Summaries | Headlines

Computer Tool Helps Pinpoint Risky Gene Mutations, Predict Cancer Cases (February 17, 2007) -- Certain cancer risks can be passed down through families, the result of tiny changes in a family's genetic code. But not all genetic changes are deadly. To help medical counselors and physicians ... > full story

Making Operating Rooms Safer With Open Communication Among Equipment (February 17, 2007) -- New research at the University of New Hampshire aims to make hospital operating rooms safer by opening the lines of communication between computerized hospital beds and blood pressure ... > full story

Computer Model Mimicks How Brain Recognizes Street Scenes (February 16, 2007) -- Scientists have developed a computational model of how the brain processes visual information and applied it to a complex, real world task: Recognizing the objects in a busy street scene. The ... > full story

Get Your Facts Straight: Statistical Reform In Psychology (February 16, 2007) -- New research suggests that efforts to advocate improved statistical practices in psychological research may be paying ... > full story

Googling Brain Proteins With 3-D Goggles (February 15, 2007) -- The Allen Brain Atlas, a genome-wide map of the mouse brain on the Internet, has been hailed as "Google of the brain." The atlas now has a companion or the brain's working molecules, a sort of pop-up ... > full story

Open Source Software Toolkit Plays Key Role In New Climate Simulations (February 15, 2007) -- The Model Coupling Toolkit created by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory played a key role in the climate simulations used in preparing the new U.N. report "Climate Change ... > full story

Numbers Are Just Numbers, But How You Grasp Them Fills In Details (February 15, 2007) -- Quickly now, which is a higher risk that you will get a disease: 1 in 100; 1 in 1,000, or 1 in 10? Choosing the correct answer depends on a person's numeracy -- the ability to grasp and use math and ... > full story

Disorder May Be In Order For 'Spintronic' Devices (February 15, 2007) -- Physicists at JILA are using ultrashort pulses of laser light to reveal precisely why some electrons, like ballet dancers, hold their spin positions better than others -- work that may help improve ... > full story

Air Contaminants Databases Ease Healthy Homes Planning (February 15, 2007) -- Air pollution sources are everywhere in the home, from the bacon and eggs frying in the kitchen, to the woodburning stove in the family room, the newly painted hallway, and even the carpet in the ... > full story

Sensor Networks Protect Containers, Navigate Robots (February 14, 2007) -- Agent 007 is a mighty versatile fellow, but he would have to take backseat to agents being trained at Washington University in St. Louis. Computer scientist engineers here are using wireless sensor ... > full story

Noise Echoes In Cell Communications (February 14, 2007) -- Can't hear? Turn up the white noise, says a team of Rutgers-Camden professors who have produced a mathematical explanation for the benefits of noise. Their findings could lead to major improvements ... > full story

Local Range Estimation In Wild Animals (February 14, 2007) -- A new class of computational methods have been developed to construct distributions of where such monitored organisms are most likely to be found in space and time using this data, and are much more ... > full story

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Computing -- Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a science that deals with the original sense of computing mathematical ... > full article

Bioterrorism -- Bioterrorism is terrorism using germ warfare, an intentional human release of a naturally-occurring or human-modified toxin or biological ... > full article

Virtual reality -- Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily ... > full article

Quantum mechanics -- Quantum mechanics is a fundamental branch of theoretical physics that replaces Newtonian mechanics and classical electromagnetism at the atomic and subatomic levels. It is the underlying framework of ... > full article

Introduction to quantum mechanics -- Quantum mechanics is a physical science dealing with the behaviour of matter and waves on the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It also forms the basis for the contemporary understanding of how ... > full article

Statistics -- Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data. The word statistics is also the plural of statistic (singular), which refers to the ... > full article

Probability theory -- Probability theory is the mathematical study of phenomena characterized by randomness or uncertainty. More precisely, probability is used for modelling situations when the result of an experiment, ... > full article

Bioinformatics -- Bioinformatics and computational biology involve the use of techniques including applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry and biochemistry to ... > full article

Data mining -- Data mining, also known as knowledge-discovery in databases (KDD), is the practice of automatically searching large stores of data for patterns. To do this, data mining uses computational techniques ... > full article

Artificial intelligence -- Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science and engineering that deals with intelligent behavior, learning, and adaptation in machines. Research in AI is concerned with producing ... > full article

Global climate model -- A global climate model or general circulation model (GCM) aims to describe climate behavior by integrating a variety of fluid-dynamical, chemical, or even biological equations that are either derived ... > full article

Global Positioning System -- The Global Positioning System, usually called GPS, is the Earth's only fully-functional satellite navigation system. A constellation of more than two dozen GPS satellites broadcasts precise timing ... > full article

Robotic surgery -- Robotic surgery is the use of robots in performing surgery. Three major advances aided by surgical robots have been remote surgery, minimally invasive surgery, and unmanned surgery. Major potential ... > full article

Alan Turing -- Alan Mathison Turing (June 23, 1912 - June 7, 1954) was a British mathematician, logician, and cryptographer. Turing is often considered to be a father of modern computer science. Turing provided an ... > full article

Charles Babbage -- Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 - 18 October 1871) was an English mathematician, analytical philosopher, mechanical engineer and (proto-) computer scientist who originated the idea of a ... > full article

John von Neumann -- John von Neumann (December 28, 1903 - February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-German mathematician and polymath who was a pioneer of the modern digital computer and the application of operator theory to ... > full article

Albert Einstein -- Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 to April 18, 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He was the author of the general theory of ... > full article

Robot -- A robot is a mechanical device that can perform physical tasks. A robot may act under the direct control of a human (eg. the robotic arm of the space shuttle) or autonomously under the control of a ... > full article

Quantum dot -- A quantum dot, also called a semiconductor nanocrystal, is a semiconductor crystal whose size is on the order of just a few nanometers. At 10 nanometers in diameter, nearly 3 million quantum dots ... > full article

Quantum tunnelling -- Quantum tunnelling (or tunneling) is the quantum-mechanical effect of transitioning through a classically-forbidden energy state. Consider rolling a ball up a hill. If the ball is not given enough ... > full article