Uncategorized
- Math
Packing spheres around a sphere
A mathematician has proved that the optimal arrangement of 12 identical spheres around and touching a 13th is a highly symmetric pattern based on the 12-faced geometric shape known as the dodecahedron.
- Math
A fair deal for housemates
A new mathematical recipe for fair division allows people to resolve disputes over the splitting up of rent, goods, or even burdensome chores.
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19110
I’m glad to see that other mathematicians are working on the fair-division problem. The challenge is not so much with the optimizing-allocating procedures or algorithms but with how to explain the process and results in a way that is satisfying, understandable, and binding to the participants without seeming to benefit some distant party, like the […]
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Anatomy of antisocial personality
A disturbance in the brain's prefrontal cortex may either contribute to or result from a psychiatric condition called antisocial personality disorder.
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Treatment enigma for disturbed kids
Two new studies offer conflicting views of the effectiveness of mental-health services for children and teenagers.
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Genes to Grow On
Researchers studying children with Williams syndrome say that the unusual condition emerges through a developmental process that's influenced but not predetermined by a genetic defect.
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19108
This article, in which among other things you gave a description of William’s syndrome, really surprised me. I said to myself, I know a boy like that. I finished the article and called the boy’s parents to see if they had ever heard about this genetic syndrome. They hadn’t. Numerous health-care providers had failed to […]
- Earth
Climate’s Long-Lost Twin
New geological evidence suggests that humans have started exploiting fossil fuels and altering Earth's atmosphere at precisely the moment when greenhouse gases could do the most damage to climate.
- Health & Medicine
Hear, Hear
A 14-year study of twin babies shows definitively for the first time that there's a link between middle ear infections and heredity.
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Survey raises issue of isolated Web users
A controversial study suggests that heavy users of the Internet become socially isolated.
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19107
Your article seems to imply that there is something worse about spending 10 hours a week surfing the Web than other pastimes. Why isn’t 10 hours a week spent reading books, watching television, doing crossword puzzles, listening to music, or other solitary hobbies just as “socially isolating”? The sports fan who watches 10 hours of […]
- Astronomy
Votes cast for and against the WIMP factor
Physicists this week duked it out over a bunch of WIMPs, elementary particles that—if they exist—could solve a decades-old mystery in cosmology and help unify the four fundamental forces of nature.
