Math
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Geographic profiling fights disease
Widely used to snare serial criminals, a forensic method finds application in epidemiology.
- Math
Cells take on traveling salesman problem
With neither minds nor maps- chemical-sensing immune players do well with decades-old mathematical problem, a computer simulation reveals.
- Humans
Jumping on the bandwagon brings rewards
A study of day traders finds that being in the crowd can lead to better performance.
- Tech
Model copes with chaos to deliver relief
A computer program can get supplies to disaster areas efficiently even when the transportation system is part of the problem.
- Math
Unnatural selection
Inflicting damage on targeted species can help preserve perturbed ecosystems.
- Math
Fruit flies teach computers a lesson
Insect's nerve cell development is a model of efficiency for sensing networks.
- Math
Outstanding, superlinear cities
By a new mathematical method, New York City proves average and San Francisco exceptional.
- Tech
Trading places
As the pace of financial transactions accelerates, researchers look forward to a time when the only limiting factor is the speed of light.
- Math
Marathoning made easy
Or at least endurable, by calculating and then keeping to a physiologically sustainable pace.
- Physics
Being single a real drag for spores
Launching thousands of gametes at once helps a fungus waft its offspring farther.
- Math
Potato chips: A symptom of the U.S. R&D problem
Last year, U.S. consumers spent $7.1 billion on potato chips — $2 billion more than the federal government’s total 2009 investment on research and development. There’s something wrong, here, when Americans are more willing to empty their wallets for the junk food that will swell their waistlines than for investments in the engine driving the creation of jobs, economic growth and national security.
- Tech
To tame traffic, go with the flow
Lights should respond to cars, a study concludes, not the other way around.
