Month: March 2022
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Are conferences worth the time and money? Yes, even if virtual, conferences promote valuable interactions, collaboration — ScienceDaily
Every year, hundreds of thousands of scientists spend tens of billions of dollars to organize and attend conferences. Are scientific conferences truly worth this time and money? The answer is yes, according to a new Northwestern University study. Scientists who interact with others during assigned sessions at conferences are more likely to form productive collaborations…
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Microbes and minerals may have set off Earth’s oxygenation | MIT News
For the first 2 billion years of Earth’s history, there was barely any oxygen in the air. While some microbes were photosynthesizing by the latter part of this period, oxygen had not yet accumulated at levels that would impact the global biosphere. But somewhere around 2.3 billion years ago, this stable, low-oxygen equilibrium shifted, and…
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MIT students take first place in the 82nd Putnam Mathematical Competition | MIT News
For the second time in the history of the annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, all five of the top spots in the contest, known as Putnam Fellows, came from a single school — MIT. In its 82nd year, the Putnam Competition is the premier mathematical competition for undergraduate students in the United States and…
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Brain-based computing chips not just for AI anymore — ScienceDaily
With the insertion of a little math, Sandia National Laboratories researchers have shown that neuromorphic computers, which synthetically replicate the brain’s logic, can solve more complex problems than those posed by artificial intelligence and may even earn a place in high-performance computing. The findings, detailed in a recent article in the journal Nature Electronics, show…
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A cautionary tale of machine learning uncertainty — ScienceDaily
A new analysis shows that researchers using machine learning methods could risk underestimating uncertainties in their final results. The Standard Model of particle physics offers a robust theoretical picture of the fundamental particles, and most fundamental forces which compose the universe. All the same, there are several aspects of the universe: from the existence of…
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How scientists found out that climate change is real and dangerous
Even in a world increasingly battered by weather extremes, the summer 2021 heat wave in the Pacific Northwest stood out. For several days in late June, cities such as Vancouver, Portland and Seattle baked in record temperatures that killed hundreds of people. On June 29, Lytton, a village in British Columbia, set an all-time heat…
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An extinct rat shows CRISPR’s limits for resurrecting species
Before the early 1900s, if it walked like a Christmas Island rat and talked like a Christmas Island rat, it probably was a Christmas Island rat. But if one of these now-extinct rats ever walks the Earth again, it will most likely be a genetically modified Norway brown rat. And the rodent won’t be as…
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Mathematical discovery could shed light on secrets of the Universe — ScienceDaily
How can Einstein’s theory of gravity be unified with quantum mechanics? It is a challenge that could give us deep insights into phenomena such as black holes and the birth of the universe. Now, a new article in Nature Communications, written by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and MIT, USA, presents results that…
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Well-preserved fossils could be consequence of past global climate change | HeritageDaily
Climate change can affect life on Earth. According to new research, it can also affect the dead. A study of exceptionally preserved fossils led by a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin has found that rising global temperatures and a rapidly changing climate 183 million years ago may have created fossilisation conditions…
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Some deep-sea octopuses aren’t the devoted moms scientists assumed
Octopuses living in the deep sea off the coast of California are breeding far faster than expected. The animals lay their eggs near geothermal springs, and the warmer water speeds up embryonic development, researchers report February 28 at the virtual 2022 Ocean Sciences Meeting. That reproductive sleight of hand means that the octopus moms brood…