Researchers have developed a new mechanism to efficiently control hydrogen fuel cell power in a breakthrough that could make fuel cells practical for such small machines as lawnmowers and chainsaws. Many standard fuel cell designs use electronics to control power output, but such designs require complex systems to manage humidity and fuel recovery and recycling systems to achieve acceptable efficiency.

The new process controls the hydrogen feed to match the required power output, just as one controls the feed of gasoline into an internal combustion engine. NSF awardee Jay Benziger of Princeton University developed the new technique with his student Claire Woo, a recipient of an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates award and now a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.

Woo and Benziger published their findings in the February 2007 Chemical Engineering Science. They believe the first applications for their technology will be in smaller engines. Fuel cells are currently inefficient on such scales due to the need for fuel recycling and excess hydrogen in standard designs. The researchers' new design is closed, so 100 percent of the fuel is used and there is no need for a costly fuel recycling system.

Scientists will find improved ways of studying the structure, function and evolution of the genomes of economically important plants, thanks to $14 million in new awards from NSF.

Resources to be developed include genomic sequences, genetic markers, maps and expressed sequence collections. These are much-needed tools for researchers working in areas as diverse as plant breeding and weed control.

Research projects center on economically important plants, including cotton, canola, wheat, rice and corn. The research will help improve crop production, yield possible avenues for better selective control of weeds, as well as improve our basic understanding of gene structure and function in plants.

For more details on these new awards, see NSF's Press Release.

Engineers have developed a system that eliminated 100 percent of the microbes in New Orleans flood waters left from Hurricane Katrina. The technique makes use of specialized resins, copper and hydrogen peroxide to purify tainted water.

The system--safer, cheaper and simpler to use than many other methods--cleans the water, although it doesn't yet make the water drinkable. However, the method may eventually prove critical for limiting the spread of disease at disaster sites around the world.

Applying their technique to water from the Industrial and 17th Street canals in New Orleans, the NSF-supported researchers destroyed all of the bacteria in the samples within 15 minutes. In tests with laboratory water samples containing even higher bacterial concentrations, the process killed at least 99 percent of the bacteria in 90 minutes. More information on this filtration system is available in NSF's press release.

Researchers have created an ultra-dense memory device the size of a white blood cell that has enough capacity to store the Declaration of Independence and still have space left over. The accomplishment represents an important step toward the creation of molecular computers that are much smaller and potentially more powerful than today's silicon-based computers.

A team of chemists successfully demonstrated a large-scale, "ultra-dense" memory device that stores information using reconfigurable molecular switches. The 160-kilobit molecular memory was fabricated at a density of 100 billion bits per square centimeter--"a density predicted for commercial memory devices in approximately 2020," according to one of the researchers.

The research was funded by NSF and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. See NSF's release, "Blood-Cell-Sized Memory Device Beats Industry Estimates for Computing Capacity," for more information.

Funding levels increase for every major NSF appropriations account. Investments in Research and Related Activities increase by 7.7 percent--Education and Human Resources by 4.8 percent--and MREFC by 1.8 percent. The budget includes across-the-board increases for every Directorate and Office of NSF.

Rapid progress in these areas will generate new concepts and tools with far-reaching applications, lay the foundations for next-generation tools and technologies, and develop educational strategies to engage students and prepare them for the fast-changing, global environment I believe that America can continue to be on the leading edge of ideas and research that can chart the global path for the next half century.

Staying at the forefront of discovery and innovation will require the level of investment proposed in the NSF budget. In a science and technology based world, to retreat from the frontier is to put the nation at peril.

Dr. Bement's complete speech is available on the NSF Web site. Also see NSF's FY 2008 Budget Request to Congress.

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