science wire

The Cambridge papers of Sir Isaac Newton, including early drafts and Newton's annotated copies of Principia Mathematica - a work that changed the history of science - have been added to UNESCO's International Memory of the World Register. Newton's papers are among the world's most important collections in the western scientific tradition and are one of the Library's most treasured collections.

In his junior year of high school, Ryan Williams transferred from the public school in his hometown of Florette, Alabama - "essentially a courthouse and a couple gas stations," as he describes it - to the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile. Although he had been writing computer programs since age 7 - often without the benefit of a computer to run them on - Williams had never taken a computer science class.

A drop or two of cold cream in hot coffee can go a long way toward improving one's morning. But what if the two liquids didn't mix? MIT scientists have now explained why under certain conditions a droplet of liquid should not coalesce with the liquid surface below. If the droplet is very cold, and the bath sufficiently hot, then the droplet should "levitate" on the bath's surface, as a result of the flows induced by the temperature difference.

As the city of Houston continues to recover and rebuild following the historic flooding unleashed by Hurricane Harvey, the region will also have to prepare for a future in which storms of Harvey's magnitude are more likely to occur.

Method should help scientists understand regulation of gene expression Computational biologists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a more accurate computational method for reconstructing th

Research news Germany's secondary school students hardly improve at all in the tenth grade when it comes to applying mathematics, natural sciences and reading in everyday life according to a new study, "PISA Plus".

Australia's official interest rates should remain on hold in November but future rate rises are looking more likely with a strengthening global economy and a favourable outlook for domestic employment, ANU RBA Shadow Board has found.

The Oxford Internet Institute's Project on Computational Propaganda sheds light on the use of 'fake news' to manipulate public opinion.

We live in the age of big data, but most of that data is "sparse." Imagine, for instance, a massive table that mapped all of Amazon's customers against all of its products, with a "1" for each product a given customer bought and a "0" otherwise.

Prof. Emeritus David L. Wallace, a statistician who co-authored a book that revealed the answer to one of American history's most enduring questions, died on Oct.

Prof. Emeritus David L. Wallace, a statistician who co-authored a book that revealed the answer to one of American history's most enduring questions, died on Oct.

A team of scientists have found a new way to transform ambient heat into motion in nanoscale devices - a discovery which could open up new possibilities for data storage, sensors, nanomotors and other applications in the ever-shrinking world of electronics.

Imperial researchers are part of a team testing a 3D printed footbridge due to be installed across a canal in Amsterdam in 2018.

Hundreds of people gathered at Cemex Auditorium on Saturday to honor mathematics Professor Maryam Mirzakhani, the first and to-date only female winner of the Fields Medal, who died in July.

With applications in devices such as lasers and solar panels, or as alternatives to the curved lenses in powerful microscopes or telescopes, metasurfaces - flat optical chips - offer unparalleled control of light.

When we think about digital information, we often think about size. A daily email newsletter, for example, maybe 75 to 100 kilobytes in size. But data also has dimensions, based on the numbers of variables in a piece of data. An email, for example, can be viewed as a high-dimensional vector where there's one coordinate for each word in the dictionary and the value in that coordinate is the number of times that word is used in the email.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Mass killings may have increasing news coverage, but the events themselves have happened at a steady rate for more than a decade, according to a new study by University of Illinois researchers.

The Addition Reflects Its Eminent Position in Data Science Research, Education Carnegie Mellon University has changed the name of its Department of Statistics to the Department of Statistics & Data Science.

Nature has a way of making complex shapes from a set of simple growth rules. The curve of a petal, the swoop of a branch, even the contours of our face are shaped by these processes. What if we could unlock those rules and reverse engineer nature's ability to grow an infinitely diverse array of shapes? Scientists from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have done just that.

A mathematician and statistician, Emmanuel Candès developed algorithms that significantly speed the process of generating high-resolution images for medicine and intelligence gathering.

The albatross is one of the most efficient travelers in the animal world. One species, the wandering albatross, can fly nearly 500 miles in a single day, with just an occasional flap of its wings. The birds use their formidable wingspans, measuring up to 11 feet across, to catch and ride the wind. Observers have noted for centuries that these feathered giants keep themselves aloft for hours, just above the ocean surface, by soaring and diving between contrasting currents of air, as if riding a sidewinding rollercoaster - a flight pattern known as dynamic soaring.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers at the University of Illinois are working to turn a complex materials design problem into an intuitive concept, understandable to engineers from novice to advanced experience levels. The group developed guidelines to help understand materials engineered to become thicker when stretched.

Back in 2004, two years before LIGO began operating at design sensitivity and 13 years before the project received the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics , programming tools developed at the U.S&peri

Researchers have modelled the actions of electrons under extreme temperatures and densities, such as those found within planets and stars. The work could provide insights into the behaviour of matter in fusion experiments, which may one day lead to a sought-after source of clean energy. Electrons are an elementary component of our world and determine many of the properties of solids and liquids.

Professor Martin Hairer, who won one of maths' top prizes in 2014, brings his research group to Imperial.

New research has shown that an exotic kind of magnetic behavior discovered just a few years ago holds great promise as a way of storing data - one that could overcome fundamental limits that might otherwise be signaling the end of "Moore's Law," which describes the ongoing improvements in computation and data storage over recent decades.

Australia's official interest rates should remain on hold in October despite encouraging economic growth figures for the second quarter and a rise in full-time employment, The Australian National University (ANU) RBA Shadow Board has found.

Nine research projects asked to submit full proposals as part of the German government's Excellence Strategy.

Donald Burton, Stephen Doorn, Manvendra Dubey and Turab Lookman named 2017 Laboratory Fellows. "Each of these scientists has demonstrated sustained high-level achievement in programs of importance to the Laboratory and are recognized authorities in their fields.

A Cardiff University mathematician has thrown new light on the longstanding mystery of how zebrafish develop the distinctive striped patterns on their skin.

A new app gives UK residents the chance to get involved in an ambitious, ground-breaking science experiment that could save lives.

Computer scientists at the University of Nottingham and Kingston University have solved a complex problem that has, until now, defeated experts in vision and graphics research.

Many extreme events - from a rogue wave that rises up from calm waters, to an  instability inside a gas turbine, to the sudden extinction of a previously hardy wildlife species - seem to occur without warning.

Professor Donal Bradley, head of the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division at Oxford and Professor Qing Liu, the President of the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute (JITRI), celebrate Oxford University's new partnership with JITRI.

In the past 540 million years, the Earth has endured five mass extinction events, each involving processes that upended the normal cycling of carbon through the atmosphere and oceans.

As the sophisticated use of digital information transforms business and daily life, an innovative approach to data science across academic fields is fueling a popularity boom at Carnegie Mellon Unive

Research news Emil J. Gumbel's formulas are fundamental for extreme value theory. This statistical discipline describes extreme incidents, such as floods or storms.

In the centenary year of the publication of a seminal treatise on the physical and mathematical principles underpinning nature - On Growth and Form  by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson - a Cambridge physicist has led a study describing an elegantly simple solution to a puzzle that has taxed biologists for centuries: how complex branching patterns of tissues arise.

The concept and associated value of the mathematical symbol 'zero' is used the world over as a fundamental numerical pillar. However, its origin has until now been one of the field's greatest conundrums. Scientists from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries, have used carbon dating to trace the figure's origins to the famous ancient Indian scroll, the Bakhshali manuscript.

Within the framework of the 19th Congress of the Austrian Mathematical Society and the anniversary of the German Mathematic Association (ÖMG-DMV-Congress 11 - 15 September), approximately 450 mathema

During this congress, 450 international participants will meet from 11 to 15 September at the University of Salzburg Faculty of Natural Sciences to discuss research and teaching, to hold workshops and to participate in lectures by well-known colleagues.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill.