NSF’s Discovery Files Podcast

Jooyoung Lee, a doctoral student at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology, joins us to talk about her research on plagiarism from language models in popular online chatbots.

The landmark first image of a black hole, at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy, has received a makeover with the help of machine learning. Lia Medeiros, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study joins to discuss how she used PRIMO to reach the full resolution of the Event Horizon Telescope and what impacts it will have on black hole physics.

Spiros Michalakis is manager of outreach and a staff researcher at Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center. He joins us to discuss his role representing the U.S. for World Quantum Day; quantum states as a natural language; the challenges in communicating complex ideas; and where he hopes to see the field go in the future.

In a landmark development for neuroscience, an interdisciplinary team has completed the first full map of an insect brain, revealing synaptic connections and valuable insights into how the brain operates. We are joined by Joshua Vogelstein, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University to learn about the obstacles in processing and analyzing big data; the links between...

The NSF Engineering Research Center for Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing Moving from Evolution to Revolution will accelerate the development and deployment of intelligent, autonomous manufacturing systems, enabling mass customization in local production facilities. We are joined by co-principal investigators Glenn Daehn and Jian Cao, as well as NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, Assistant Direct...

Representation is vital for inspiring the next generation, and the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are no different. Today we are joined by Karen Marrongelle, the NSF’s chief operating officer to talk about her career in mathematics, leadership in education and efforts being made to bolster the future STEM workforce.

Peggy Giordano has studied cognitive transformation and the dynamics of desistance for many years. Her work at Bowling Green State University in Ohio led to a 2021 Stockholm Prize in Criminology. We’ll hear about her study that follows subjects from adolescence into adulthood looking at social influences on the long-term cessation of violence, including the effects of intimate partner and family d...

The video game and television adaptation, The Last of Us, has created a lot of interest in the parasitic fungi Ophiocordyceps. We're joined by Charissa De Bekker, assistant professor of biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, to learn about the different kinds of Cordyceps, her experience studying their parasitic relationship with ants, and the zombie-like behavior that is exhibited as t...

NSF's Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences supports research focused on human behavior and how behavior can be shaped by social, economic, political, cultural, and environmental forces. Two NSF-supported researchers, Abigail Marsh, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience at Georgetown University and Joshua Greene, professor...

With accurate definitions of a seemingly contradictory nature and complex concepts like entanglement and teleportation, the realm of quantum science can get unusual very quickly. But what is quantum? What can you do with it? Do the movies get it right? We set out to answer some of these questions with quantum physicist Spiros Michalakis, a staff researcher and manager of outreach at the Institute...

During Iceland's Viking Age, a volcanic eruption formed a lava tube, which became a cave known as Surtshellir. Fast forward more than a millennium and a researcher from Brown University heard stories of tourists visiting a Viking Era site inside the cave and taking away bones they found there. What does the site tell us about Viking culture, Norse Mythology, and folklore? We'll speak with Kevin P....

In elite athletics, competitive advantages can come from the smallest of differences. Track, cycling, baseball, basketball, soccer, football have all been fundamentally impacted by technological developments. Supported in part by NSF, NeuroTrainer has developed a virtual reality program that can impact performance by training the mind. We are joined by founder Jeff Nyquist and CEO Noah Rolland. We...

Mentorship plays an essential role in encouraging and inspiring the next generation. Often, mentors are parents, family members or teachers, but anyone can be a mentor. We'll speak with Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, the 15th director of the U.S.  National Science Foundation, to learn about his experiences with mentorship and his approach to inspiring others. We will also look at the mentor – mentee...

NSF-supported researchers at Princeton University have developed an egg protein-derived aerogel whose unique structure is able to remove both salt and microplastics from water. We speak with Sehmus Ozeden to learn more about how this aerogel was developed, how it might be used and what impact it could have on the food supply.

NSF's Engineering Research Center for Smart Streetscapes  will forge livable, safe, and inclusive communities through real-time, hyperlocal technologies for streets and their surroundings. We are joined by Principal Investigator Andrew Smyth and Co-PI Mubarak Shah, as well as NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, Assistant Director Susan Margulies, and Program Manager Sandra Cruz-Pol.  

While we are seeing climate change impacts around the world, researchers from the Florida Museum have reported the results of 30 dives tracking the number and diversity of one animal that appears to be doing just fine. 

The NSF Engineering Research Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production will enable resilient and sustainable food production by developing next-generation technology for capturing, recycling and producing decarbonized nitrogen-based fertilizers. We are joined by Principal Investigator Gerardine Botte, Co-PI Odemari Mbuya, as well as NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan...

A recent nuclear fusion ignition event at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has made headlines around the world. We are joined by physicists Slava Lukin and Jose Lopez to find out what nuclear fusion is and to learn about plasmas.

The Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and the Ohio State University have recently released four more years of image data, creating the most detailed polar region terrain maps ever. Claire Porter, Co-Director at the Polar Geospatial Center joins to tell us exactly what is at the north pole and what we can learn from mapping it.

At North Carolina State University, NSF-supported researchers have developed a swimming soft robot that is four times faster than previous soft robots. Professor Jie Yin joins to explain how they developed the energy efficient model inspired by manta rays.

NSF's Engineering Research Center for Precision Microbiome Engineering will be creating microbiome technologies that address challenges at the interface of human health and the built environment. We are joined by principal investigator Claudia Gunsch, co-PI Joseph Graves, Duke University Dean of Engineering Jerome Lynch, as well as NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, Assistant Director for Engin...

Kaitlyn Becker was working on her doctorate at Harvard University when she helped develop a soft robotic system that can handle complex objects by using entanglement grasping. She joins to explain how creatures of the sea inspired the robotic gripper and how it might be used in the future.

When you ask a smart device a question, there is a latency in the response due to the processing of your question taking place at a data center. What if you could process that query directly on the device?  Researcher Alex Sludds joins to explain a new edge computing architecture.  

  Gravity in space is at a minimum, providing an ideal environment for studying physics-related properties. Researcher Ingrid Tomac joins us to explain why her work with mudflow is being studied aboard the International Space Station. We are also joined by NSF Program Director Kendra McLauchlan.

The lack of gravity in space provides an ideal environment for studying physics-related properties. To take advantage of this opportunity, an unprecedented seven NSF-supported projects are being sent to the International Space Station. We'll hear from NSF Deputy Division Director William Olbricht and researchers Ranga Narayanan, Jason Livesay, Yangying Zhu, Sushil Bhavnani, Karthekeyan Sridhar, Ji...