NSF at Fifty

NSF50: Celebrating 50 Years
Established in 1950, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is the federal government's only agency dedicated to the support of education and fundamental research in all scientific and engineering disciplines. Its purpose is to ensure that the United States maintains leadership in discovery, learning and innovation across science, mathematics and engineering. We have achieved this purpose repeatedly over the past 50 years.    More...

NSF50 Launches Yearlong Program and Partnership
On April 27, Nobel Laureates, along with more than 240 of the nation's leading scientists and engineers, began sharing their passion for discovery with middle school students across the nation. Later this summer some of these and other leading thinkers and academics will convene at Dartmouth College to help guide U.S. policy in science and engineering research and development, and science education for the next 25 years. The "Scientists and Engineers In the Schools" program and the "S.E.E.ing (Science, Engineering and Education) The Future Institute" are two of the key initiatives announced recently by the National Science Foundation as part of its yearlong 50^th anniversary celebration entitled, "NSF 50: Where Discoveries Begin." Kicking off the 12-month program, NSF joined with its 50^th anniversary partners, The Dow Chemical Company, Dartmouth College and Science Service at a press conference in Washington, DC, to unveil these initiatives and a new web site at www.nsfoutreach.org.    More...

Cosmologists Obtain Images of Early Universe
An international team of cosmologists supported by the National Science Foundation has released the first detailed images of the universe in its infancy. The team flew a telescope under a high-altitude balloon circumnavigating Antarctica to detect and map the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a faint glow of radiation that is a remnant of the intense heat that filled the universe shortly after the Big Bang. The images of the CMB reveal structures in the very early universe that eventually evolved into galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Analysis of these structures supports cosmological theories that indicate the geometry of the universe is "flat."    More...

Philip and Phylis Morrison, and Science Service Picked for NSB Public Service Awards
The National Science Board (NSB) has named Philip and Phylis Morrison -- he's a renowned physicist and science communicator, and she's an educator, author and her husband’s long-time collaborator -- for the NSB’s third annual public service award. The NSB is honoring both Morrisons with individual awards because of their unique teaming efforts over many years in communicating science and enhancing the public’s understanding of it, and for educating, encouraging and influencing a new generation of scientists. The NSB also named Science Service, a nonprofit organization founded in 1921 to advance public understanding and appreciation of science, to receive the public service award for organizations. Science Service administers several prestigious education programs for middle school and high school students, and also publishes the highly regarded weekly news magazine Science News.    More...