NSF’s Discovery Files Podcast
This is the Discovery Files Podcast from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Join us as we explore the latest breakthroughs in science, technology and engineering with the researchers making these discoveries. Learn how scientific innovation bolsters the U.S. economy, supports our Nation’s interests around the globe, and improves the lives of Americans.
Episodes

5 days ago
5 days ago
The fourth state of matter, plasma, is involved in several aspects of how modern microelectronic components are manufactured. Jeremiah Williams, a professor at Wittenberg University and a program director at the U.S. National Science Foundation, discusses how plasmas are used in semiconductor manufacturing and how understanding plasma physics spurs industrial innovation.

Monday Jul 14, 2025
Monday Jul 14, 2025
Metamaterials are a special class of engineered materials, designed to have properties not found in nature. Glaucio Paulino, a professor at Princeton University, discusses his work on developing modular chiral origami metamaterials, engineering control approaches and the ways they might benefit society.

Monday Jul 07, 2025
Monday Jul 07, 2025
U.S. National Science Foundation-supported researchers are accelerating artificial intelligence technologies. Mingyi Hong, a professor at the University of Minnesota, discusses AI reinforcement learning strategies and the challenges of training experts.

Monday Jun 30, 2025
Monday Jun 30, 2025
U.S. National Science Foundation-supported researchers are developing a new class of semiconductors with great potential for next-generation microelectronic devices. Zetian Mi, a professor at the University of Michigan, discusses his group's work with wurtzite ferroelectric nitride semiconductors.

Monday Jun 23, 2025
Monday Jun 23, 2025
As the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a joint project of the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, begins its mission to unlock new understanding of cosmic phenomena, we visit an archival lecture from its namesake, Vera C. Rubin. In the lecture, she discussed how galaxies form, how you might measure the matter in them and her observations of dark matter.

Monday Jun 16, 2025
Monday Jun 16, 2025
U.S. National Science Foundation-supported observatories allow researchers to advance and expand humanity’s understanding of the early universe. Tobias Marriage, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Yunyang Li, a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Chicago, discuss how they used the NSF Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor to see the cosmic microwave background, light from the beginning of the universe.

Monday Jun 09, 2025
Monday Jun 09, 2025
U.S. National Science Foundation-supported researchers are developing a multimodal system that combines image analysis and natural language processing to help manufacturers detect problems, suggest improvements and communicate with machines in real-time. Bingbing Li, a professor at California State University, Northridge, discusses his group's work with vision language models for use in smart manufacturing.

Monday Jun 02, 2025
Monday Jun 02, 2025
U.S. National Science Foundation-supported researchers are investigating the mechanisms of cell regeneration for medical treatments. Maksim Plikus, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, discusses lipocartilage, how his lab found it and its potential for advancing tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Monday May 26, 2025
Monday May 26, 2025
Critical minerals are crucial to both the economy and national security. Rachel Teasdale, a professor at California State University, Chico, and program director in the U.S. National Science Foundation Division of Earth Sciences, discusses how critical minerals and rare earth elements form and how we use them.

Tuesday May 20, 2025
Tuesday May 20, 2025
As innovation transforms the aerospace, energy and defense industries, new materials with advanced properties are needed to meet the moment. Kiran Solanki, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Arizona State University, discusses designing new materials and enhancing existing ones for extreme condition applications.