news 2013

A research project studying the biology of plants has shed new light on the mechanisms that control the placement and arrangement of leaves. The new insights revealed by the study could help to inform the way in which we select and grow different varieties of crops in the future. Co-author of the study Dr Etienne Farcot , at The University of Nottingham, said: "With a world population of seven billion and growing, ensuring global food security is one of the major challenges of modern society.

A unique international study has found that the grammatical structures of language can influence children's early understanding of numbers. The joint research between the University of California at San Diego, UCL, King Saud University, University of Nova Gorica and Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked at the importance of language in the development of young children's understanding of numbers in Saudi Arabia, Slovenia and United States.

In the children's game "Jenga", removing the wrong block from a tower of wooden blocks can cause the entire tower to collapse. In the same way, removing certain species from an ecosystem can cause a collapse in ecological function. A common scientific question has been to identify these critical species in different ecosystems and an international research team has developed mathematical tools that can estimate which species are most influential in a food web.

New research has found traffic jams and accidents could be reduced by controlling the reaction times of robotic cars. The study, led by Dr Róbert Szalai at the University of Bristol, is published in Physical Review E . The researchers have developed a mathematical technique that allows the calculation as to whether there is a chance a traffic jam will happen from a uniform flow of traffic.

Current chip technology used for purchasing items via credit and debit cards in shops was developed in the mid-1990s. EMVCo, the standard body which manages, maintains and advances EMV Specifications, is in the process of designing the next generation payment technology to meet long-term industry requirements.

New theories emerge from more complicated microscopic theories; for example, the behavior of superconductors depends only on a few properties of the metals they are made of. The idea that only a few combinations of microscopic details combine into emergent properties is shared with "sloppy" models in other fields.

Scientists identify a mathematical 'crystal ball' that may predict calamities Neuroscientists have come up with a mathematical equation that may help predict calamities such as financial crashes in economic systems and epileptic seizures in the brain. The University of Sussex-led study, published this week (24 October 2013) in Physics Review Letters , could have far-reaching implications.

A quantum computer can solve tasks where a classical computer fails. The question how one can, nevertheless, verify the reliability of a quantum computer was recently answered in an experiment at the University of Vienna. The conclusions are published in the reputed scientific. The harnessing of quantum phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, holds great promise for constructing future supercomputers using quantum technology.

Travelling in flocks may make individual birds feel secure but it raises the question of who decides which route the group should take. Mathematical models developed by scientists suggest that a simple set of rules can help flocks, swarms, and herds reach a collective decision about where to go. But investigating how this really works, especially with animal groups in flight, is extremely challenging.

A new version of 'zero-knowledge proofs' allows cloud customers to verify the proper execution of their software with a single packet of data. For small and midsize organizations, the outsourcing of demanding computational tasks to the cloud - huge banks of computers accessible over the Internet - can be much more cost-effective than buying their own hardware.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (09/04/2013) —Students in 2nd and 3rd grade who have whole number misconceptions - such as claiming 23 is the largest two-digit number when the correct answer is 99 - are more likely to make uncommon computational errors as late as the 8 th grade. This is the result of a longitudinal study, published recently in the journal Frontiers in Psychology , led by Michele Mazzocco, University of Minnesota professor and research director for the U's Center for Early Education and Development.

For the first time, a team of scientists and archaeologists has been able to set a robust timeline for the first eight dynastic rulers of Egypt. Until now there have been no verifiable chronological records for this period or the process leading up to the formation of the Egyptian state. The chronology of Early Egypt between 4500 and 2800 BC has been reset by building mathematical models that combine new radiocarbon dates with established archaeological evidence.

In the age of the Internet, it's getting harder and harder to keep secrets. When you type in your password, there's no telling who might be watching it go by. New research at Cornell may offer a pathway to more secure. The answer is to not send sensitive information at all. Rafael Pass, associate professor of computer science, has developed a new protocol, or set of rules, to create what computer scientists call a "zero knowledge proof." "I think zero knowledge proofs are one of the most amazing notions in computer science," Pass said.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Temperature-driven changes alter outbreak patterns of tea tortrix - an insect pest - and may shed light on how temperature influences whether insects emerge as cohesive cohorts or continuously, according to an international team of researchers. These findings have implications for both pest control and how climate change may alter infestations.

Turbulence is all around us-in the patterns that natural gas makes as it swirls through a transcontinental pipeline or in the drag that occurs as a plane soars through the sky. Reducing such turbulence on say, an airplane wing, would cut down on the amount of power the plane has to put out just to get through the air, thereby saving fuel.

The T2K experiment, which the University is a key partner in, has announced the definitive observation of muon neutrino to electron neutrino transformation. In 2011, the collaboration announced the first indication of this process, a new type of neutrino oscillation. Now, with 3.5 times more data this transformation is firmly established.

MIT researchers discover a new phenomenon that could lead to new types of lasers and sensors. There are several ways to "trap" a beam of light - usually with mirrors, other reflective surfaces, or high-tech materials such as photonic crystals. But now researchers at MIT have discovered a new method to trap light that could find a wide variety of applications.

Smokefree laws and higher tobacco taxes in India could prevent nine million heart disease and stroke deaths over the next decade, a new study says. The findings suggest that these tobacco control strategies would be substantially more effective than pharmacological interventions for reducing deaths from cardiovascular disease.

PA 220/13 New research by academics at The University of Nottingham has shown that exposure to a neonicotinoid insecticide causes changes to the genes of the honeybee. The study, published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE , supports the recent decision taken by the European Commission to temporarily ban three neonicotinoids amid concerns that they could be linked to bee deaths.

Systems such as a beating heart or a power grid that depend on the synchronized movement of their parts could fall prey to an invisible and chaotic tug-of-war known as a "chimera." Sharing its name with the fire-breathing, zoologically patchy creature of Greek mythology, a chimera state arises among identical, rhythmically moving components — known as oscillators — when a few of those parts spontaneously fall out of sync while the rest remain synchronized.