Mathematics News

January 25, 2016

Mathematical Model for Animal Stripes

'Freak' Ocean Waves Hit Without Warning

First Mathematical Theory of Humor

Parents Aiming Too High Can Harm Children

Latest Headlines

updated 5:19pm EST

The World's Greatest Literature Reveals Multifractals and Cascades of Consciousness

Jan. 21, 2016 — James Joyce, Julio Cortazar, Marcel Proust, Henryk Sienkiewicz and Umberto Eco. Regardless of the language they were working ... read more

New Reconstruction Method Improves Facial Recognition for Forensic Purposes

Jan. 21, 2016 — An improved reconstruction method for facial recognition based on camera images has been invented by researchers. This method yields a better score in ninety percent of the examined cases, and helps ... read more

GIMPS Project Discovers Largest Known Prime Number

Jan. 20, 2016 — The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the new largest known prime number, having 22,338,618 digits, on a university computer volunteered by Curtis Cooper for the project. ... read more

New Methods for More Energy-Efficient Internet Services

Jan. 19, 2016 — Billions of people use the internet, which requires huge data centres and results in an enormous energy consumption. Researchers have now developed techniques and algorithms to manage and schedule ... read more

Stepping Beyond Our 3D World

Jan. 18, 2016 — Over centuries, humans have tried to discover a Theory of Everything. Possible candidates for this cachet, such as String Theory and Grand Unified Theory, require higher dimensions or ... read more

Feral Cats: Computational Study Looks at How Best to Fix the Nuisance

Jan. 16, 2016 — The first computational model to track the size, location and nuisance of feral cat colonies has been developed by researchers. This issue concerns communities across the United States that hold some ... read more

New SIR-Network Model Helps Predict Dengue Fever Epidemic in Urban Areas

Dec. 23, 2015 — A new mathematical model has been introduced by experts, which offers a simplified approach to studying the spread of the infectious virus, Dengue fever, in urban areas, specifically breaking down ... read more

Improving Electric Motor Efficiency Via Shape Optimization

Dec. 22, 2015 — In our competitive global society, successful and economical design of automotive and industrial structures is crucial. Optimizing the geometry of individual pieces of ... read more

Grid Cells: Reading the Neural Code for Space

Dec. 18, 2015 — The cognitive map for spatial navigation is thought to rely on grid cells. Scientists ahave now put forward a mathematical theory that explains key grid-cell features and how these give rise to a ... read more

Roadmap to Safer Cyberspace

Dec. 18, 2015 — How do cybersecurity experts discover how to properly defend a system or build a network that's secure? As in other domains of science, this process involves hypothesis, ... read more

At Davos, World Leaders Get Real About Killer Robots

The Scientific Way To Build The 'Perfect' Snowman

Obama Keeps Calling For Better STEM Students, So How's America Doing?

Ridiculous Tesla Model X Price Matches Ludicrous Features

Basic Ratio Capacity May Serve as Building Block for Math Knowledge

Jan. 12, 2016 — Understanding fractions is a critical mathematical ability, and yet it's one that continues to confound a lot of people well into adulthood. New research finds evidence for an innate ratio ... read more

Professor Brings Complicated Math to the Masses

Jan. 11, 2016 — It’s not easy to make confusing mathematics topics understandable, let alone interesting, to non-mathematicians, but University of Pennsylvania professor Robert Ghrist has figured out the ... read more

Traveling Salesman Uncorks Synthetic Biology Bottleneck

Jan. 5, 2016 — A computer program has been created that will open a challenging field in synthetic biology to the entire world -- repetitive polypeptides. The freely available computer program based on the ... read more

Darwin's Finches May Face Extinction

Dec. 18, 2015 — Mathematical simulations show parasitic flies may spell extinction for Darwin's finches in the Galapagos Islands, but that pest-control efforts might save the birds that helped inspire the ... read more

Mathematical Model Suggests Select DCIS Patients Could Delay Treatment

Dec. 16, 2015 — Active surveillance could be a viable alternative to surgery and radiation for select patients with ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, according to a mathematical ... read more

Understanding Body Language of Mice

Dec. 16, 2015 — Mouse behavior naturally divides into movement motifs lasting less than a second. These 'behavioral syllables' can be reused by the brain to achieve specific ... read more

Quantum Physics Problem Proved Unsolvable

Dec. 9, 2015 — A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable, according to scientists. It is the first major problem in physics for which such a ... read more

Online Game Reveals Something Fishy About Mathematical Models

Dec. 2, 2015 — How can you tell if your mathematical model is good enough? Researchers have now implemented a Turing test in the form of an online game (with over 1700 players) to assess how good their models were ... read more

Using Sphere Packing Models to Explain the Structure of Forests

Nov. 26, 2015 — Explaining the complex structure of tropical forests is one of the great challenges in ecology. An issue of special interest is the distribution of different sizes of trees, something which is of ... read more

Exploring the Physics of a Chocolate Fountain

Nov. 24, 2015 — A mathematics student has worked out the secrets of how chocolate behaves in a chocolate fountain, answering the age-old question of why the falling 'curtain' of chocolate surprisingly ... read more

Mathematical Modeling Can Help Predict Impact of Surgery on Cancer Metastasis

Nov. 24, 2015 — Mathematical models can provide useful clues about the impact of surgery on metastasis, and may help to predict the risk of cancer spread, scientists report. The scientists generated a mathematical ... read more

Forecasting the Path of Breast Cancer in a Patient

Nov. 23, 2015 — A mathematical model has been developed to forecast metastatic breast cancer survival rates using techniques usually reserved for weather prediction, financial forecasting and surfing the ... read more

Mathematical Model Helps Show How Zebrafish Get Their Stripes

Nov. 17, 2015 — The iconic yellow and blue stripes of zebrafish form dynamically as young fish develop and grow. A new mathematical model helps to show how pigment cells interact to form the ... read more

Mysteries of Bony Fish Genome Evolution

Nov. 16, 2015 — Redundancy is common in nature, for example many human genes exist in several copies. However, excessive redundancy can interfere with efficiency. Therefore, each whole genome duplication event is ... read more

Programmable Plants: Synthetic Biologists Pave Way for Genetic Circuits

Nov. 16, 2015 — Taking genetic engineering to the next level, researchers are creating modular, programmable genetic circuits that control specific plant ... read more

Modeling the Promise, Peril of Gene Drive

Nov. 13, 2015 — A new report builds on recent experimental work being carried out in gene drive using mathematical models to estimate how quickly such gene replacement can spread through a population, finding that ... read more

New Derivation of Pi Links Quantum Physics and Pure Math

Nov. 10, 2015 — In 1655 the English mathematician John Wallis published a book in which he derived a formula for pi as the product of an infinite series of ratios. Now researchers, in a surprise discovery, have ... read more

Amplifying, or Removing, Visual Variation

Nov. 6, 2015 — A new pair of papers describes techniques for either magnifying or smoothing out small variations in digital images. The techniques could be used to produce more polished images for graphic-design ... read more

Model of the Ebola Epidemics in West Africa Incorporating Age of Infection

Nov. 6, 2015 — Sierra Leone is expected to soon be declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization. But what was key to eliminating the disease? A mathematical model describes the reasons as complex, but ... read more

Predicting Cancer's Growth from Few Clues

Nov. 2, 2015 — Duke mathematicians are developing ways to help doctors predict how different cancers are likely to progress when measurements of tumor growth are hard to come by. In a new study, they describe a way ... read more

Tuesday, January 12, 2016