EurekAlert! National Science Foundation - NSF Funded Research News

NSF Funded Research News

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-Aug-2025 12:11 ET (1-Aug-2025 16:11 GMT/UTC)

First ever one-day island-wide soil microbiome study completed on Crete

University of Maryland School of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists conducted the first-ever study of an island’s soil microbiome—on Crete—all in one day—a major challenge since the Greek island is about 160-miles long and rises more than 8,000 feet above sea level.

Journal: Environmental Microbiome
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation, Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation, NIH/National Library of Medicine

Creek crawlers and lab scholars

Kennesaw State University

In 2024, associate professor Todd Pierson received a three-year, $380,238 grant from the National Science Foundation through a program called Building Research Capacity in Biology (BRC-BIO). The program broadens research participation by undergraduates at Carnegie-designated R2 institutions like KSU. Pierson’s current research derives from this grant, and he said it’s a year-round commitment, from the students in the field recently to a team research class he’ll teach this fall that will involve the classroom, the lab, and the field.

Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

Theory-guided strategy expands the scope of measurable quantum interactions

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new theory-guided framework could help scientists probe the properties of new semiconductors for next-generation microelectronic devices, or discover materials that boost the performance of quantum computers.

Journal: Materials Today Physics
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation

WPI receives National Science Foundation grant to address water treatment challenge

Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Grant and Award Announcement

Xiaowei Teng, James H. Manning Professor of Chemical Engineering, has been awarded a $395,886 grant from the National Science Foundation to study an electrochemical system that could be used to address one of the major challenges in water treatment: the buildup of insoluble mineral deposits.

Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

Simulating the unthinkable: Models show nuclear winter food production plunge

Penn State
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A nuclear winter is a theoretical concept, but if the climate scenario expected to follow a large-scale nuclear war, in which smoke and soot from firestorms block sunlight, came to fruition, global temperatures would sharply drop, extinguishing most agriculture. A nuclear winter could last for more than a decade, potentially leading to widespread famine for those who survive the devastation of the bomb blasts. Now, a team led by researchers at Penn State have modeled precisely how various nuclear winter scenarios could impact global production of corn — the most widely planted grain crop in the world. They also recommended preparing “agricultural resilience kits” with seeds for faster-growing varieties better adapted to colder temperatures that could potentially help offset the impact of nuclear winter, as well as natural disasters like volcanic eruptions.

Journal: Environmental Research Letters
Funder: Open Philanthropy Project, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. National Science Foundation, Future of Life Institute

Measuring how – and where – Antarctic ice is cracking with new data tool

Penn State
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A total collapse of the roughly 80-mile-wide Thwaites Glacier, the widest in the world, would trigger changes that could lead to 11 feet of sea-level rise, according to scientists who study Antarctica. To better predict fractures that could lead to such a collapse — and to better understand the processes driving changes in Antarctic ice shelves — a team led by researchers at Penn State developed a new method to evaluate cracks that destabilize ice shelves and accelerate those losses.

Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation, NASA Earth Science Technology Office, Heising-Simons Foundation

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia researchers analyze best methods to minimize risk of pediatric vehicular heatstroke

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Different technologies have been developed to help parents and caregivers address pediatric vehicular heatstroke (PVH), or scenarios where a child dies from overheating in an unattended motor vehicle. In a new study, researchers identified exemplar PVH scenarios that have occurred during recent years and studied the different technologies designed to prevent them from occurring. The study found that while certain technologies may be effective for different scenarios, no single technology is effective in preventing all the scenarios that lead to pediatric vehicular heatstroke, suggesting a combination of interventions is required to achieve the best prevention strategy.

Journal: American Journal of Public Health
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

A fossil’s 150-year journey from misidentification to evolutionary insight

University of Michigan
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A fossil specimen misidentified since its discovery during the Civil War and correctly identified by a University of Michigan researcher reveals an evolutionary leap: It marks the first time this line of sea creatures is known to have left the ocean.

Journal: Communications Biology
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

Complex genetic variation revealed in diverse human genomes

University of Washington School of Medicine/UW Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Genome assemblies from 65 individuals, representing a variety of the world’s populations, are advancing the scientific exploration of complex genetic structural variation. Structural variations are genetic code alterations that span more than 50 base pairs, the rungs on the DNA ladder. These changes were hard to detect until the recent advent of newer sequencing technologies and analytical algorithms, as well as larger collections of more complete, diverse human genomes. After identifying such variation between and within populations, it may be easier to determine if the differences result in disease or other traits, like helping our ancestors adapt to their environments.

Journal: Nature
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH/National Cancer Institute, U.S. National Science Foundation, Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, German Research Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute, Jurgen Manchot Foundation, Dusseldorf School of Oncology

Spying on stingrays: first-ever tags reveal elusive behaviors and habitats

Florida Atlantic University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Biologging is transforming wildlife research, yet stingrays have been overlooked due to their unusual body shapes. For the first time, researchers successfully developed and field-tested a biologging tag for the whitespotted eagle ray. The multi-sensor device stayed attached for up to a record 60 hours, revealing how they feed, move and interact with other species. Virtually impossible to capture before, these insights now shed light into this threatened, understudied species that plays a vital role in marine ecosystems.

Journal: Animal Biotelemetry
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

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