EurekAlert! National Science Foundation - NSF Funded Research News

NSF Funded Research News

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 24-Oct-2026 17:15 ET (24-Oct-2026 21:15 GMT/UTC)

A new way to spot signs of dark matter

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new method could enable physicists to spot signs of dark matter in gravitational waves that are detected on Earth. This could occur if two colliding black holes spiral through a dense region of dark matter and merge, leaving an imprint in gravitational waves that are rippling across space and time.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: MIT Center for Theoretical Physics

Study: 11 million American children’s well being threatened by criminally charged family members

Boston College
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A cross-sectional study of more than 76 million American children by researchers found approximately 15 percent—or over 11 million—of the children had a family member who was criminally charged within the past five years, resulting in potentially harmful disruptions to families that threaten the young people’s wellbeing.

Journal: JAMA Network Open

Yao to receive NSF CAREER Award

George Mason University
Grant and Award Announcement

Ningshi Yao, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), is set to receive funding for: “CAREER: A Unified Event-triggered Real-Time Scheduling and Control Co-Design Framework for Networked Safety-critical Control Systems.”

UC San Diego researchers launch free ‘digital twin’ for end-to-end testing of applications over wireless networks

University of California - San Diego
Reports and Proceedings

UC San Diego engineers created a free, open-source “digital twin” that simulates real-world wireless networks, giving researchers and startups a faster, more accessible way to test next-generation technologies.

Funder: Army Research Office
Meeting: IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks

‘Nature’s algorithm’ found in Chinese money plants

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

CSHL Associate Professor Saket Navlakha and former graduate student Cici Zheng have discovered a naturally occurring Voronoi diagram in Chinese money plants’ leaves. Their research answers a longstanding question in biology regarding the mathematics of looping vein structures and could help explain how plants solve complex problems in nature.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory School of Biological Sciences William R. Mellow Fellowship, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Simons Center for Quantitative Biology

Penn Engineers study asthma on human lung-on-a-chip technology

University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at Penn Engineering have developed an asthma-on-a-chip that recreates the physical forces of airway constriction during an asthma attack. The study reveals how mechanical stress can drive tissue stiffening and abnormal blood vessel growth, opening new pathways for understanding asthma and developing future treatments.

Journal: Nature Biomedical Engineering
Funder: Ministry of Trade, Binghamton University

Could cultured chocolate unlock the next food revolution?

University of California - Davis

Researchers at UC Davis are working with a Sacramento based food-tech company, California Cultured, to keep chocolate affordable and sustainable by growing everyone’s favorite treat directly from plant cells.

Funder: BioMADE

Study Reveals How Strawberries, Raspberries Were Ambushed By Fungal Parasites

North Carolina State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Plant diseases often arise when the pathogens that cause disease are introduced into new territories. New research highlights how major plant diseases can also result from the introduction of new plants to areas where a pathogen already lurks in the soil.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: National Institute of Food and Agriculture

A tiny cell structure with a big role in brain development

University of California - Riverside
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A largely overlooked structure inside our cells may play a crucial role in how the brain forms, offering new insight into developmental disorders and potential therapies.

Journal: Cell Reports

Study projects plant extinction rates through 2100

University of California - Davis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A UC Davis study in Science found that 7% to 16% of global plant species studied face high risk of extinction by 2100 under current climate change projections.

Journal: Science

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