News by Subject Mathematics

A new piece of research shows that the brain strategy for storing memories may lead to imperfect memories, but in turn, allows it to store more memories, and with less hassle than AI. The new study, carried out by SISSA scientists in collaboration with Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience & Centre for Neural Computation, Trondheim, Norway, has just been published in Physical Review Letters.

Some organisms evolve an internal switch that can remain hidden for generations until stress flicks it on.

Computational materials science experts at the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory enhanced an algorithm that borrows its approach from the nesting habits of cuckoo birds, reducing the search time for new high-tech alloys from weeks to mere seconds.

Studying ancient food webs can help scientists reconstruct communities of species, many long extinct, and even use those insights to figure out how modern-day communities might change in the future. There's just one problem: only some species left enough of a trace for scientists to find eons later, leaving large gaps in the fossil record -- and researchers' ability to piece together the food webs from the past.

A major roadblock to computational design of high-entropy alloys has been removed, according to scientists at Iowa State University and Lehigh University. Engineers from the Ames Lab and Lehigh University's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics have developed a process that reduces search time used for predictive design 13,000-fold.

Weakly electric fish are specially adapted to traverse murky waters without relying on vision; instead, they sense their environment via electric fields. Researchers developed an innovative algorithm for observing objects via electrosensing that is based on the real behavior of weakly electric fish.

Cell-spanning whirlpools in the immature egg cells of animals such as mice, zebrafish and fruit flies quickly mix the cells' innards, but scientists didn't know how these flows form. Using mathematical modeling, researchers have found an answer. The gyres result from the collective behavior of rodlike molecular tubes called microtubules that extend inward from the cells' membranes, the researchers report.

Analysis of the first super slow motion recordings of upward flashes suggests a possible explanation for the formation of luminous structures after electrical discharges split in the atmosphere.

A new method, developed by Olivier Delaneau's group at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the University of Lausanne, offers game-changing possibilities for genetic association studies and biomedical research. For less than $1 in computational cost, GLIMPSE is able to statistically infer a complete human genome from a very small amount of data. It offers a first realistic alternative to current approaches, and so allows a wider inclusion of underrepresented populations.