The Latest Breaking News from the National Science Foundation

The United States has almost 2 million people behind bars in prisons, jails and detention centers – the largest such population in any country. Although incarcerated people are locked away from the outside world, they are even more vulnerable to the impacts of disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires, than…

Around 700 million years ago, the Earth cooled so much that scientists believe massive ice sheets encased the entire planet like a giant snowball. This global deep freeze, known as Snowball Earth, endured for tens of millions of years.

Centuries ago, estuaries around the world were teeming with birds and turbulent with schools of fish, their marshlands and endless tracts of channels melting into the gray-blue horizon.

The volunteers who take part in search-and-rescue operations and then support disaster survivors belong to organizations that have become more formal and established over the past decade. That’s what we found after spending more than four years volunteering alongside eight of these groups to better understand their role and the…

For the first time in American history, quantum computing was mentioned by a candidate during a presidential debate, on Sept. 10, 2024. After Vice President Kamala Harris brought up quantum technology, she and former President Donald Trump went on to have a heated back-and-forth about American chipmaking and China’s rise…

As we near the first anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel, the conflict in the Middle East has escalated significantly. Iran just launched nearly 200 missiles on Israel, and Israel has continued its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza.

Hundreds of industrial facilities with toxic pollutants were in Hurricane Helene’s path as the powerful storm flooded communities across the Southeast in late September 2024.

Stories of self-doubt are common among engineering students. That was a key finding of a study conducted recently at Boise State University by a team of researchers.

Humans generate a lot of plastic waste – more than 400 million metric tons a year.