The Discovery Files

Bees come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes. This diversity plays a critical role in the health of flowers and farms. Scientists call it the "insurance effect," a great variety of bees working together to pollinate specific plants. Learn more on NSF's "The Discovery Files."

Events like floods, superstorms, wildfires, heat waves, fuel supply shortages and cyberattacks can cause a power outage in one section of the country, creating a "butterfly effect" that impacts much larger regions. There is a solution. Learn more on NSF's "The Discovery Files."

Vehicle accidents can happen in the blink of an eye. The time it takes camera systems in autonomous vehicles to process images is critical. Researchers are developing a first-of-its-kind technology that can make split-second assessments. Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

Even if you are sound asleep, your brain is always at work, listening to, making note of and interpreting sound. The listening brain performs like an orchestra of neurons that never stops encoding incoming sounds and even has what scientists call a “conductor”. Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

How are you connected on the street where you live, the street where you do business, the street you share with neighbors? But how could a smarter street improve your life? Could technology help guide disabled pedestrians, eliminate traffic bottlenecks, enhance trash collection and pest control, improve emergency services, protect people from environmental and health threats. “Smart Streetscapes,” a new National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, aims to create livable, safe, and inclusive communities. Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

Cement is one of the most widely used industrial materials, essential in the construction of buildings and highways. The United Nations predicts that, by 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will be gathered into cities, demanding more new buildings, more new roads, more cement? Yet, the manufacture of cement contributes up to 8% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. What is the solution, as we handle the increasing demand for new infrastructure? Is there an alternative? Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

What makes Weddell seals such excellent divers, routinely able to forage underwater for food as long as 20 minutes at a time? Did you know they have natural, internal scuba tanks? Weddell seal moms make an extraordinary sacrifice to help prepare their offspring for such extended underwater dives. But how? And could climate change play a role, putting mothers nursing seal pups at great risk? Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

Off the coast of Maryland and Virginia, on the island of Assateague, a centuries-old mystery is coming to light. Folklore has it that a shipwrecked Spanish galleon had been carrying a herd of horses that survived by swimming to the shore. The oldest sequenced DNA ever found in the molar of an ancient horse from the Americas, is giving credence to that story. Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

Babies are like sponges, constantly absorbing information. But how early do infants begin to learn language, a vital component of an infant’s development? What processes do they use and how can parents help? Learn more about important “naming moments” on NSF’s The Discovery Files.

Planets, interstellar gas, and stars that illuminate the night sky account for only 15% of the matter in the universe. So, how important is a “Cosmological Signature” and what is “Cosmic Microwave Background”? What does either have to do with scientists’ search for invisible, dark matter, 85% of the universe, created in the wake of the “Big Bang”? Learn more on NSFs “The Discovery Files.”

Imagine! A prehistoric, megatooth shark that lived as recently as 3.6 million years ago, measuring almost 70 feet in length, and living at the very top of its food chain. While others focus on today’s sharks, explore with us the largest marine predator that has ever existed, a creature with the power of 276 teeth, each the size of a man’s hand. Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

As the cost of buying groceries rises, food spoilage sends up to 40% of America’s food into landfills, and foodborne illness causes 420,000 deaths per year worldwide, could an innovative medical technology born on the battlefield be the solution? Researchers adapted that technology to develop a food packaging system that is biodegradable, protects against microbial contamination, and extends shelf life. Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

What do SMILES have to do with fluorescent dyes and how might they make the images on television screens, hand-held video games, and smartphones more dynamic, even brighter? Researchers are turning fluid fluorescent dyes into solid-state form and making the brightest fluorescents ever made. Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

It might sound like science fiction, but astronomers may have discovered a neutron star consuming a companion star, known as a Black Widow Binary system. There are two dozen Black Widows in our own Milky Way galaxy. But what makes this one unique? Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

Coral reefs worldwide provide divers with a colorful tour of the undersea world. Many divers submerge lathered in sunscreen, each year, leaving 6,000 tons of sunscreen washing through U.S. reefs. But how does this impact how corals protect themselves from sunlight? Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

Each year, 6.8 million Americans fracture a bone. Most often, the body begins forming new bone about two weeks after the break. But sometimes, it needs a little help! Could 3D bioprinting of living human tissue be the answer? Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

Fish habitats are in fluctuation. Climate change plays a role on where fish live, the size of fish populations, and the location of future fishing grounds. As marine ecosystems change with warming ocean temperatures, will seafood still be on the dinner menu? Learn more on “The Discovery Files.”

The infinite adventure of space travel has us reaching for the stars, but the harsh environment of space poses serious physical challenges on our bodies. Scientists reviewed MRI images of the brains of 14 astronauts, taken before and after extended stays on the International Space Station, to see the effect of space travel on the brain. Learn more on NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

The recycling rate of commonly used plastics is less than one percent, but that accounts for nearly a third of all the waste, in all the landfills, worldwide. Researchers are looking to harness the power of the sun, in a climate-friendly process, to upcycle plastic waste, in hopes of increasing the rate of plastics recycling. Learn more at NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”

The wide range of applications for artificial intelligence alone are impressive. Researchers used mammograms of breast cancer to compare radiologists and AI assessments, to understand how AI and humans look at the images and find regions of potential concern. They learned, when you pair up human and artificial intelligence, it could mean earlier and more accurate cancer detection. Learn more at NSF’s “The Discovery Files.”