Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Center for Open Science awarded grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to preserve and safeguard publicly funded scientific data

Center for Open Science

The Center for Open Science (COS) has been awarded a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to develop a community-driven strategic plan for ensuring the long-term preservation, accessibility, and usability of federally-funded scientific data.

COS has long championed policies and practices that increase the openness, integrity, and trustworthiness of research. The success of the open science movement relies on the integrity, sustainability, and resilience of infrastructures that promote access to research outputs, like scientific data. In 2025, the sudden removal of public data from multiple federal agency websites underscored the urgent need for sustainable systems to safeguard and maintain public access to scientific data generated by federally funded researchers.

The RWJF-funded project, Ensuring the Preservation, Accessibility, and Usability of Public Data, will be led by COS, with co-direction from a stakeholder planning committee composed of leaders from across the research and scientific data communities.

Planning committee members are Maria Gould (DataCite), Joel Gurin (CODE), Robert Hanisch (Campostella Research and Consulting), Kristi Holmes (Northwestern University), Lynda Kellam (University of Pennsylvania, Data Rescue Project), Christine Kirkpatrick (San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego, GO FAIR US), Chris Marcum (Data Foundation), Mark Parsons (ESIP), and Katherine Skinner (IOI). Alex Wade is serving as the project’s lead consultant.

The project aims to complement and coordinate with existing community-driven initiatives—including the Internet Archive, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), and the Data Rescue Project—by developing a framework for long-term stewardship of federally-funded data. The resulting strategic plan will guide how the research community monitors, preserves, and sustains access to at-risk datasets and repositories.

Areas for initial focus and exploration include:

Monitoring at-risk repositories: Clarifying methods for identifying repositories that may face data loss due to funding, staffing, or policy changes.
Ensuring FAIRness and resilience of preserved datasets: Establishing processes and building capacity to promote the FAIRness (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) and resilience of preserved datasets and associated tools to support their continued discoverability and use in a distributed data ecosystem.
Dashboard for data health: Creating a shared framework to inform decision making that data stewards and communities can use to score and monitor data health across multiple dimensions, including preservation, resilience, FAIRness, usability and utility for different audiences, and availability of interactive tools.
Building governance and sustainability: Outlining models for coordinated community action, avoiding duplication of effort, defining best practices for preservation, and ensuring sustained stewardship of preserved data.
Developing an outreach and advocacy framework: Raising awareness and catalyzing action among researchers, funders, policymakers, and the broader public about the importance and vulnerability of public data and associated infrastructures, including guidance on accessing preserved datasets, reporting at-risk resources, and ways to support and advocate for more sustainable and resilient infrastructures.

“Together with our expert strategic planning partners, COS is committed to meeting the moment to promote the resilience of the scientific data system. We’re looking forward to continuing to build on the great progress we’ve made to promote greater openness, transparency, and integrity to ensure science continues to serve the public good,” said project co-lead Maryam Zaringhalam, PhD, COS Senior Director of Policy.

The project will run through September 2026. Insights generated during the planning process will also inform COS’s own data infrastructure work through the Open Science Framework (OSF) and related advocacy efforts that support transparency and sustainable data management.

For more information about the project or to get involved, visit the Ensuring the Preservation, Accessibility, and Usability of Public Data webpage.

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About COS
Founded in 2013, COS is a nonprofit culture change organization with a mission to increase openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research. COS pursues this mission by building communities around open science practices, supporting metascience research, and developing and maintaining free, open source software tools, including the Open Science Framework (OSF).

Trapping particles to explain lightning

ISTA scientist captures tiny particles for clues on cloud electrification

Institute of Science and Technology Austria

image:
A green spectacle. With protective eyewear, ISTA PHD student Andrea Stöllner takes a glimpse into the experimental chamber (in the foreground) where two laser beams trap a single particle. One electron at a time, the scientist hopes that her work will reveal mysteries about how tiny particles behave and advance the scientific inquiry into cloud electrification. As the green glow of the captured particle dims, Stöllner promptly restarts her setup to catch another one.
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Credit: © ISTA

Using lasers as tweezers to understand cloud electrification might sound like science fiction but at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) it is a reality. By trapping and charging micron-sized particles with lasers, researchers can now observe their charging and discharging dynamics over time. This method, published in Physical Review Letters, could provide key insights into what sparks lightning.

Aerosols are liquid or solid particles that float in the air. They are all around us. Some are large and visible, such as pollen in spring, while others, such as viruses that spread during flu season, cannot be detected by the naked eye. Some we can even taste, like the airborne salt crystals we breathe in at the seaside.

PhD student Andrea Stöllner, part of the Waitukaitis and Muller groups at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), focuses on ice crystals within clouds. The Austrian scientist uses model aerosols—tiny, transparent silica particles—to explore how these ice crystals accumulate and interact with electrical charge.

Stöllner, alongside former ISTA postdoc Isaac Lenton, ISTA Assistant Professor Scott Waitukaitis and others, has developed a way to catch, hold, and electrically charge a single silica particle using two laser beams. This approach holds potential for application in different areas, including demystifying how clouds become electrified and what sparks lightning.

Laser tweezers lock aerosol particle in place

Andrea Stöllner stands in front of a large desk covered with shiny metal gadgets. Green laser beams cut across the space, bouncing around through a series of small mirrors. A squishing sound comes from the table, like air escaping from a tire. “It’s an anti-vibration table,” Stöllner explains, noting its crucial role in absorbing any vibrations from the room and nearby equipment—essential for precision work with lasers.

The beams zigzag around a type of obstacle course, eventually converging into two streams that funnel into a container. Here, the two beams meet and create a ‘trap,’ where tiny objects are held steadily by light alone, acting as “optical tweezers.” Inside this magical box, particles drift past these tweezers. Suddenly, boom! A green flash appears, signaling success: A perfectly round, vibrant green glowing aerosol particle has been caught and is being held tightly by the tweezers.

“The first time I caught a particle, I was over the moon,” Stöllner says as she recalls her Eureka moment two years ago, just before Christmas. “Scott Waitukaitis and my colleagues rushed into the lab and took a short glimpse at the captured aerosol particle. It lasted exactly three minutes, then the particle was gone. Now we can hold it in that position for weeks.”

It took Stöllner almost four years to get the experiment to the point where it could provide reliable data, starting with a previous version of the setup developed by her former ISTA colleague Lenton. “Originally, our setup was built to just hold a single particle, analyze its charge, and figure out how humidity changes its charges,” explains Stöllner. “But we never came this far. We found out that the laser we are using is itself charging our aerosol particles.”

Kicking out electrons

The scientist and her colleagues discovered that lasers charge the particle through a “two-photon process.”

Typically, aerosol particles are close to neutrally charged, with electrons (negatively charged entities) swirling around in every atom of the particle. The laser beams consist of photons (particles of light traveling at the speed of light), and when two of these photons are absorbed simultaneously, they can ‘kick out’ one electron from the particle. In this way, the particle gains one elemental positive charge. Step by step, it becomes increasingly positively charged.

For Stöllner, uncovering this mechanism is an exciting discovery that she can leverage in her research. “We can now precisely observe the evolution of one aerosol particle as it charges up from neutral to highly charged and adjust the laser power to control the rate.”

This observation also reveals that, as the particle becomes positively charged, it begins to discharge, meaning that it occasionally releases charge in spontaneous bursts.

Way above our heads, something similar might also be happening in clouds.

Lifting the lid on lightning?

Thunderstorm clouds contain ice crystals and larger ice pellets. When these collide, they exchange electric charges. Eventually, the cloud becomes so charged that lightning forms. One theory suggests that the first little spark of a lightning bolt could be initiated at the charged ice crystals themselves. However, the exact science behind the phenomenon of lightning formation remains a mystery. Alternative theories meanwhile suggest cosmic rays initiate the process as the charged particles they create accelerate from pre-existing electric fields. According to Stöllner, however, the current understanding in the scientific community is that – in either case – the electric field in clouds seems too low to cause lightning.

“Our new setup allows us to explore the ice crystal theory by closely examining a particle’s charging dynamics over time,” Stöllner explains. While ice crystals in clouds are much larger than the model ones, the ISTA scientists are now aiming to decode these microscale interactions to better understand the big picture. “Our model ice crystals are showing discharges and maybe there’s more to that. Imagine if they eventually create super tiny lightning sparks—that would be so cool,” Stöllner says with a smile.

Journal

Physical Review Letters

DOI

10.1103/5xd9-4tjj

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Using optical tweezers to simultaneously trap, charge and measure the charge of a microparticle in air

Article Publication Date

20-Nov-2025

Video: Catching a particle [VIDEO]

Catching a particle. Thousands of tiny model aerosols pass through optical tweezers when suddenly, boom! One particle becomes trapped. The aerosol particle is glowing green as it scatters the laser light.

Credit

Adjusting the experimental setup

Adjusting the experimental setup. Andrea Stöllner fine-tunes the orientation of laser beams, mirrors, and cameras on an anti-vibration table.

ISTA PhD student Andrea Stöllner in front of her experimental setup. Beyond the lab, the physicist and “cloud scientist” finds relaxation in yoga, baking, and playing the flute in an orchestra. Lately, she cannot get the dramatic symphonic poem “The Witch and the Saint” out of her head.

Sketch of the experimental setup. The trapping laser (532 nm) is split into two beams by a polarizing beam splitter and coupled into single-mode optical fibers. The beams eventually enter the grounded experimental chamber through one-inch windows on either side. Inside, they are focused by two lenses with a focal length of 8 mm to form a one-micrometer trap.

Credit

Optical Trap. Catching a micron-sized particle is challenging. To get the job done, two laser beams come in handy. Acting like tweezers, they can trap, secure, and charge a solitary particle.

Credit

Cool comfort: beating the heat with high-tech clothes

University of South Australia

Moisture-wicking clothes — image:
An illustration of how the white, nanostructured fabric has been designed, using lightweight particles.
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Credit: University of South Australia

As global temperatures rise and heatwaves intensify, a new textile innovation co-developed by University of South Australia scientists promises to keep people cooler, drier, and more comfortable in extreme heat.

Partnering with researchers from Zhengzhou University in China, UniSA materials scientist Professor Jun Ma has helped to create a lightweight breathable fabric that reflects 96% of the sun’s rays in outdoor conditions.

The moisture-wicking composite fabric is described in the journal Nano Research.

In outdoor field tests, the new textile lowered skin temperature by 2 degrees celsius under direct sunlight and by 3.8 degrees celsius at night compared with bare skin.

Unlike traditional cotton fabrics, which tend to trap heat and sweat, the polylactic acid/boron nitride nanosheet (PLA/BNNS) material actively releases warmth while keeping the skin dry.

Professor Ma, from UniSA’s Future Industries Institute, says the project addresses a critical challenge in personal comfort as the world adapts to rising heat stress.

“We’re seeing more frequent and intense heatwaves globally, and that has serious implications for outdoor workers, athletes and people living without access to air conditioning,” Prof Ma says.

“Our goal was to design a smart, sustainable fabric that passively regulates body temperature – not by using energy, but by harnessing natural physical processes.”

Using a scalable electrospinning technique, the researchers embedded boron nitride nanosheets – highly thermally conductive, lightweight particles – within a biodegradable polylactic acid fibre matrix. The result is a white, nanostructured fabric with exceptional solar reflectance and five times more breathability than cotton.

“The combination of high solar reflectance, heat radiation and moisture control means that the wearer feels noticeably cooler and drier,” Prof Ma says.

“It’s particularly beneficial for people who work outdoors in construction, mining, agriculture or emergency services, where heat exposure is both a comfort and safety issue.”

The study’s lead author, Associate Professor Yamin Pan from Zhengzhou University, says the collaboration with UniSA was instrumental in testing and refining the material’s thermal performance.

“UniSA’s advanced materials expertise helped us evaluate the heat transfer and radiative cooling properties of the fabric,” says Assoc Prof Pan. “The partnership shows how international collaboration can accelerate the development of smart, sustainable materials.”

Made primarily from biodegradable PLA, the fabric also aligns with the global shift towards environmentally responsible materials.

The researchers believe the technology could be easily adapted for sportswear, uniforms, outdoor workers, and even military and emergency clothing designed for extreme heat.

Prof Ma says the team is now exploring potential commercial applications and large-scale manufacturing opportunities.

“The electrospinning process is straightforward and cost effective, which means the fabric could be produced at industrial scale,” he says. “With further development, it has the potential to transform the next generation of cooling clothing.”

The paper, ‘Moisture-wicking fabric for radiation cooling’ is published in Nano Research. DOI: 10.26599/NR.2025.94907537