Jonathan Lambert
Appearances
FloodCast
S10E19 - Gaule de Crocodile
On Sunday at noon Eastern, the NSF said that the agency will resume distributing funds to scientists who had received grants. They have been unable to access their funds since Tuesday when the agency froze payments as they reviewed how their grants complied with new executive orders, especially those targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion.
FloodCast
S10E19 - Gaule de Crocodile
The freeze left hundreds of people unable to access money allocated for their salary and their research. On Friday, a court issued a temporary restraining order that required the NSF and other agencies that froze funds to resume payment. On Sunday, the NSF complied with that order.
FloodCast
S10E19 - Gaule de Crocodile
While it is still reviewing existing grants for compliance with Trump's executive orders, NSF clarified that it cannot stop payments because of this review. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-18-2025 4PM EDT
How iguanas got to Fiji from the Americas has long been a mystery. The lizards could have walked over many generations across ancient land bridges, or they could have floated there on a raft of tangled vegetation. New genetic analyses published in the journal PNAS point to the raft idea.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-18-2025 4PM EDT
The study says Fijian iguanas are likely too young, evolutionarily speaking, to have crossed the ancient land bridges. And that suggests that these lizards floated around 5,000 miles to reach the island. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-02-2025 4PM EST
Studying bat migration is tricky since bats are small and fly only at night. A new study published in Science used special trackers, essentially tiny bat backpacks, that connect to wireless networks. The trackers allowed researchers to watch the migrations of a species called the noctual bat across Central Europe and measure climate data.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-02-2025 4PM EST
The study found that bats time their departure to leave just before a storm comes through. Surfing storm tailwinds can make the bat's migration, which can span hundreds of miles, a little bit easier. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-25-2025 7PM EST
The lives of pterosaurs are still somewhat mysterious. Despite their gargantuan size, pterosaur bones were actually quite fragile, and so fossils are rare. But one fossil that popped up in Alberta, Canada, the neck vertebrae of a juvenile pterosaur, is giving researchers a window into these flying reptiles' ancient lives.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-25-2025 7PM EST
The bone had bite marks that matched the teeth of a crocodilian species that lived at the same time around 76 million years ago. The find, published in the Journal of Paleontology, might be evidence of an ancient fight or that the crocodilian ate the pterosaur after it died. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-23-2025 4PM EDT
When humans hold their breath, the urge to breathe is driven by a buildup of carbon dioxide in our blood, not oxygen. That's the case for virtually all other mammals, but not for gray seals, according to a study published today in the journal Science.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-23-2025 4PM EDT
Researchers varied the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide captive gray seals could breathe and then watched how long they stayed underwater to find food. The higher the oxygen levels, the longer seals stayed under. But carbon dioxide levels had little effect, suggesting seals evolved a new way of not drowning. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-27-2025 6PM EST
The National Science Foundation, which has a budget of around $9 billion, funds a wide range of scientific research through grants to research institutions. Over 60 grant review panels scheduled for this week were all canceled on Monday. The pause was to ensure compliance with recent executive orders from the Trump administration, the agency said in a statement to NPR.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-27-2025 6PM EST
It's unclear how long the pause could last. The delays come a week after similar pauses at the National Institutes of Health. Researchers say the uncertainty caused by the pauses could slow down scientific research. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News.