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Blog - The Power Of Plant Clock Computing

A newfound ability to model the complex feedback loops that control plant clocks could have important implications for computing One of the limitations of conventional thinking in computation is that computable functions proceed in a sequential manner, one independent step after another. When computer scientists talk of parallelism, they usually mean carrying out more than one of these independent...


SATURDAY 27. FEBRUARY 2010



FRIDAY 26. FEBRUARY 2010



THURSDAY 25. FEBRUARY 2010


Blog - How to Spot Suspicious VoIP signals

One way to steal data is to embed it in a voice call over the internet. Now network engineers are learning how to spot such attacks ISo-called Voice of Internet Protocol or VoIP makes for cheaper and more convenient calling but it also opens an important issue of security. Various people have described how it might be possible to to hi-jack VoIP signals to send confidential information....


WEDNESDAY 24. FEBRUARY 2010


Blog - An Undiscovered Link Between Sensory Perception and Shannon's Theory of Information

The mathematics that describe both sensory perception and the transmission of information turn out to have remarkable similarities In 1834, the German physiologist Ernst Weber (pictured above) carried out a series of experiments to determine the limits of sensory perception. He gave a blindfolded man a mass to hold and gradually increased its weight, asking the subject to indicate when he first...


TUESDAY 23. FEBRUARY 2010


Blog - A Step Towards Solving The Mobile Router Conundrum

A new mathematical model shows how the changing web of links between mobile phones could one day form an autonomous network One of the features of cellphone networks is that the nodes that distribute information are stationary, even though the phones themselves are not. These kinds of networks have been widely studied and do a good job of distributing voice and data in areas where the...

The Gender Equation

MIT economists probe the influence schools have on girls' math performance A few years ago, economics professor Glenn Ellison, PhD '92, started coaching the math team at his daughters' middle school near Boston. The all-girls squad consisted of his oldest daughter and her friends, and they made a run to the state finals. But Ellison noticed something striking. "We would go to math...


MONDAY 22. FEBRUARY 2010


Blog - A Frightening New Law of Hurricane Formation

A new mathematical model of hurricane formation finally solves one of the outstanding puzzles of climate change but also predicts dramatic increases in the number of storms as the world warms What factors determine how hurricanes form? Meteorologists have long known that two factors play crucial roles. First, the temperature of the sea determines the updraft of air that leads to a storm. Second,...


SATURDAY 20. FEBRUARY 2010



FRIDAY 19. FEBRUARY 2010


Blog - German Solar Industry Could Soon Collapse

What could that mean for attempts to grow solar manufacturing in the United States? Because of its generous incentives program, Germany, a country that gets about as much sun as the darkest parts of the United States, has become the largest market for solar power in the world. That in turn has helped create a thriving solar manufacturing industry in the country. Because of its success, the...


THURSDAY 18. FEBRUARY 2010



WEDNESDAY 17. FEBRUARY 2010


Blog - Scientist discovers PageRank-type algorithm from the 1940s

The PageRank algorithm behind Google's success was developed in 1998. But a project to trace the history of ranking algorithms has revealed an example developed in the 1940s The PageRank algorithm is a key part of Google's method of ranking web pages in search results. It uses the network of links between web pages to determine their value and, famously, judges a page to be important...


TUESDAY 16. FEBRUARY 2010



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FRIDAY 12. FEBRUARY 2010


Blog - The Uncredited Discoverer of Cosmic Rays

The Austrian physicist Victor Hess received the Nobel Prize for the discovery cosmic rays but a new translation of the work of an obscure Italian scientist indicates that he wasn't alone in this discovery. The history of science is littered with injustices and today Alessandro De Angelis at the University of Udine in Italy outlines another associated with the discovery of cosmic rays ....