Webcasts for the News Media

NSF produces background briefings that bring together leading scientists and engineers and the news media in advance of the announcement of major news discoveries or breakthroughs. These events, originally webcast live, are now available for on-demand viewing.

NSF Celebrates Computer Science Education Week 2010 December 7, 2010 As part of Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) 2010, NSF's Lisa-Joy Zgorski speaks with CSEdWeek representative Cameron Wilson of the Association for Computing Machinery and spotlights two exciting NSF-funded programs that engage a diversity of students not usually exposed to computer science: GLITCH at Georgia Tech, represented by Amy Bruckman, associate professor at the College of Computing, PhD candidate Betsy DiSalvo and GLITCH Alumnus James Bowland-Gleason; and E-Textiles at MIT represented by is Leah Buechley, assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab, and student Emily Lovell. View webcast (Time: 45:02)		Tightwads and Spendthrifts: A Black Friday Tradition November 16, 2010 University of Michigan marketing professor Scott Rick discusses tightwad and spendthrift holidays spending decisions in this informative National Science Foundation webcast. View webcast (Time: 37:21)		NSF Releases Online, Multimedia Package Titled, "Clouds: The Wild Card of Climate Change" November 4, 2010 Cloud expert David Randall, director of the Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes and professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, discusses the important role of clouds in climate change. View webcast (Time: 42:49)
The Emergence of Holographic Video November 1, 2010 Study co-author and project lead Nasser Peyghambarian of the University of Arizona and the Director of NSF's multi-institution Engineering Research Center for Integrated Access Networks (CIAN) describes an experimental 3D teleconferencing technology. View webcast (Time: 35:10)		Newly Discovered Planet May Be First Truly Habitable Exoplanet September 29, 2010 Steven Vogt and Paul Butler, leaders of a team of planet hunters at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA, announce the discovery of the first exoplanet that has the potential to support life. The discovery suggests the Milky Way galaxy may be teeming with potentially habitable planets. View webcast (Time: 62:30)		"Stocky Dragon" Dinosaur Terrorized Late Cretaceous Europe August 30, 2010 Lead author Zoltan Csiki of the University of Bucharest and co-author Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History describe the new dinosaur Balaur bondoc, and how it was found, in an audio call-in program with NSF. Hear webcast (audio only)
Citizen Scientists Discover Rotating Pulsar August 12, 2010 Citizen scientists Chris and Helen Colvin from Ames, Iowa, and Daniel Gebhardt from Mainz, German participate in Einstein@Home, a distributive data program that involves a quarter of a million volunteers worldwide. They contributed their idle computers to analyze data gathered by the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and discovered a rotating pulsar. They remotely join NSF's Lisa-Joy Zgorski along with Einstein@Home director Bruce Allen and Arecibo researcher Jim Cordes. Their findings are published in the online journal Science Express (Aug. 12, 2010). View webcast (Time: 38:47)		These Crocs Were Made for Chewing? August 4, 2010 Paleontologist Patrick O'Connor of Ohio University describes a newly discovered ancient crocodylian, Pakasuchus kapilimai, and its revealing place in the fossil record. View webcast (Time: 29:32)		New Findings Indicate Sediment Composition Affected the Strength of Sumatran Earthquake July 8, 2010 Geophysicist Sean Gulick of the Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin discusses the July 9 Science publication "Contrasting decollement and prism properties over the Sumatra 2004/2005 earthquake rupture boundary" with NSF's Lisa Van Pay. View webcast (Time: 15:44)
A Star Is Born ... But How? July 1, 2010 Research Scientist Daniel Wolf Savin of Columbia University's Astrophysics Laboratory describes a new discovery (which is also detailed in the July 2 issue of the journal Science) on the underlying chemical formula and reaction of early star formation with NSF's Lisa-Joy Zgorski. View webcast (Time: 24:36)		NSF Webcast: Getting a Grip on Stroke Treatment May 27, 2010 NSF hosted a webcast featuring the SHELTER technology and its developers, Vikram Janardhan, CEO and engineer, Insera Therapeutics, and Vallabh Janardhan, interventional neurologist, Insera Therapeutics. The new surgical device is poised to advance stroke treatment and revolutionize how the medical community evaluates new technologies. View the device, its cadaver-model testing environment, and a discussion of its features. View webcast (Time: 46:47)		New Survey Facilitates Better U.S. Business Competition in Global Economy May 26, 2010 Director of the National Science Foundation Arden Bement and Deputy Director of the U.S. Census Bureau Tom Mesenbourg say preliminary data from the new Business R&D and Innovation Survey show America is keeping pace in the global market place. View webcast (Time:36:19)
Molecular Robots On the Move May 12, 2010 In recent years, scientists have been working to create robots that consist of a single molecule. Until recently, these robots have been able of only brief, directed motion on a one-dimensional track. Now a team of researchers have successfully created molecular robots capable of simple robotic actions within a defined environment autonomously, including the ability to start moving, turn, and stop. The researchers believe the process they have developed to achieve these tentative first steps may allow for more complex robotic behavior from these tiny robots. Milan Stojanovich, representing team of researchers from four institutions, discusses the team’s work and its potential for future progress in this new field. View webcast (Time:24:12)		NSF Webcast: Learning from Haiti April 27, 2010 Geophysicist Eric Calais of Purdue University, structural engineer Reginald DesRoches of Georgia Tech, and social scientist Liesel Ritchie of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder share their experiences and observations of the Haiti earthquake and elsewhere around the world. Social scientist Dennis Wenger of the National Science Foundation discusses how U.S. and global agencies use disaster research to save lives. View webcast (Time: 63:42)		Can Clever Hackers Target Smart Phones? March 29, 2010 Smart phones are becoming a common part of everyday life. Millions of Americans are using these powerful devices whose impressive capabilities and features rival that of desktop computers from just a few years ago. Yet few users realize that these same devices can be hacked and turned against their owners. Vinod Ganapathy and Liviu Iftode, two researchers from Rutgers University, described the results of their attempts to hack and hijack smart phones in this online media briefing. View webcast (Time: 20:29)
Improving Predictions of Climate Change and its Impacts March 22, 2010 Officials from NSF, DOE and USDA introduced a new interagency program that represents an historic augmentation of financial support for climate change research and is expected to significantly improve climate change predictions and associated impacts. Called Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction using Earth System Models (EaSM), the program seeks proposals for the development of high-resolution climate change models that are based on interdisciplinary approaches. EaSM was introduced by Dr. Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation; Dr. Roger Beachy, Director National Institutes of Food and Agriculture, USDA and Chief Scientist USDA; and Dr. William F. Brinkman, Director of the Office of Science, Department of Energy View webcast (Time: 42:07)		(Ultra)Sounding Out a New Way to Treat Chronic Pain March 19, 2010 In recent years, doctors have used ultrasound to effectively treat joint pain from arthritis and other ailments without the use of drugs. The drawback to these treatments, however, is that they can only be administered in a doctor's office or clinic, since the ultrasound devices currently used are bulky and expensive. Enter George K. Lewis, a biomedical engineering graduate student at Cornell University whose research is supported by the National Science Foundation. Lewis has developed a portable ultrasound device about the size of an iPod that can provide pain relief for several hours without being tethered to a doctor's office. View webcast (Time: 25:23)		Revisiting Chicxulub March 4, 2010 As researchers continue to investigate the great extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, various lines of evidence have emerged for the catastrophe's cause. In a paper appearing in the Mar. 5, 2010, issue of Science, 42 researchers from 12 countries highlight evidence in support of the impact hypothesis, tying together findings from across the globe. Co-author Kirk Johnson of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science joins NSF to discuss one of the most comprehensive analyses to date of the evidence tying the Chicxulub impact to the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs. View webcast (Time: 36:42)
Microsoft and NSF: Enabling Research in the Cloud February 4, 2010 In this media webcast Dan Reed, corporate vice president, technology strategy and policy and eXteme computing for Microsoft, and Jeannette Wing, assistant director for Computer & Information Science & Engineering  for NSF discuss a new agreement between Microsoft and NSF to enable academic researchers access to Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud computing services. View webcast (Time: 20:10)		The National Science Board Releases Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 January 13, 2010 Rolf Lehming, program director of NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators, briefs the media on the latest volume, Science and Engineering Indicators 2010. Rolf has held this position for ten years in NSF's division of Statistical Resources Sciences in its Social Behavioral and Economics division. With him is Lisa-Joy Zgorski in NSF's Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. View webcast (Time: 44:05)		Who's Afraid of the HPV Vaccine? January 12, 2010 The "cultural cognition thesis" argues that individuals form risk perceptions based on often-contested personal views about what makes a good society. Now, Yale University Law professor Dr. Dan Kahan and his colleagues reveals how people's values shape their perceptions of one of the most hotly debated health care proposals in recent years: vaccinating elementary-school girls, ages 11-12, against human papillomavirus (HPV), a widespread sexually transmitted disease. View webcast (Time: 33:17)