Science Nation

The seemingly peaceful atmosphere in an organic garden on the University of Florida campus belies the battles happening among many of its tiniest inhabitants -- the insects. For entomologist Christine Miller, there are endless opportunities here to study how insects compete and even fight for a mate. With support from NSF, Miller and her team are researching mate selection and animal weapons as a key to better understanding animal behavior, diversity and evolution. Understanding evolution is essential for figuring out solutions to modern problems such as antibiotic resistance, a major problem in medicine, and for understanding how life on the planet became so diverse and how it may change in the future.

Engineers are joining forces with designers, scientists and doctors at Drexel University to produce new biomedical textiles, and the resulting smart clothes are not only fashionably functional, but could also be life savers. With support from NSF, electrical and computer engineer Kapil Dandekar, industrial and fashion designer Genevieve Dion, and OB-GYN Owen Montgomery are incorporating RFID technology into their "belly bands" for women with high-risk pregnancies. The band continuously tracks data and alerts the doctor's office via the Internet should the woman start contractions. A smaller version is being created for babies at risk for sleep apnea. Developed at the intersection of engineering, medicine and design, these examples of new human-centered service technology show vast potential to improve healthcare. NSF has invested approximately $34 million in such systems in the last three years, supporting innovative new partnership projects to create service systems that are smart and human-centric.

A new replacement for petroleum is coming from an unlikely source -- pig manure! It turns out that pig waste is particularly rich in oils that are very similar to petroleum. And while these oils are too low grade to produce gasoline, they may still work where the rubber meets the road. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), civil engineer Ellie Fini and a team at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University have designed a sticky binder made from pig manure that can be used to make asphalt. At a cost of 56 cents per gallon to process, this new bioadhesive is a much less expensive binder than petroleum, and, so far, it’s been standing up to rigorous testing. In fact, Fini and her partners have filed patents on the technology and set up a company called Bio-Adhesive Alliance, with the vision of providing a win-win solution for farmers and the construction industry. Anything in the manure that stinks is filtered out during the processing, and the farmers can use the leftovers for fertilizer. So, nothing about the idea stinks!

This laboratory is a control freak's dream come true! Welcome to the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Phytotron, a singular facility for growing plants under various combinations of strictly controlled environmental conditions. Scientists are able to conduct all types of plant research here, from studies of disease-resistant crops to drought-proof grasses to new biofuels. The NCSU Phytotron was built in the 1960s with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and was used a decade later to help prevent a collapse in the U.S. corn crop from fungal disease. Now, after more than a generation of such research breakthroughs, the Phytotron has received additional support from NSF for a 21st century makeover. The renovations include a new Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) lab with a greenhouse that houses high security research, such as experiments with viral and bacterial pathogens.

It's widely believed that the younger you are, the easier it will be for you to learn a new language, and new research is finding that holds true for sign language as well. University of California, San Diego (UCSD), psychologist Rain Bosworth says that by five months old, babies are universal language "sponges," attracted to language in their environment, and this includes sign language. With support from NSF, Bosworth and her colleagues at the Infant Vision Lab (IVL) have been putting that theory to the test, investigating how deafness affects perception and cognition in babies, and the impact of early exposure to sign language.

When it comes to aircraft engines, rocket motors and nuclear power plants, the "heat" is constantly on to make the parts inside stronger, more reliable and more durable. In fact, when an airplane takes off, the materials in the hottest part of the engine reach about 90 percent of their melting temperature. So, there's always a desire to find a material that can operate at a higher temperature. With support from NSF, materials scientist Tresa Pollock and a team at the University of California, Santa Barbara, are partnering with General Electric and others to develop new multilayered materials designed for high performance in extreme environments. Pollock's team is pioneering the use of new modeling tools to speed up the development process and using advanced computer algorithms and big data analysis to hone their designs before testing them.

Kit Parker is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and has served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan. Even when he's not in uniform, this Harvard University bioengineer makes it his mission to protect the men and women of the U.S. armed forces -- from improving wound dressings to designing lighter weight bullet proof vests. Parker and his team are developing next generation nanofibers at the Harvard Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC). The center is supported by NSF. The overarching goal of the Harvard MRSEC is to perform transformative research that significantly advances the state of knowledge in several areas of soft matter science, and to educate the next generation of leaders in materials science and engineering.

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is one of the best places on Earth to study processes within basaltic volcanoes. Its high eruption frequency, easy access to lavas, and distinct geologic setting far from plate boundaries or continents allow researchers to address fundamental problems related to active volcanoes. Kilauea is also one of the longest currently erupting volcanoes -- its current active period began in 1983! Another constant at Kilauea, besides the flowing lava, has been University of Hawaii geologist Mike Garcia. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Garcia has been leading studies of Kilauea for a generation, adding to the extensive knowledge base on this volcano. Two of the primary goals are to determine what has triggered Kilauea's effusive, explosive cycles over the last 2200 years and when long eruptions, such as the current one, will stop.

The natural world has many tricks to teach us about efficiency and design. Take the carnivorous pitcher plant: its super slippery surface acts like a slide for unsuspecting ants that can't stop themselves from sliding right into the plant and becoming dinner. A mechanical engineer at Penn State University is using the pitcher plant as inspiration for a range of new materials that could one day solve some of society's stickiest problems. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Tak-Sing Wong and his team are developing materials known as slippery-liquid infused porous surfaces, or SLIPS. They can be made of liquid Teflon (TM) and chemically customized for different applications, such as bio-compatible for medical devices or highly durable for the hull of a ship. Wong says the possibilities are endless, from keeping walls clear of graffiti to keeping aircraft free of ice.

Here in the functional MRI room at the University of California, Berkeley, it's story time. All in all, getting a brain scan for this project isn't a bad gig -- just kick back, listen to some stories and watch some videos. But, it's far from a midday break for the scientists conducting this research project. With support from NSF, neuroscientist Jack Gallant and his team are discovering how language-related information is represented and processed in the human brain. Using functional MRI, they measure changes in blood flow throughout the brain about once every second while people listen to natural narrative stories. The researchers then use Big Data methods to construct mathematical models of language processing and create detailed maps that show how different aspects of language are represented in different locations in the brain.