science wire

Completing a game of "Super Mario Brothers" can be hard - very, very hard. That's the conclusion of a new paper from researchers at MIT, the University of Ottawa, and Bard College at Simon's Rock.

Yair N. Minsky, newly named as the Einar Hille Professor of Mathematics, focuses his research on three-dimensional topology, hyperbolic geometry, and Riemann surface theory (Teichmüller theory).

Sharon Sassler, professor of policy analysis and management, gives the keynote speech at the Empowering Women in Science and Engineering Symposium.

Rebecca Doerge, the Trent and Judith Anderson Distinguished Professor of Statistics at Purdue University, has been appointed as the next dean of the Mellon College of Science at Carnegie Mellon University, effective Aug.

Statisticians at the University of Washington have developed the first model for projecting population that factors in the vagaries of migration, a slippery issue that has bedeviled demographers for decades. Their work, this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also provides population projections for all countries worldwide - and challenges the existing predictions for some, particularly the United States and Germany.

The work of Oxford University Professor Sir Andrew Wiles was celebrated as having 'heralded a new era in number theory' as he received the top international prize for mathematics.

When you see that a YouTube video has "16,685 views," take that with a grain of salt. Not all of those views may have been by human beings.

University of Nottingham researchers are part of an international team mapping the mathematical objects behind prime numbers; used to encrypt online bank accounts and protect web security.

A team of more than 80 mathematicians from 12 countries is charting the terrain of rich, new mathematical worlds, and sharing their discoveries on the Web. The mathematical universe is filled with both familiar and exotic items, many of which are being made available for the first time. The " L-functions and Modular Forms Database " abbreviated LMFDB, is an intricate catalog of mathematical objects and the connections between them.

A solution to the greatest unresolved problem in pure mathematics - Riemann's hypothesis - could be coming closer, thanks to a remarkable international collaboration involving mathematicians from the

The survival of the fittest might just be the survival of the steadfast instead. Having a positive attitude could be evolutionarily advantageous, according to Cornell researchers who simulated generations of evolution in a computational model. Their study was published May 4 in PLOS ONE. The findings offer scientific support to the ancient philosophical insights from China, Greece and India, which encourage cultivating long-term contentment or life satisfaction rather than grasping at the fleeting joy of instant gratification, the researchers said.

Acclaimed Carnegie Mellon University statistician Larry Wasserman has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Imperial's Professor Christl Donnelly, a world-leading statistical epidemiologist, has been elected as a new Fellow of the Royal Society.

YaleNews features works recently or soon to be published by members of the University community. Descriptions are based on material provided by the publishers.

Earlier this year scientists presented evidence for Planet Nine, a Neptune-mass planet in an elliptical orbit 10 times farther from our Sun than Pluto. Since then theorists have puzzled over how this planet could end up in such a distant orbit. New research by astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) examines a number of scenarios and finds that most of them have low probabilities.

The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Fifty new Fellows and 10 new Foreign Members have been announced today. The new Oxford Fellows: Professor Steven Balbus is Savilian Professor of Astronomy and Head of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford.

Walter Jackson Freeman III, a neuroscientist and philosopher known for his pioneering work on how the brain generates our perception of the world, died Sunday, April 24, at his home in Berkeley.

ANN ARBOR-As the popularity of electronic cigarettes and calls to regulate them continue to grow, a University of Michigan study may help answer those who wonder what changes might be seen in smoking

Béla Bollobás (Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics) discusses the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan and the influence of his tutor Godfrey Harold Hardy.

Girls are more afraid of mathematics than boys, especially in more developed and gender-equal countries, according to a new worldwide study. A team of psychologists from the University of Glasgow and the Universities of California (Irvine) and Missouri in the USA found girls were more anxious about mathematics in 80% of the countries surveyed.

"Math is not a mechanical thing - it's as creative as writing a novel or painting," says Ravi Ramakrishna '88.

The pace of evolution typically is measured in millions of years, as random mutations accumulate over generations. Researchers at Cornell and Bar-Ilan universities have uncovered a new mechanism for mutation in primates that is rare but rapid, site-specific and aggressive. The novel process is triggered by a member of the APOBEC family of virus-fighting enzymes.

Thirty-eight hundred years ago, on the hot river plains of what is now southern Iraq, a Babylonian student did a bit of schoolwork that changed our understanding of ancient mathematics.

ANN ARBOR-For their distinguished achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment, five University of Michigan professors have received the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships.

Professor Chris Pearce, Professor of Computational Mechanics at the University of Glasgow, has been appointed to the university's new Royal Academy of Engineering / EDF Energy Research Chair in Computational Mechanics for Nuclear Power Engineering.

Australia had no need to change interest rates in April with an absence of major economic news at home and abroad leading to an almost boring consensus on monetary policy, the ANU RBA Shadow Board has found.

Big data that could be used to identify people as likely child abusers or alcoholics should be treated with the utmost caution, according to University of Queensland researcher Dr Philip Gillingham.

Early career researchers from the Faculty of Science and Engineering were part of a select group chosen to present their research at the SET for Britain event which took place in the House of Commons.

In The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom , published in March by the Harvard University Press , Stephen Stigler identifies seven fundamental principles of statistics, a largely interdisciplinary field.

Technology has changed all aspects of our lives, even ancient fields of study in the humanities. The College of Arts and Sciences' fourth Big Ideas Panel, part of its New Century for the Humanities celebration, explored technology in the humanities March 15 in Klarman Hall's Groos Family Atrium.

Professor Sir Andrew Wiles of Oxford University has been awarded the 2016 Abel Prize for mathematics for his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

The game Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) was used to help develop a new analytical e-sports model, which can be used to generate detailed statistics about the players' performances.

Mathematician Roswitha Rissner, physicist Andreas Kautsch and telematics engineer Paul Meissner were awarded Josef Krainer Sponsorship Prizes for their excellent doctoral theses at TU Graz.

Thomas Rogers (UCL Security & Crime Science) has been awarded the Silver medal in engineering for his research poster presented at this year's SET for Britain competition.

A University of Melbourne study of high school subject choices reveals that girls are less likely to choose science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) subjects than boys, despite many girls testing better in these subjects. Women are under-represented in high-paying jobs in engineering and information technology and this trend can be traced to the high school subjects girls choose, according to the report from the University's Melbourne Institute Gendered Selection of STEM Subjects for Matriculation .

Karel Janeček was upset. The latest political scandal in his native Czech Republic had reached an all-time low.

Pregnant women are increasingly choosing to deliver their babies outside of the hospital, with such births rising by 80 percent from 2009 to 2014 despite being associated with higher neonatal and maternal mortality, according to new research from Weill Cornell Medicine. The investigation , published Jan.

You might be co-operative and seen as a model prisoner.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) had no need to move official interest rates in March, with an uncertain global outlook and a modest outlook for Australia's economy, The Australian National University (ANU) RBA Shadow Board has found.

A Lancaster University statistician is working on an international project to develop forensics techniques to help inform criminal courts. Dr David Lucy, of Lancaster's Mathematics and Statistics department, is working with the Netherlands' National Forensics Institute (NFI), to develop a method of working out how likely it is that glass fragments found on suspects came from crime scenes.

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Sailing history is rife with tales of monster-sized rogue waves - huge, towering walls of water that seemingly rise up from nothing to dwarf, then deluge, vessel and crew.