Math
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Coupons help evaluate game of Go
Variant version of ancient board game Go allows researchers to see how players value their moves, possibly providing clues to the math behind complex games like chess.
- Math
Networks reveal concentrated ownership of corporations
Researchers have made the first maps of corporate stock ownership for the stock markets of a large number of countries, 48 in all. The analysis reveals that a few big players constitute backbones of ownership.
- Life
Darwin: The reluctant mathematician
Despite disliking mathematics, the great biologist inadvertently advanced statistics.
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- Math
Calculating the geography of crime
A mathematician fine-tunes how to blend crime records, geography to track down serial criminals.
- Math
Mathematicians show how beetles can share a niche
New equations help solve decades-old puzzle of why one species doesn’t always outcompete another.
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- Math
Numbers: Science news of the year, 2008
Science News writers and editors looked back at the past year's stories and selected a handful as the year's most interesting and important in Numbers. Follow hotlinks to the full, original stories.
- Math
The happiness virus
Two studies apply social networking ideas to data from health studies of thousands of people, and suggest different interpretations of how contagious happiness or other experiences can be.
- Math
Traveler’s Dilemma: When it’s smart to be dumb
Some game theory paradoxes can be resolved by assuming that people adopt multiple personae, and aren’t rational.
- Math
The influence of influence in Prisoner’s Dilemma
Cooperation wins out over betrayal when successful prisoners recruit followers.
- Math
Florence Nightingale: The passionate statistician
Florence Nightingale pioneered the use of applied statistics to develop policy and developed novel ways of displaying them.
