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Magazine
In the Sept. 30 SN: Smog's health woes, secrets of the bat brain, slug slime inspires surgical glue, wild beer, Neandertal tar recipes, the sun's recent flare-ups and more.
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The –est
The incredible shrinking transistor just got smaller
07/19/2017 - 07:00 Technology, ComputingCarbon nanotubes may be the key to shrinking down transistors and squeezing more computer power into less space.
Historically, the number of transistors that can be crammed onto a computer chip has doubled every two years or so, a trend known as Moore’s law. But that rule seems to be nearing its limit: Today's silicon transistors can’t get much smaller than they already are.
Carbon...
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Essay
A quarter century ago, the qubit was born
07/05/2017 - 11:00 Quantum Physics, ComputingJohn Archibald Wheeler was fond of clever phrases.
He made the term “black hole” famous in the 1960s. He also coined the now-familiar “wormhole” and “quantum foam.” While further pondering the mystery of quantum physics at the University of Texas at Austin during the 1980s, Wheeler repeatedly uttered his favorite interrogative slogan: “How come the quantum?” And from those ponderings...
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Feature
Quantum computers are about to get real
06/29/2017 - 07:00 Quantum Physics, ComputingAlthough the term “quantum computer” might suggest a miniature, sleek device, the latest incarnations are a far cry from anything available in the Apple Store. In a laboratory just 60 kilometers north of New York City, scientists are running a fledgling quantum computer through its paces — and the whole package looks like something that might be found in a dark corner of a basement. The...
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News
Choosing the right cyberattack response is a complicated game
03/03/2017 - 09:00 Science & Society, ComputingMany Americans were outraged over Russia’s e-mail hacking during the 2016 presidential election and expected a vigorous response from the U.S. government. But new research that views cyberattacks from a game theory perspective suggests that the delayed response was a sound one.
While instinct suggests that such attacks deserve swift retaliation, viewing cyberwarfare through a...
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News
Winning against a computer isn’t in the cards for poker pros
03/02/2017 - 14:00 ComputingIn the battle of wits between humans and machines, computers have just upped the ante.
Two new poker-playing programs can best professionals at heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em, a two-player version of poker without restrictions on the size of bets. It’s another in a growing list of complex games, including chess, checkers (SN: 7/21/07, p. 36) and Go (SN: 12/24/16, p. 28), in which...
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Speech recognition has come a long way in 50 years
02/16/2017 - 12:30 Computing, TechnologyComputers that hear
Computer engineers have dreamed of a machine that would translate speech into something that a vacuum tube or transistor could understand. Now at last, some promising hardware is being developed.... It is still a long way from the kind of science fiction computer that can understand sentences or long speeches. — Science News, March 4, 1967
UpdateThat 1967...
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Germanium computer chips gain ground on silicon — again
02/09/2017 - 11:00 Materials, ComputingFirst germanium integrated circuits
Integrated circuits made of germanium instead of silicon have been reported … by researchers at International Business Machines Corp. Even though the experimental devices are about three times as large as the smallest silicon circuits, they reportedly offer faster overall switching speed. Germanium … has inherently greater mobility than silicon, which...
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News in Brief
Retracted result on network equivalence reinstated
01/11/2017 - 10:47 ComputingA computer scientist has taken his colleagues on a rollercoaster ride.
In the span of several days, László Babai of the University of Chicago walked back his earlier claim of making a major advance on a classic puzzle of computer science, only to reinstate it after fixing an error in his work.
At issue is the problem of “graph isomorphism,” which demands that a computer determine...
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Film
Hidden Figures highlights three black women who were vital to the U.S. space program
12/23/2016 - 06:00 Numbers, History of Science, ComputingView trailer
Hollywood space flicks typically feature one type of hero: astronauts who defy the odds to soar into space and back again. But now a group of behind-the-scenes heroes from the early days of the U.S. space program are getting their due. Black female mathematicians performed essential calculations to safely send astronauts to and from Earth’s surface — in defiance of flagrant...
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Feature
Year in review: AlphaGo scores a win for artificial intelligence
12/14/2016 - 07:33 Computing, TechnologyIn a hotel ballroom in Seoul, South Korea, early in 2016, a centuries-old strategy game offered a glimpse into the fantastic future of computing.
The computer program AlphaGo bested a world champion player at the Chinese board game Go, four games to one (SN Online: 3/15/16). The victory shocked Go players and computer gurus alike. “It happened much faster than people expected,” says...