News by Subject Mathematics

NOAA Fisheries researchers and colleagues at the New England Aquarium have developed a new model to improve estimates of abundance and population trends of endangered North Atlantic right whales, which have declined in numbers and productivity in recent years. Between 1990 and 2010 abundance increased to 482 animals, but since 2010 the numbers have declined to 458 in 2015, with 14 known deaths this year. The findings were published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

Emil J. Gumbel's formulas are fundamental for extreme value theory. This statistical discipline describes extreme incidents, such as floods or storms. Little is known, however, that he was also a pioneer of modern data journalism, unveiling the patterns of political murder in the Weimar Republic. Professor Matthias Scherer and his team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) now intend to fill in the gaps in what the world knows about Gumbel.

In a new paper published in PLOS ONE, researchers describe a recent, rapid, and ongoing invasion of monk parakeets in Mexico, and the regulatory changes that affected the species' spread.

A new longitudinal study looked at how youths' self-concepts are linked to their actual academic achievement in math and reading from middle childhood to adolescence. The study found that students' self-concepts of their abilities in these two academic domains play an important role in motivating their achievements over time and across levels of achievement.

An enzyme discovered at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) proves adept at breaking down cellulose fibers regardless of whether their crystalline structure is simple or highly complex. No other enzyme has shown that ability.

Supermassive black holes found in the centers of galaxies can form gravitationally bound pairs when galaxies merge, according to a study published in the Sept. 18 issue of Nature Astronomy.

The mass shooting in Plano, Texas, this month was the deadliest of 2017. It also fit a pattern: The shooter had targeted his estranged wife and her friends and family -- and had a history of intimate partner violence (IPV).

PNNL researchers have measured the forces that cause certain crystals to assemble, revealing competing factors that researchers might be able to control. The work has a variety of implications in both discovery and applied science. In addition to providing insights into the formation of minerals and semiconductor nanomaterials, it might also help scientists understand soil as it expands and contracts through wetting and drying cycles.