Robot Vehicle Surveys Deep Sea Off Pacific Northwest

The first scientific mission with Sentry, a newly developed robot capable of diving as deep as 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) into the ocean, has been successfully completed by scientists and engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of Washington (UW).The vehicle surveyed and helped pinpoint several proposed deep-water sites for seafloor instruments that will be deployed in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s planned Ocean Observatories ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112037&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Scientists to Assess Beijing Olympics Air Pollution Control Efforts

As the Summer Olympics in Beijing kicks off this week, the event is giving scientists a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe how the atmosphere responds when a heavily populated region substantially curbs everyday industrial emissions.The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded "Cheju ABC Plume-Monsoon Experiment" (CAPMEX) will include a series of flights by specially equipped unmanned aircraft known as autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (AUAVs). The aerial ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112022&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Universally Speaking, Earthlings Share a Nice Neighborhood

We don't have spacecraft to take us outside our solar system--not yet, at least. Still, astronomers thought they had a pretty good understanding of how our solar system formed and in turn, how others formed. In the last dozen years, nearly 300 exoplanets have been discovered. Are the solar systems in which they reside indeed like our own? Without knowledge or observations to the contrary, conventional knowledge said yes. Three Northwestern University researchers questioned that assumption ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112024&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

The Shape of Things to Come

Instead of using a flat microchip as the light sensor for their new camera, a team of engineers has developed a sensor that is a flexible mesh of wire-connected pixels. The mesh is made from many of the same materials as a standard digital-camera sensor, but has the unique ability to conform to convoluted, irregular surfaces.The technology is already showing promise for photography, as the researchers conformed the array to a hemispherical shape and incorporated the device into ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112012&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

NSF Hosts the Second U.S.-China Computer Science Leadership Summit

Approximately 15 professors, deans and other professionals in the computing sciences from the People's Republic of China came to Arlington, Va. last month for a summit with their U.S. counterparts. The one-day meeting gave participants the chance to discuss challenges and opportunities facing computing scholars from both sides of the Pacific, and it reflected the growing level of cooperation between the academic research communities in both countries.The event was organized by the ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112023&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Cora Marrett Honored by American Sociological Association

Cora Marrett, NSF's assistant director for the Education and Human Resources directorate, is this year's winner of the American Sociological Association's (ASA) Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award. Created in 1971, the award honors the intellectual traditions and contributions of Oliver Cox, Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier. The award is given annually to either a sociologist for a lifetime of research, teaching and service to the community or to an academic institution for its work in ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112019&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Antarctic Fossils Paint a Picture of a Much Warmer Continent

National Science Foundation-funded scientists working in an ice-free region of Antarctica have discovered the last traces of tundra--in the form of fossilized plants and insects--on the interior of the southernmost continent before temperatures began a relentless drop millions of years ago.An abrupt and dramatic climate cooling of 8 degrees Celsius, over a relatively brief period of geological time roughly 14 million years ago, forced the extinction of tundra plants and insects and ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111913&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

NSF Issues Solicitation for Basic, Human Sciences Research on Social and Behavioral Dimensions of National Security, Conflict and Cooperation

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued a solicitation that represents a partnership between NSF and the Department of Defense (DoD) to support basic research projects that can address areas of strategic importance to national security as one part of DoD's Minerva Initiative launched in the spring by the Secretary of Defense.The solicitation follows a Memorandum of Understanding signed by NSF and DoD in June that facilitates support of such research collaborations.The ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112015&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Water Refineries?

Using a surprisingly simple, inexpensive technique, chemists have found a way to pull pure oxygen from water using relatively small amounts of electricity, common chemicals and a room-temperature glass of water.Because oxygen and hydrogen are energy-rich fuels, many researchers have proposed using solar electricity to split water into those elements--a stored energy source for when the sun goes down. One of the chief obstacles to that green-energy scenario has been the difficulty of ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111975&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Cold and Ice, and Heat, Episodically Gripped Tropical Regions 300 Million Years Ago

Geoscientists have long presumed that, like today, the tropics remained warm throughout Earth's last major glaciation 300 million years ago.New evidence, however, indicates that cold temperatures in fact episodically gripped these equatorial latitudes at that time. Geologist Gerilyn Soreghan of Oklahoma University found evidence for this conclusion in the preservation of an ancient glacial landscape in the Rocky Mountains of western Colorado. Three hundred million years ago, ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112000&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

NSF Announces Partnership with Industry, Academia to Further Explore Data-Intensive Computing

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate announces a grant award to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to help establish an experimental computing cluster at the UIUC campus. The NSF Cluster Exploratory (CluE) initiative was first announced in April 2008 to provide NSF-funded researchers access to software and services running on a Google-IBM cluster. The UIUC award together with funding and equipment ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111984&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

The Lightness of Electrons in a Twisting Metal Crystal

A team of researchers, at Princeton University's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center and from the Universities of Michigan and Florida, has observed electrons moving through a crystal of bismuth metal behaving like light.This discovery, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and detailed in today's edition of the journal Science, could lead to new kinds of electronic devices.Electrons, or the particles of electricity, fly through space like ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111971&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Parasites Outweigh Predators in Pacific Coast Estuaries

In a study of parasites living in three estuaries on the Pacific coast of California and Baja California, researchers have determined that biomass of these parasites exceeds that of top predators, in some cases by more than 20 times.Their findings, which could have significant ecological and biomedical implications, appear in this week's issue of the journal Nature.Biomass is the amount of living matter that exists in a given habitat. It is expressed either as the ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111924&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Transcending Boundaries

From understanding climate change to predicting infectious disease outbreaks to engineering solutions to address disability, scientific research is increasingly crossing the boundaries between disciplines.Fostering interdisciplinary research, education and training as a means of developing the next generation of scientists is a key goal of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeship (IGERT) program. Through IGERT, graduate students work ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111947&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Species Have Come and Gone at Different Rates than Previously Believed

Diversity among the ancestors of such marine creatures as clams, sand dollars and lobsters showed only a modest rise beginning 144 million years ago with no clear trend afterwards, according to an international team of researchers. This contradicts previous work showing dramatic increases beginning 248 million years ago and may shed light on future diversity."Some of the time periods in the past are analogies for what is happening today from global warming," says Jocelyn ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111785&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

In Unique Stellar Laboratory, Einstein's Theory Passes Strict, New Test

Taking advantage of a unique cosmic configuration, astronomers have measured an effect predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in the extremely strong gravity of a pair of superdense neutron stars. Essentially, the famed physicist's 93-year-old theory passed yet another test.Scientists at McGill University used the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to do a four-year study of a double-star system unlike any other known in the ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111831&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Radicals Shake Up Molecules in a Tug o' War

Until now, it was commonly thought that colliding molecules get the shakes as the result of energy transfer solely from the smashing of the molecules, but some new research adds a second means by which colliding molecules become vibrationally excited--it is being called the "Tug o' War Mechanism."The new experiment, transforming the textbook story, was performed in the lab of Richard Zare, chair of the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University. This work on energy ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111861&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

NSF Signs Memorandum of Understanding with Department of Defense for National Security Research

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Defense (DoD) that would allow researchers to apply for grants to study subjects that may be of interest to U.S. national security.Officials anticipate the MOU will fund work leading to new knowledge about topics such as religious fundamentalism, terrorism and cultural change. The results may have uses for U.S. armed forces and other DoD agencies."To secure the ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111829&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

Crossed (Evolutionary) Signals?

What do humans and single-celled choanoflagellates have in common? More than you'd think. New research into the choanoflagellate genome shows these ancient organisms have similar levels of proteins that cells in more complex organisms, including humans, use to communicate with each other.According to a paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, these findings help confirm choanoflagellates' role as an evolutionary link between ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111825&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.

The Day the World Changed

"The NSFNET Backbone has reached a state where we would like to more officially let operational traffic on."Twenty years ago, a network engineer named Hans-Werner Braun started an e-mail message to the users of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) fledgling NSFNET project with that sentence to announce that the network's main lines, or backbone, had been upgraded. Although they received little notice at the time, those simple words announced the birth of the modern ... More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111824&govDel=USNSF_51 This is an NSF News item.