science wire

In a discovery that could help instructors better teach deaf children, a team of University of Chicago researchers has found that a gesture-sign mismatch made while explaining a math problem suggests that a deaf child is experiencing a teachable moment.

Patients who have had metal-on-metal hip replacements are no more likely to develop cancer in the first seven years after surgery than the general population, although a longer-term study is required, a study led by the University of Bristol and published on bmj.com claims. A recent BMJ and BBC Newsnight investigation looked into the potentially high level of toxic metals from failing hip implants which may, in future, affect thousands of people around the world.

The latest statistics from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) show that scholars at the University of Wisconsin-Madison continue to be among the nation's most successful at securing support for their research.

At the heart of digital photography is a chip called an image sensor that captures a map of the intensity of the light as it comes through the lens and converts it to an electronic signal.

The Bitcoin online currency system has an inherent weakness that may become a problem as the system grows, according to a team of Cornell and Microsoft Research computer scientists. A feature intended to encourage participation and speed processing is actually a disincentive, they say, adding that the same weakness is turning up in other online incentive systems.

Inspired by a toy, the collapsible buckliball represents a new class of 3D, origami-like structures Playing with an expanding and collapsing toy (top row), researchers at Harvard and MIT were inspired to design a new type of folding structure. The result is a one-piece silicone sphere, dubbed a "buckliball" for its pressure-induced buckling behavior (bottom row).

Inspired by a toy, the 'buckliball' - a collapsible structure fabricated from a single piece of material - represents a new class of 3-D, origami-like structures.

A new imaging system could use opaque walls, doors or floors as 'mirrors' to gather information about scenes outside its line of sight. In December, MIT Media Lab researchers caused a stir by releasing a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a plastic bottle. But the experimental setup that enabled that video was designed for a much different application: a camera that can see around corners.

Twelve outstanding faculty members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been named winners of this year's Kellett Mid-Career Awards.

UCL Centre for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning (CSML) and the Institute of Statistical Mathematics (ISM) in Tokyo have signed an agreement to work together to develop the field of statistical machine learning.

Mathematical methods help predict movement of oil and ash following environmental disasters When oil started gushing into the Gulf of Mexico in late April 2010, friends asked George Haller whether he was tracking its movement. That's because the McGill engineering professor has been working for years on ways to better understand patterns in the seemingly chaotic motion of oceans and air.

People often wonder if computers make children smarter. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are asking the reverse question: Can children make computers smarter? And the answer appears to be 'yes.' UC Berkeley researchers are tapping the cognitive smarts of babies, toddlers and preschoolers to program computers to think more like humans.

Sculpture honouring work of world renowned Durham maths professor to be unveiled The work of a former Durham University mathematician whose ideas are studied across the world will be commemorated with the unveiling of a new sculpture on Wednesday (March 14).

New methods and software developed at MIT can predict optimal paths for automated underwater vehicles.

There is considerable doubt the Reserve Bank has got its current economic settings right and it should consider cutting interest rates by at least 25 basis points, according to the Shadow Reserve Bank (Shadow RBA) board.

A padlocked icon in a web-browser or a URL starting with https provides communication security over the Internet.

Computational sprinting is a groundbreaking new approach to smartphone power and cooling that could give users dramatic, brief bursts of computing capability to improve current applications and make new ones possible.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Computational sprinting is a groundbreaking new approach to smartphone power and cooling that could give users dramatic, brief bursts of computing capability to improve current applications and make new ones possible.

It doesn't happen often, but structures like bridges, airplanes and buildings do fail, sometimes catastrophically.

This year a series of events around the world will celebrate the work of Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer, as the 100th anniversary of his birthday approaches on June 23.

This year a series of events around the world will celebrate the work of Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer, as the 100th anniversary of his birthday approaches on June 23.

For 50 years, scientists searched for the secret to making tiny implantable devices that could travel through the bloodstream.

Six outstanding young profssors from UCLA are among 126 scientists and scholars from 51 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada to receive 2012 Sloan Research Fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Fifth ATV named after Georges Lemaître PR 3 2012 - ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) are an essential contribution by Europe to running the International Space Station.

Children who play with puzzles between ages 2 and 4 later develop better spatial skills, a study by University of Chicago researchers has found. Puzzle play was found to be a significant predictor of spatial skill after controlling for differences in parents' income, education and the overall amount of parent language input.

What we perceive as the beating of our heart is actually the co-ordinated action of more than a billion muscle cells. Most of the time, only the muscle cells from the larger heart chambers contract and relax. But when the heart needs to work harder it relies on back-up from the atrial muscle cells deep within the smaller chambers (atria) of the heart.

Students develop hurricane response plans on Cambridge roads, gaining practical experience in computational science Debris lingered just outside New Orleans in July 2006-almost a full year after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region.

Projects will advance both basic science and applications, and accelerate development of exascale computing systems Seven Harvard-affiliated researchers will receive grants to support collaborative projects in high-performance computing.

While only 20 per cent of Canada's police forces have an explicit policy against reporting the race of victims and accused persons, criminologists from the University of Toronto and Nipissing show that the majority of police departments do not report race in practice.

The HIV virion is the virus particle that spreads the deadly AIDS infection from cell to cell. "On the molecular scale it's a huge object that probably involves a billion total atoms.

The University of Manchester is heading up a large interdisciplinary network focusing on numerical algorithms and high performance computing.

A challenge for students and teachers - and today, for designers of educational software: How often should material be reviewed for best learning? Wait too long to review and it fades away; review too soon and the effort is wasted.

Two internationally renowned UCLA professors — Andrea Ghez, a professor of physics and astronomy, and Terence Tao, a professor of mathematics — have been awarded the Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The prize, which recognizes extraordinary achievements in mathematics, astronomy and other fields, is among the most prestigious honors in science.

Scientists from the University of Birmingham and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay are working together to develop new ways of treating bladder overactivity, a problem which affects millions of people worldwide. The joint research focuses on understanding the electrical activity in the bladder and how this goes wrong and causes urinary incontinence.

Although around two thirds of us would prefer to die at home, in the developed world the trend in recent years has been for the majority to spend their final days in an institutional setting, such as a hospital or hospice.

For a large range of practically useful cases, MIT researchers find a way to increase the speed of one of the most important algorithms in the information sciences. The Fourier transform is one of the most fundamental concepts in the information sciences. It's a method for representing an irregular signal - such as the voltage fluctuations in the wire that connects an MP3 player to a loudspeaker - as a combination of pure frequencies.

EPFL mathematicians have shown that the risk of extreme climate events is largely underestimated. They are developing a model for better understanding the impact of climate change.

Heping Zhang, recently appointed as the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health, specializes in research on substance use, statistical methods in genetic studies of substance use, and research training in mental health epidemiology. Zhang, who received his Ph.D. from Stanford University, has developed statistical methods and software to analyze data related to a broad range of health outcomes including pregnancy outcome, mental health, and substance use.

Microdrop Printing of Hydrogel Bioinks into 3D Tissue-Like Geometries.

The Cornell Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) has received a High-Performance Computing Innovation Excellence Award from the International Data Corp.

In the movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows the sleuth's arch-enemy has a new weapon: mathematics supplied by a team from Oxford University.

Professor Stephen Hawking will look back on his life at an event to celebrate his 70th birthday this weekend in Cambridge.

Scale-invariant features and novel descriptors for omnidirectional images accepted for publications in IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. Scale Invariant Features and Polar Descriptors in Omnidirectional Images Zafer Arican and Pascal Frossard We propose a method to compute scale invariant features in omnidirectional images.

Most people remember listening to the official UK top 40 singles chart and watching the countdown on Top of the Pops, but can science work out which songs are more likely to 'make it' in the chart? New research has looked at whether a song can be predicted to be a 'hit'. The paper, to be presented at an international workshop this week, argues that predicting the popularity of a song may well be feasible by using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms.