Computer Science, Mathematics, and Statistics

Researchers at the University of California have concluded that social networks among primates provide valuable lessons that could help predict catastrophes like the 2008 global financial crisis. Read on to find out more.

Scientists have found a way to mathematically explain the severity and timing of human confrontations. Read on to know more. 

Inspired by the behavior of Japanese tree frogs, researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) have developed computational algorithms that can be used to design wireless systems and analyze social networks. Read more about their research here.

Pre-programmed six-legged robots are regularly used for disaster management. However, these robots lack the ‘instinct’ to recover from any damage they sustain, and this could render them ineffective. A team of artificial intelligence researchers led by Jean-Baptiste Mouret at France's national computer science agency INRIA in Villers-lès-Nancy has devised an algorithm for robots that would help them develop an almost-instinctive behavior. Read more about their research here.

Zebrafish are extensively used as model organism by biologists. Researchers have wondered how their dark blue and bright yellow stripes develop. Alexandria Volkening, a graduate student from Brown University's Division of Applied Mathematics and the lead author, devised a model that treated cells as individual agents and studied their interaction with each other. Read more about their research here.

Researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, have designed a unique computer model to understand how cancer-causing proteins behave, which is based on how social networking works. Comparing the proteins inside cells to members of an enormous social network and mapping the ways they interact, the researchers predicted which proteins will be targeted with drugs. Read more about their research here.

What is exactly happening when a raindrop slides down a glass window? Whenever a fluid comes in contact with a solid, a ‘contact line’ is formed. How the liquid droplets spread out on a solid surface has been difficult for scientists to explain in physical and mathematical models. Weiqing Ren of A*STAR's Institute of High Performance Computing and his colleagues combined mathematical and computational methods to come up with a 'first-principle' hydrodynamic model that explains how a fluid droplet moves on a solid surface. Read more about their research here.

While people born after 1980 are considered "digital natives," people born before 1980 are described as "digital immigrants." A recent study, however, stated that the concept of digital native is a myth and that there is no evidence to claim that different generations assimilate information differently.