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ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Oh, the challenges of being a neuron, responsible for essential things like muscle contraction, gland secretion and sensitivity to touch, sound and light, yet constantly bombarded with signals from here, there and everywhere. How on earth are busy nerve cells supposed to pick out and respond to relevant signals amidst all that information overload' Somehow neurons do manage to accomplish the daunting task, and they do it with more finesse than anyone ever realized, new research by University of Michigan mathematician Daniel Forger and coauthors demonstrates.

— Coral Gables — University of Miami physicist Neil Johnson and his collaborators have developed a simple mathematical model that can estimate the progression of fatal terrorist and insurgency attacks around the world. The report unveils a new mathematical model that utilizes the time interval between the first couple of attacks in order to forecast the evolution of the conflict.

New research establishes the relationship between the number of squares in a Rubik?s-cube-type puzzle and the maximum number of moves required to solve it. Last August, 30 years after the Rubik's cube first appeared, an international team of researchers proved that no matter how scrambled a cube got, it could be solved in no more than 20 moves.

by Gale Scott Whether packing oranges into a crate, fitting molecules into a human cell or getting data onto a compact disc, wasted space is usually not a good thing. Now, in findings published June 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences, Princeton University chemist Salvatore Torquato and colleagues have solved a conundrum that has baffled mathematical minds since ancient times - how to fill three-dimensional space with multi-sided objects other than cubes without having any gaps.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. If you flip a light switch and nothing happens, there are a couple of possible explanations. One is that something has gone wrong in the external world - maybe the bulb has burned out. Alternatively, you may have made a mistake, perhaps flipping the wrong switch. Learning to make the distinction between our own influence and the impact of the outside world is a critical part of cognitive development.

New research from the University of Warwick and the IZA Institute in Bonn shows that 10% of middle-aged Europeans took antidepressants in 2010. The researchers looked in detail at the lives of a randomly selected sample of nearly 30,000 Europeans. The study covered 27 countries. Andrew Oswald, an economics professor at the University of Warwick, and co-author of the study, described the results as concerning, he said: "Antidepressants are a relatively new kind of commodity.

Preschool children seem to grasp the true concept of counting only if they are taught to understand the number value of groups of objects greater than three, research at the University of Chicago shows. "We think that seeing that there are three objects doesn't have to involve counting. It's only when children go beyond three that counting is necessary to determine how many objects there are," said Elizabeth Gunderson, a UChicago graduate student in psychology.

by Simon Levey 10 June 2011 A recent ranking of university mathematics departments has listed Imperial College London as having the most influential mathematics research of any institution in Europe. Academic publishers Thomson-Reuters created the new chart by establishing how much the research findings of scientists in the world's top 200 institutions influenced research by others outside of that institution.

Findings could aid in the development of better technologies for hydraulic fracturing and other fluid extraction techniques from the earth PASADENA, Calif.—When geologists survey an area of land for the potential that gas or petroleum deposits could exist there, they must take into account the composition of rocks that lie below the surface.

New research into drag reduction has the potential to help industries such shipping to reduce energy use and carbon emissions. Professor Derek Chan from the University of Melbourne's Department of Mathematics and Statistics said the research demonstrates a new way to minimise drag of fast moving projectiles in water.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Over the past two decades, scientists have shown that babies only a few months old have a solid grasp on basic rules of the physical world. They understand that objects can't wink in and out of existence, and that objects can't 'teleport' from one spot to another. Now, an international team of researchers co-led by MIT's Josh Tenenbaum has found that infants can use that knowledge to form surprisingly sophisticated expectations of how novel situations will unfold.

A new way of examining networks is revealing how different areas of the brain team up to help people learn. Researchers collected brain imaging data from people performing a motor task, and then analysed this data using new computational techniques. They found evidence that the 'flexibility' of a person's brain - how much different areas of the brain link up in different combinations; essentially 'swapping partners' - can be used to predict how fast someone will learn.

Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) have developed a method to steer waves on precisely defined trajectories, without any loss. This way, sound waves could be sent directly to a target, avoiding possible eavesdroppers. Tossing a ball to someone without anyone else being able to catch it is simple.

University Park, Pa. Optimism about studies that show a drop in the black percentage of crime may be dampened by demographic trends and statistical aberrations, according to a group of criminologists. The rise in the U.S. Hispanic population and the sharp jump in black violent crime during the late 1980s and early 1990s may skew statistics from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Survey that appear to show a recent drop in black violence, said Darrell Steffensmeier, professor, sociology, and crime, law and justice, Penn State.

You might think it's hard to have a conversation with theoretical physicist Brian Greene. His research specialty is superstring theory, the hypothesis that everything in the universe is made up of miniscule, vibrating strands of energy. Luckily for an interviewer, Greene has a knack for explaining difficult concepts to non-scientists.

New light has been shed on the 150-year-old math puzzle known as the Riemann hypothesis, say mathematical physicists at the University of Sydney. The Riemann hypothesis relates to the location of the zeros of a one-dimensional sum, which is known as the Riemann zeta function. Along with suitable generalisations, it is considered by some mathematicians to be the most prominent challenge in pure mathematics.

A new study into the exclusion tactics adopted by urban foxes suggests that the transient nature of animal territory is a result of a complex system of individual-level interactions. The size of an animal's territory is ultimately dependent on how long it can exert its control before intruders cross the boundaries into its space.

The structures inside animals' thigh bones that enable them to support huge loads whilst being relatively lightweight are revealed in research published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The researchers say their work could lead to the development of new materials based on thigh bone geometry.

From the Asian elephant to the roadrunner: study of 90 animals? thigh bones reveals how they can efficiently carry loads Study suggests new materials could be developed that are inspired by geometry inside thigh bones The structures inside animals' thigh bones that enable them to support huge loads whilst being relatively lightweight are revealed in research published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The researchers say their work could lead to the development of new materials based on thigh bone geometry.