NSF News http://www.nsf.gov/news/ News posted on the NSF website, http://www.nsf.gov. en Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:01:24 EDT Health Standards Exceeded by Ozone Pollution in Wildfires http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112403&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of a wildfire.

Wildfires can boost ozone pollution to levels that violate U.S. health standards, a new study concludes.

The research, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., focused on California wildfires in 2007, finding that they repeatedly caused ground-level ozone to spike to unhealthy levels across a broad area, including much of rural California as well as neighboring Nevada.

Results of the study are published today in the journal ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112403&govDel=USNSF_51 Fitness in a Changing World http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112436&govDel=USNSF_51

Illustration showing that different genes in different stickleback fish result in different fitness.

The stickleback fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus, is one of the most thoroughly studied organisms in the wild, and has been a particularly useful model for understanding variation in physiology, behavior, life history and morphology caused by different ecological situations in the wild.

On biological levels from molecular and genetic to developmental and morphological, and finally ending with the population level, it has proven far more complex than even imagined.

Studies of ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112436&govDel=USNSF_51 Future Risk of Hurricanes: The Role of Climate Change http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112394&govDel=USNSF_51

Zooming in on future climate, scientists are "nesting" regional and global models.

Researchers are homing in on the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea to assess the likely changes, between now and the middle of the century, in the frequency, intensity, and tracks of these powerful storms. Initial results are expected early next year.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., working with federal agencies as well as the insurance and energy industries, has launched an intensive study to examine how global warming will ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112394&govDel=USNSF_51 NSF Launches Third Generation of Engineering Research Centers with Awards Totaling $92.5 Million http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112313&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of Alex Huang who works on ways of integrating renewable energy sources into the power grid.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announces the establishment of five new NSF Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) for the development of interdisciplinary research and education programs in partnership with industry. The NSF ERCs share the goal of advancing knowledge, technology, and innovations that address significant societal problems and provide the workforce and technical foundation for economic competitiveness. NSF will invest approximately $92.5 million in the centers over the ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112313&govDel=USNSF_51 NSF Awards 10 Grants for Studies of Coupled Natural and Human Systems http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112346&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of a fragile barrier beach in Massachusetts, which is the site of CNH research.

To better understand the interactions between humans and their environment, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Forest Service have awarded 10 grants to scientists, engineers and educators across the country to study coupled natural and human systems.

Research conducted through NSF's Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program, in its second year as a multi-directorate NSF program, will provide a better understanding of natural processes and cycles, human ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112346&govDel=USNSF_51 Gas From the Past Gives Scientists New Insights into Climate and the Oceans http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112395&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of bubbles containing ancient gases in a piece of an Antarctic ice core sample.

In recent years, public discussion of climate change has included concerns that increased levels of carbon dioxide will contribute to global warming, which in turn may change the circulation in the earth's oceans, with potentially disastrous consequences.

In a paper published today in the journal Science, researchers presented new data from their analysis of ice core samples and ocean deposits dating as far back as 90,000 years ago and suggest that warming, carbon dioxide ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112395&govDel=USNSF_51 Beetles Get by With a Little Help From Their Friends http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112319&govDel=USNSF_51

A diagram shows the complex interactions of beetles, mites, two fungi and a bacterium.

Humans living in communities often rely on friends to help get what they need and, according to researchers in the lab of Cameron Currie at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, many microbes, plants and animals benefit from 'friendly' associations too.

The Currie team's study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and published in the Oct. 3, 2008, issue of the journal Science, describes the complex relationship between a beetle, two types of tree fungus ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112319&govDel=USNSF_51 New Research to Probe Human Mind and Future Infrastructure Systems http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112330&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of the anatomically correct testbed hand.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) has announced 12 grants for fiscal year 2008, awarding a total of $23,779,056 over four years to 54 investigators representing 20 institutions.

Interdisciplinary teams will pursue transformative, fundamental research in two areas of great promise: understanding the brain and how its abilities may be used through cognitive optimization and prediction; and developing ways to make complex, ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112330&govDel=USNSF_51 Paleozoic 'Sediment Curve' Provides New Tool for Tracking Sea-floor Sediment Movements http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112351&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of ancient sediments in Brittany, France.

As the world looks for more energy, the oil industry will need more refined tools for discoveries in places where searches have never before taken place, geologists say.

One such tool is a new sediment curve (which shows where sediment-on-the-move is deposited), derived from sediments of the Paleozoic Era 542 to 251 million years ago, scientists report in this week's issue of the journal Science. The sediment curve covers the entire Paleozoic Era.

"The new Paleozoic ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112351&govDel=USNSF_51 National Science Foundation Awards Grant to Build "CubeSats" http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112341&govDel=USNSF_51

Illustration of CubeSats used in space weather and atmospheric research orbiting the Earth.

A new series of CubeSats, small satellites in the shapes of cubes, will soon take to the skies. Using the CubeSats, scientists will conduct space weather research impossible with other instruments.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a grant to SRI International, an independent non-profit research and development organization based in Menlo Park, Calif., to carry out the first space weather CubeSat mission.

CubeSats are tiny satellites with dimensions of ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112341&govDel=USNSF_51 NSF Awards 14 Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112340&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of a flexible amorphous silicon solar cell.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announces 14 Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECs) awarded as a result of the 2008 MRSEC competition (solicitation NSF 07-563).

MRSECs support outstanding multi- and inter-disciplinary materials research and education addressing fundamental problems in science and engineering. These centers investigate complex problems that benefit from the scope and level of interactions provided by a center. They foster active collaboration ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112340&govDel=USNSF_51 Eight National Medals of Science Awardees Honored at Gala, Then the White House http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112155&govDel=USNSF_51

President Bush at the podium and recipients of National Medals at the White House ceremony

President George W. Bush awarded the National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology, honoring the nation's leading researchers, inventors and innovators, at a ceremony in the East Room at the White House at 10 a.m. on Monday, September 29, 2008.

The National Science and Technology Medals Foundation, together with the Director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, Secretary of Commerce and Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) held a gala ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112155&govDel=USNSF_51 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis/index.jsp?govDel=USNSF_51

Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge Visuals can communicate research results and scientific phenomena in ways that words cannot. That's why NSF cosponsors this international contest to recognize outstanding achievements in this area.
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis/index.jsp?govDel=USNSF_51 Oldest Known Rock on Earth Discovered http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112299&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of bedrock along the coast of Hudson Bay, Canada, which has the oldest rock on Earth.

Canadian bedrock more than 4 billion years old may be the oldest known section of the Earth's early crust.

Scientists at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and McGill University in Montreal used geochemical methods to obtain an age of 4.28 billion years for samples of the rock, making it 250 million years more ancient than any previously discovered rocks.

The findings, which offer scientists clues to earliest stages of our planet's evolution, are published in this week's ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112299&govDel=USNSF_51 2008 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge Winners Announced http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112304&govDel=USNSF_51

Photo of "Glass Forest", which won first place in photography.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) along with the journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), today announced the winners of their sixth annual International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge.

The winning entries included breathtaking photographs and graphics that reveal intricate details of our world--the three-dimensional path made by a rapidly spinning string cutting through space and the unique anatomy of ...
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This is an NSF News item.]]> http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112304&govDel=USNSF_51