Month: May 2022

  • Joel Moses, Institute Professor Emeritus and computer science trailblazer, dies at 80 | MIT News

    Joel Moses, Institute Professor Emeritus and computer science trailblazer, dies at 80 | MIT News

    Institute Professor Emeritus Joel Moses PhD ’67, an innovative computer scientist and dedicated teacher who held multiple leadership positions at MIT, died on May 29 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. He was 80 years old. Moses, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and the former Engineering…

  • Dramatic Visualization Reveals Shocking Extent of New Mexico’s Biggest Wildfire on Record

    Dramatic Visualization Reveals Shocking Extent of New Mexico’s Biggest Wildfire on Record

    A New Mexico wildfire that has burned an area more than one and a half times the size of New York City was initially sparked by prescribed burns lit by the U.S. Forest Service, investigators announced late last week. The news quickly prompted withering criticism and claims on social media that climate change played no…

  • Your quick guide to self-driving car companies

    Your quick guide to self-driving car companies

    This post has been updated. It was first published in May, 2022. Waymo is the latest autonomous car company to make headlines for the wrong reasons. On May 21, 2023, one of its vehicles operating autonomously hit and killed a small dog in an “unavoidable” incident. Although the safety driver didn’t see the dog, apparently…

  • Roman Pompeiian genome sequenced | HeritageDaily

    Roman Pompeiian genome sequenced | HeritageDaily

    Scientists have successfully sequenced human genome from an individual who died in Pompeii, Italy, after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The researchers examined the remains of two individuals who were found in the House of the Craftsman in Pompeii and extracted their DNA. The shape, structure, and length of the skeletons indicated…

  • Agriculture tech use opens possibility of digital havoc — ScienceDaily

    Agriculture tech use opens possibility of digital havoc — ScienceDaily

    Wide-ranging use of smart technologies is raising global agricultural production but international researchers warn this digital-age phenomenon could reap a crop of another kind — cybersecurity attacks. Complex IT and math modelling at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia, Aix-Marseille University, France and Flinders University in South Australia, has highlighted the risks in a new…

  • Were dinosaurs warm-blooded or cold-blooded?

    Were dinosaurs warm-blooded or cold-blooded?

    When the first dinosaur fossils were recognized in the mid-19th century, scientists envisioned that the creatures were basically giant, lumbering lizards. They also presumed that dinosaurs were like present-day, cold-blooded lizards, meaning that their body temperature depended on the surrounding environment. However, this notion was later fiercely debated.   “The general picture that we have of…

  • Harder Winters, Stronger Storms – Environment | Weizmann Wonder Wander

    Harder Winters, Stronger Storms – Environment | Weizmann Wonder Wander

    About 30 massive, intricate computer networks serve the scientists who stand at the forefront of climate change research. Each network runs a software program comprised of millions of lines of code. These programs are computational models that combine the myriads of physical, chemical and biological phenomena that together form the climate of our planet. The…

  • AI reveals unsuspected math underlying search for exoplanets

    The astronomers’ goal: find an artificial intelligence algorithm to interpret microlensing events captured by the upcoming Roman Space Telescope and speed detection of exoplanets around other stars. They achieved that, but the AI told them something unexpected and deep: the theory used to infer stellar and exoplanetary masses and orbits from observations was incomplete. Digging…

  • A century ago, Alexander Friedmann envisioned the universe’s expansion

    A century ago, Alexander Friedmann envisioned the universe’s expansion

    For millennia, the universe did a pretty good job of keeping its secrets from science. Ancient Greeks thought the universe was a sphere of fixed stars surrounding smaller spheres carrying planets around the central Earth. Even Copernicus, who in the 16th century correctly replaced the Earth with the sun, viewed the universe as a single…

  • Australia is failing at maths and we need to find a new formula to arrest the decline — ScienceDaily

    Australia is failing at maths and we need to find a new formula to arrest the decline — ScienceDaily

    Divide, subtract, add, multiply: whatever way you cut it, Australia is heading in one direction when it comes to global maths rankings — downwards. From an OECD mathematics ranking of 11 in the world 20 years ago, Australian secondary students are now languishing in 29th place out of 38 countries, according to the most recent…