This year a series of events around the world will celebrate the work of Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer, as the 100th anniversary of his birthday approaches on June 23. In a book chapter that will be published later this year, mathematician Robert Soare, the founding chairman of the University of Chicago’s computer science department, will propose that Turing’s achievement was artistic as well as scientific. (more…)
Some of the figures scientists create are stunning. Others are not – mismatched fonts, poorly aligned tables, clashing colors. Many fall somewhere in between. A deluge of data presents a challenge to amateur designers, often resulting in a cluttered presentation that can crowd out the figure’s main message. (more…)
Earth’s clouds got a little lower — about one percent on average — during the first decade of this century, finds a new NASA-funded university study based on NASA satellite data. The results have potential implications for future global climate.
Scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand analyzed the first 10 years of global cloud-top height measurements (from March 2000 to February 2010) from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft. The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed an overall trend of decreasing cloud height. Global average cloud height declined by around one percent over the decade, or by around 100 to 130 feet (30 to 40 meters). Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes. (more…)
*History of influence of industrial revolution hidden in glacial ice*
New clues about how Earth’s remote ecosystems have been influenced by the industrial revolution have been uncovered. Until now they were locked away, frozen in the ice of glaciers.
So say scientist Aron Stubbins of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and colleagues. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Contrary to common perception, state and local police are often on the front lines against product counterfeiting, yet it’s unclear how prepared they are to deal with the growing crime, according to a new report from two Michigan State University criminologists. (more…)
A cluster of ancient footprints in the Arabian desert offers the clearest evidence yet for the early origins of modern elephants’ social structure, according to a Yale-led research team.
Roughly seven million years old, the prints represent the movements of at least 14 prehistoric elephants through the inland desert of the Arab Emirate of Abu Dhabi, anthropologists report in a paper published on Feb. 22 in Biology Letters. The research shows that early elephants exhibited social patterns typical of their modern descendants — herding by adult females and offspring, and solitary wandering by adult males. (more…)
Higher education, a jewel of American society and an engine of its economy, is under threat, and if the nation is to remain competitive the financial model must be overhauled, says a new book.
Authors of Financing American Higher Education in the Era of Globalization say reforming the model will take a long-term, top-level coalition composed of the president, the nation’s governors, college and K-12 leaders, and leaders in the business community. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — In a narrow, modest laboratory in Michigan State University’s Giltner Hall, students pore over African skeletons from the Middle Ages in an effort to make the bones speak.
Little is known about these Nubians, meaning the information collected by graduate and undergraduate students in MSU’s Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Program will help shed light on this unexplored culture. (more…)
