NSF Funded Research News
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-Jan-2026 19:11 ET (3-Jan-2026 00:11 GMT/UTC)
A few words with a big impact: How one sentence can make classrooms more inclusive
Arizona State UniversityPeer-Reviewed Publication
- Journal
- Cell Biology Education
- Funder
- U.S. National Science Foundation
Defunct Pennsylvania oil and gas wells may leak methane, metals into water
Penn StatePeer-Reviewed Publication
- Journal
- Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta
- Funder
- U.S. National Science Foundation
Engineered randomness enhances connection speed and precision in next-generation wireless systems
Rice UniversityPeer-Reviewed Publication
- Journal
- Communications Engineering
- Funder
- U.S. National Science Foundation, Army Research Office, U.S. Department of Energy
Climate intervention techniques could reduce the nutritional value of crops
Rutgers UniversityPeer-Reviewed Publication
A new study in Environmental Research Letters reports that cooling the planet by injecting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, a proposed climate intervention technique, could reduce the nutritional value of the world’s crops.
- Journal
- Environmental Research Letters
- Funder
- U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation
Keeping engineered cells on script with nature’s playbook
Arizona State UniversityPeer-Reviewed Publication
- Journal
- Cell
- Funder
- NIH/National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Institutes of Health, U.S. National Science Foundation
Alternate proteins from the same gene contribute differently to health and rare disease
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical ResearchPeer-Reviewed Publication
- Journal
- Molecular Cell
- Funder
- Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, U.S. National Science Foundation
Death Valley plant reveals blueprint for building heat-resilient crops
Michigan State UniversityPeer-Reviewed Publication
In California’s Death Valley, where summer temperatures regularly soar above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, life seems almost impossible. Yet among the cracked earth and blinding sunlight, one native plant not only survives — it thrives. That plant, Tidestromia oblongifolia, has helped Michigan State University scientists uncover how life can flourish in extreme heat, revealing a potential blueprint for engineering crops that can adapt to our changing climate. In a new paper published in Current Biology, Research Foundation Professor Seung Yon “Sue” Rhee and Research Specialist Karine Prado report that T. oblongifolia grows faster in Death Valley’s summer conditions by rapidly adjusting its photosynthetic system to withstand the heat.
- Journal
- Current Biology
- Funder
- Carnegie Venture Grant, U.S. National Science Foundation, DOE/US Department of Energy, Michigan State University Foundation, State of Michigan 21st Century Jobs Fund
Woodpeckers grunt like tennis stars when drilling
The Company of BiologistsPeer-Reviewed Publication
- Journal
- Journal of Experimental Biology
- Funder
- U.S. National Science Foundation
Research Spotlight: State-of-the-art 7 Tesla MRI reveals how the human brain anticipates and regulates the body’s needs
Mass General BrighamPeer-Reviewed Publication
Jiahe Zhang, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Brigham, is the lead author of the paper published in Nature Neuroscience, “Cortical and subcortical mapping of the human allostatic-interoceptive system using 7 Tesla fMRI.”
Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, and Marta Bianciardi, PhD, of the Department of Radiology at Mass General Brigham are co-senior authors. Barrett is also affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Brigham.
- Journal
- Nature Neuroscience
- Funder
- NIH/National Institutes of Health, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Unlikely Collaborators Foundation