Math
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
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- Tech
Information flow can reveal dirty deeds
An analysis of Enron e-mails reveals that corrupt networks have a distinctive shape.
- Psychology
Geometric minds skip school
Villagers' understanding of lines and triangles raises questions about how people learn the properties of objects in space.
- 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.
