Richard Shotton

China is investing heavily in university research.

At the same time, the Trump administration has upended the federal pipeline of research dollars to American institutions.

David Corey, a scientist at Harvard Medical School, was one of the researchers whose federal grants were frozen last year.

He's been studying gene therapies meant to reestablish hearing in children.

But the disruption to federal funds has meant his rivals in China are the ones finding breakthroughs.

China's billions are paying off.

In a global ranking measuring academic output, Harvard lost its top spot to a university in China.

In fact, seven out of the top 10 schools are now in China.

Alyssa Nadwani, NPR News.

That air pollution either directly affects your lungs, which causes trickle down effects that travel to your brain.

He was met with cries of blasphemy.

People saying, how dare you create ice?

Man can't create ice.

Only God can create ice.

And Corey actually died relatively young and penniless with his reputation in tatters.

Hi, Mike.

Thanks for having me.

yeah you know i've always been interested in ice from an environmental standpoint but i didn't start thinking about ice on demand and how this country america became so obsessed with ice until about five years ago when we were experiencing this brutal heat wave and the heat wave was so bad it knocked out the power to my parents house and i was visiting them at the time

So we piled into their car, we drove to a nearby gas station that was operating on a generator, and I filled a cup with ice to try to cool down.

And the more and more I thought about it, the more I started to think, well, how did I even know ice was here at a gas station?