

An electrochemical approach turns ammonia into pure hydrogen.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

MIT researchers developed a new way to extract pure hydrogen gas from ammonia. Their strategy reduces the amount of energy needed and could make it cheaper and easier to run hydrogen fuel cells.

Journal: Nature

9-Sep-2026

New method estimates sea surface temps quickly and accurately

North Carolina State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have developed a method for extrapolating sea surface temperatures from sparse data that is significantly more accurate than other commonly used computational methods and slightly more accurate than the best-performing AI model, while taking a fraction of the time to train.

Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research Machine Learning and Computation

9-Sep-2026

Researcher to study how birds could inspire quieter, more agile drones

University of Central Florida College of Engineering and Computer Science
Grant and Award Announcement

Researcher Samik Bhattacharya is studying how birds sweep their wings and use their tails during critical moments of takeoff and landing to improve the agility of drones.

9-Sep-2026

GPS collars reveal secrets of the power struggle between lions and hyenas in the wild

Frontiers
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Lions and hyenas compete for food and will kill each other if they get the chance, but studying their power struggle is difficult — they roam over wide landscapes where it’s hard for scientists to follow them, and their most active hours are in darkness or twilight. Now scientists have taken advantage of GPS collars to plot the movements of different hyenas and lions, shedding new light on their competition. It’s well known that hyenas scavenge from lion kills, which gave scientists cause to think that hyenas followed lions through the bush. But this new evidence shows that the direction of pursuit runs the other way: male lions in particular approach hyenas when they encounter them, and hyenas retreat.

Journal: Frontiers in Ethology
Funder: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal

8-Sep-2026

USC joins $20M NSF effort to transform power grids and supply chains

University of Southern California
Grant and Award Announcement

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $20 million to renew the Artificial Intelligence Institute for Advances in Optimization (AI4OPT) through 2031. Led by Georgia Tech in partnership with USC and the University of California, Berkeley, the institute combines expertise in AI and optimization.

7-Sep-2026

Deconstructing LSD for therapeutic discoveries

University of California - Davis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

UC Davis researchers have stripped down LSD to the base features responsible for its hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Pershing Square Foundation