When we think about medicine’s war on cancer, treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy spring to mind first. Now there is another potential weapon for defeating tumors: statistics and mathematical models that can optimize the selection, combination or timing of treatment. Building and feeding these models requires accounting for the complexity of the body,… Continue reading How Can Math Help Beat Cancer?
Tag: Quantum Stuff
Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing
Every year, in latitudes far enough north or south, a huge swath of life on Earth senses that winter is coming. Leaves fall from trees, sparrows fly to the tropics, raccoons grow thick winter coats, and we unpack our sweaters from storage. Now scientists have shown that this ability to anticipate shorter days and colder… Continue reading Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing
Massive CrowdStrike Tech Outage Highlights Global Vulnerabilities
Massive CrowdStrike Tech Outage Highlights Global Vulnerabilities Companies and governments alike need to step up cybersecurity practices in the wake of massive technology failures associated with a CrowdStrike update By Richard Forno & The Conversation US The Microsoft Corp. Windows Recovery screen displayed at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York, US, on… Continue reading Massive CrowdStrike Tech Outage Highlights Global Vulnerabilities
What Can Cave Life Tell Us About Alien Ecosystems?
If instruments do someday detect evidence of life beyond Earth, whether it’s in this solar system or in the farther reaches of space, astrobiologists want to be ready. One of the best ways to learn how alien life might function can be to study the organisms called extremophiles, which live in incredibly challenging environments on or… Continue reading What Can Cave Life Tell Us About Alien Ecosystems?
The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology
As more evidence links static to survival, a story is emerging that evolution may fine-tune the capacity to sense or carry charge just like any other trait. “The fact that there’s such a diverse range of species with different ecologies is what makes it so interesting,” said Beth Harris, a graduate student in Robert’s lab.… Continue reading The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology
When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again.
In 1971, a year after completing his doctorate, Rubin started working for the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. When a government agency asked ETS to analyze a survey with missing data, Rubin proposed an unconventional but surprisingly simple solution: Don’t just impute once. Impute multiple times. Imputing, and Imputing Again Let’s go back… Continue reading When Data Is Missing, Scientists Guess. Then Guess Again.
Computer Scientists Combine Two ‘Beautiful’ Proof Methods
How do you prove something is true? For mathematicians, the answer is simple: Start with some basic assumptions and proceed, step by step, to the conclusion. QED, proof complete. If there’s a mistake anywhere, an expert who reads the proof carefully should be able to spot it. Otherwise, the proof must be valid. Mathematicians have… Continue reading Computer Scientists Combine Two ‘Beautiful’ Proof Methods
The Two Faces of Space-Time
Anyone who has seen the classic rabbit-duck optical illusion knows the magic and confusion of duality. One might see a duck facing to the left with its bill hanging slightly open or a rabbit with its nose pointing to the right and its ears extending behind it. Both perspectives are valid. In physics, duality is… Continue reading The Two Faces of Space-Time
The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes
Karl Schwarzschild first stumbled upon black holes in 1916, but for a long time they weren’t really a thing. “Black holes were discovered as a purely geometric object — in a sense, just empty space. Nothing,” said Yuk Ting Albert Law, a theoretical physicist at Stanford University. A mathematical oddity that popped out of Albert… Continue reading The #1 Clue to Quantum Gravity Sits on the Surfaces of Black Holes
If the Universe Is a Hologram, This Long-Forgotten Math Could Decode It
Von Neumann and a collaborator, Francis Murray, eventually identified three types of operator algebras. Each one applies to a different kind of physical system. The systems are classified by two physical quantities: entanglement and a property called entropy. Physicists first discovered entropy while studying steam engines in the 1800s. They later came to understand it… Continue reading If the Universe Is a Hologram, This Long-Forgotten Math Could Decode It