science wire

Over the next several decades, the population of the world's cities will nearly double, increasing by 2.6 billion people.

Hurricanes. Floods. Ash dieback. Not to mention earthquakes, tsunami and bird flu. Hardly a day goes past without a natural hazard hitting the media. But why do the scientists sometimes get it wrong?  And why can it be so hard to understand what they are saying to us? Will there be an earthquake or won't there? On 17 December 2012, the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences will host an event, The Mathematics of Extreme Climatic Events , to mark the UK launch of the worldwide initiative Mathematics for Planet Earth 2013 .

03 Dec 2012 To round off a year of international events marking the centenary of Alan Turing, The University of Manchester's fiendish Cryptography Competition is going nationwide.

Ari Laptev (Mathematics) talks about his lifelong passion for mathematics and the fascinating story that led him to Imperial.

The visual cortex in the human brain interprets visual input. A computer scientist from the University of Innsbruck has managed to simulate the workings of the visual cortex with high accuracy in a computational model. Photo: Die Verarbeitung optischer Signale im visuellen Cortex hat ein Innsbrucker Wissenschaftler als Modell nachgebaut.

Computation is now an essential tool for researchers, as data analytics and complex simulations fuel ambitious new studies in the sciences and humanities. But the path from a spreadsheet on a laptop to using the world's most powerful supercomputers can be intimidating for researchers unfamiliar with computational methods.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Whether bloggers are writing to change the world, or just discussing a bad break-up, they may get an extra boost of motivation from traffic-measuring and interactive tools that help them feel more connected to and more influential in their communities, according to researchers. In a series of studies, female bloggers showed that they enjoyed blogging because it made them feel empowered and part of a community, said Carmen Stavrositu, who recently completed doctoral work in mass at Penn State.

A University of Warwick physicist is still applying his grey matter to some of the biggest unsolved questions of the universe as he turns 80 years old.

Interactive Hubble Tuning Fork Galaxies come in all shapes and sizes: from those with compact fuzzy bulges or central bars to galaxies with winding spiral arms.

By Pristine Ong 19 November 2012 Sydney mathematician Nalini Joshi spends her day working through equations on a chalkboard.

Supercomputer simulations have revealed that a type of oddly dim, exploding star is probably a class of duds—one that could nonetheless throw new light on the mysterious nature of dark energy. Most of the thousands of exploding stars classified as type Ia supernovae look similar, which is why astrophysicists use them as accurate cosmic distance indicators.

Stanford Report, November 16, 2012 Instead of reflecting on the unlikelihood of rare catastrophes after the fact, Stanford risk analysis expert Elisabeth Paté-Cornell prescribes an engineering approach to anticipate them when possible, and to manage them when not.

We know that earlier stage diagnosis of cancer is important - it dramatically improves the effectiveness of treatment and survival for many cancers." —lead author Georgios Lyratzopoulos There are substantial inequalities in the stage at which cancer patients receive their diagnosis - a critical factor for cancer survival - a new study by the University of Cambridge reveals.

A new approach to processing 'big data' creates succinct representations of huge data sets, so that existing algorithms can handle them efficiently. In computer science, the buzzword of the day is " big data." The proliferation of cheap, Internet-connected sensors - such as the GPS receivers, accelerometers and cameras in smartphones - has meant an explosion of information whose potential uses have barely begun to be explored.

The National Computational Infrastructure's new Fujitsu Primergy Supercomputer has debuted at number one in Australia, and number 24 in the world on the TOP500 list of best supercomputers, released overnight.

How computational scientists are rethinking U.S. elections-and making e-commerce smarter By Caroline Perry Postdoctoral researcher Lirong Xia uses computational science and insights from election theory to improve ranking systems and preference aggregation across the Web.

A new algorithm predicts which Twitter topics will trend hours in advance and offers a new technique for analyzing data that fluctuate over time.

Two giant advertising billboard signs have been given over to exhibit a piece of art based on a vital, but little known physics equation.

Ideas often came to Poincaré in a flash of inspiration.

—Professor David Spiegelhalter It's a test to see if anyone in the room is more talented at predictions than Paul the Psychic Octopus.

Cambridge, MA - Most big galaxies fit into one of two camps: pinwheel-shaped spiral galaxies and blobby elliptical galaxies. Spirals like the Milky Way are hip and happening places, with plenty of gas and dust to birth new stars. Ellipticals are like cosmic retirement villages, full of aging residents in the form of red giant stars.

The figure above is of the weather-in-a-tank apparatus, which Tiffany Shaw (pictured at right) uses to demonstrate atmospheric phenomena such as fronts, convection, the general circulation of the atmosphere, flow over a barrier and the flow in a hurricane. In the experiment illustrated here, Shaw has combined the two main ingredients that control the general circulation of the atmosphere, namely Earth's rotation and differential heating (warm equator, cold pole).

Four University of Warwick scientists have been selected for a prestigious scheme which aims to nurture the next generation of scientific leaders.

New Head of Mathematical and Physical Sciences appointed The University has appointed a new Head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS).

An Oxford University mathematician will give Her Majesty The Queen an unusual Diamond Jubilee gift: her very own piece of mathematical infinite dimensional hyperspace.

Mathematicians are helping to build a better picture of how populations develop immunity to flu and which groups are most at risk of getting - and transmitting - infection each year.

Mathematicians have developed a powerful tool to quantify the spread and infectiousness of viruses like the pandemic H1N1 flu strain, which can be used together with modern laboratory techniques to help the healthcare system plan its response to disease outbreaks. By putting statistical data under the microscope, University of Warwick researchers have created a model to predict the impact of future pandemics in real-time as they strike.

Computer-generated images can be a little more realistic - and a lot cheaper to make - with a rendering program created by a Cornell graduate student.

A mathematical model reveals commonality within the diversity of leaf decay. The colorful leaves piling up in your backyard this fall can be thought of as natural stores of carbon. In the springtime, leaves soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, converting the gas into organic carbon compounds.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Large amounts of missing data in clinical trials can undermine the scientific credibility of the studies, according to a special report by an expert panel commissioned by the National Research Council.

Yale computer scientist Daniel A. Spielman has been named a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, an honor popularly known as the "genius" grant.

With NSF grant, researchers will enhance technologies and policies to protect personal data used in research studies : Michael Patrick Rutter , (617) 496-3815 The real-time data of cyberspace, detail

Pupils' maths performance similar to 1970s despite sharp rise in examination grades Rising scores in secondary maths examinations in England over the past 30 years do not appear to stem from real inc

Sometime in the next year and a half, a glowing interstellar blob—possibly a star or a young solar system—will pass perilously close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Venkat Chandrasekaran, an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences, arrived at Caltech in early September.

: Carnegie Mellon Voice Verification Technology Prevents Impersonators From Obtaining Voiceprints-Carnegie Mellon News - Carnegie Mellon University Smartphone-based System Converts Speech Input Into

Connections in networks optimize trade-offs between popularity and similarity. New nodes in growing networks tend to connect not only to popular existing nodes, but also to similar nodes that may be not so popular. Courtesy of Justin Cheng, Bradley Huffaker , and Dmitri Krioukov, CAIDA and San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego .

] This image is from a video showing the ground motions of a simulated Magnitude 8.0 earthquake along the San Andreas Fault through some densely populated areas.

Over the past several years, major advances have been made at UCLA in the field of lens-less computational imaging technology, particularly in the design of lens-free holographic microscopes, which,

A new system that automatically streamlines database access patterns can make large Web applications up to three times as fast.

The true statistics for net migration could be 35,000 higher or lower than official estimates, Oxford University's Migration Observatory has said after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the provisional estimate for net migration in 2011 today (30 August).

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (08/30/2012) —As the global population moves toward 9 billion, the need to find sustainable ways to support the human race grows more urgent.

A thought-provoking extravaganza marking the beginning of the Paralympic Games was kicked off yesterday by Professor Stephen Hawking (pictured here at the Technical Rehearsal).

Ian Foster will serve a third term as director of the Computation Institute , continuing his mission to advance the study and application of computation across the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, University officials announced.