News
- Computing
Computation Takes a Quantum Leap
A quantum computation involving a custom-built molecule furnishes experimental evidence that a quantum computer can solve certain mathematical problems more efficiently than can a conventional computer.
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Egg’s missing proteins thwart primate cloning
Scientists have identified a reason why cloning a person may be difficult, if not impossible.
- Physics
Not even bismuth-209 lasts forever
Touted in textbooks as the heaviest stable, naturally occurring isotope, bismuth-209 actually does decay but with an astonishingly long half-life of 19 billion billion years.
- Earth
Harbor waves yield secrets to analysis
New findings by ocean scientists may help port officials in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, predict potentially destructive waves in the city's harbor.
- Tech
Tipping tiny scales
A prototype detector based on a tiny silicon cantilever that operates in air has achieved a 1,000-fold sensitivity boost when measuring tiny quantities of chemical agents.
- Planetary Science
Roving on the Red Planet
NASA last month selected the landing sites for rovers scheduled to begin exploring the Martian surface next January.
- Earth
Seismic waves resolve continental debate
New analyses of seismic waves that have traveled deep within Earth may answer a decades-old question about the thickness of the planet's continents.
- Health & Medicine
Protein implicated in Parkinson’s disease
Inhibiting the natural protein cyclo-oxygenase-2, or COX-2, might help fight Parkinson's disease.
- Physics
To pack a strand tight, make it a helix
The optimal way to pack long strings into small spaces is to coil them into helices—particularly the types of helices found in proteins and perhaps DNA.
- Computing
Tight packaging for digitized surfaces
A novel digital compression scheme may make it practical to transmit detailed models of three-dimensional surfaces over the Internet.
- Computing
Computer grid cracks problem
A large network of powerful computers solved a 32-year-old optimization challenge known as the "nug30" quadratic assignment problem.
- Computing
Strength and weakness in diversity
Although the Internet's redundancy and diversity help it survive local node malfunctions despite its vast size and complexity, it is vulnerable to attacks aimed specifically at the most highly connected nodes.
