EurekAlert! National Science Foundation - NSF Funded Research News

NSF Funded Research News

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-May-2026 05:16 ET (1-May-2026 09:16 GMT/UTC)

Why do female caribou have antlers?

University of Cincinnati
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati discovered that female caribou feed extensively on shed antlers they find while grazing to supplement their diet with important minerals they need to raise calves. This could explain why female caribou, unique among deer, have antlers.

Journal: Ecology and Evolution
Funder: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Geographic Society, Animal Welfare Institute, UC Office of Research

As worms and jellyfish wriggle, new AI tools track their neurons

Picower Institute at MIT
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Three new neural network-based tools enable fast, accurate alignment and annotation of images even in very wiggly subjects. The tools might offer a way to automate cell tracking in other imaging datasets, too.

Journal: eLife
Funder: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Freedom Together Foundation

Human liver tissue cell architecture reconstructed in 3D at a cellular level

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

Never-before-seen 3D reconstructions of human liver tissue have been created at a cellular level. The details capture the spatial microstructure of multiple lobes of this multitasking organ. The reconstructions show how cirrhosis rearranges this intricate architecture and thereby alter the organ's biological activities. In addition, 3D liver maps with a high degree of cellular detail are critical to someday realizing the dream of bioprinting new organs for transplantation.

Funder: NIH Environmental Pathology and Toxicology Training Grant, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health

Decision-making nudges improve racial equity in academic promotion

University of California - Merced
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A paper published by Nature Communications says evaluating multiple candidates simultaneously instead of separately increases Black and Hispanic faculty members’ promotion chances by 16.2% and effectively eliminates racial disparities in voting at the department level.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Physicists open door to future, hyper-efficient ‘orbitronic’ devices

University of Utah
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Orbitronics devices use an electron’s orbital angular momentum to store and process more information, much more efficiently. Typically, generating orbital currents requires magnetic metals that are heavy and expensive. For the first time ever, researchers prove that atomic vibrations can transfer orbital angular momentum directly to electrons in a non-magnetic material, quartz. The method will work on other chiral materials, such as tellurium, selenium and hybrid organic/inorganic perovskites, and is the most streamlined system yet for orbitronics research.

Journal: Nature Physics
Funder: U.S. Department of Energy, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Israel Science Foundation

AI energy use: New tools show which model consumes the most power, and why

University of Michigan
Reports and Proceedings

AI users and developers can now measure the amount of electricity various AI models consume to complete tasks with open-source software and an online leaderboard developed at the University of Michigan.

Diamond owl swoops in with new method to keep electronics cool

Rice University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A Rice research lab’s signature keepsake helped perfect a method for growing patterned diamond surfaces that could help decrease operating temperatures in electronics by 23 degrees Celsius.

Journal: Applied Physics Letters
Funder: Army Research Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Research Foundation of Korea

Plant hormone therapy could improve global food security

Colorado State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

When a plant's immune system is triggered, its growth is stunted. Colorado State University researchers have discovered how to turn on a hormone that allows plants to keep growing as they defend against disease and pests – a breakthrough that could increase crop production.

Journal: Current Biology

Stretchy plastics conduct electricity via tiny, whisker-like fibers

Penn State
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using advanced imaging technology to examine a stretchy material commonly used in soft robotics and touchscreens known as PEDOT:PSS, a team led by Enrique Gomez found how adding different salt additives and water enabled the material to grow hair-like fibers capable of effectively conducting electricity. These findings could help facilitate longer-lasting pacemakers or glucose monitors in the future, the team said.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: Office of Naval Research

New NSF award supports innovative role-playing game approach to strengthening research security in academia

University of Illinois School of Information Sciences
Grant and Award Announcement

A new project in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois aims to strengthen research security by using structured role-playing games (RPG) to model the threats facing academic research environments. The NSF-funded project, titled "REDTEAM: Research Environment Defense Through Expert Attack Modeling," addresses a growing challenge: balancing the open, collaborative nature of academic research with increasing national security risks and sophisticated adversarial threats. Traditional cybersecurity and compliance frameworks often overlook the human factors that shape real-world decision-making in research environments, where collaboration pressures, funding incentives, and international partnerships can introduce unexpected risks. This project aims to help universities better understand these dynamics by examining the human and behavioral dimensions of research security.

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