— Behind every Olympic victory is an incredible amount of physics, biomechanics, and engineering. With the Olympic Games in full swing, let’s take a look at the science behind three of its most popular events: running, swimming and gymnastics. Continue reading Science at the Summer Olympics
Most visits to a doctor or hospital occur when a patient feels under the weather, but is unsure of the cause of the symptoms or the best way to treat them. For example, sniffles and a sore throat could be caused by seasonal allergies or the flu, each of which must be treated with different medications. In such cases, physicians rely on diagnostic tests to help them decide on the appropriate course of treatment.
Continue reading Improving diagnostic testing for infectious diseases
— Two groups of scientists — one based in the Netherlands and the other in the United States — have carried out detailed studies on the experimental evolution of the A/H5N1 virus, more commonly known as the “bird flu”. Public health officials have documented at least 600 cases of humans infected by A/H5N1 since it was first reported in Hong Kong in 1997. Half of those infected were killed, a strikingly high mortality rate compared to most strains of the flu. While this mortality rate has garnered widespread media attention, the impact of A/H5N1 on humans has remained relatively small due to its inability to transmit efficiently from human to human. However, the virus is highly transmissible in some non-human animals, especially birds, and has caused large-scale epidemics in these animals. Continue reading Laboratory-based flu evolution – dangerous or necessary?
The Turing Centenary Conference was held this June at Cambridge University. Cambridge had special significance for Alan Turing, as he spent his formative undergraduate years there and returned there shortly after his PhD. The conference brought together many well known researchers from theoretical computer science, mathematical biology, and philosophy — a fitting celebration for the diversity of Turing’s interests. There was a strand of ideas … Continue reading Designed intelligence: Field notes from the Turing Centenary Conference
Barbara Liskov is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she is a member of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She has spent the past forty or so years finding and describing new ways to make computer programs work better. In addition to many other projects, she currently works on writing programs that make data safer. Dr. Liskov … Continue reading An interview with Professor Barbara Liskov, 2008 recipient of the Turing Award
Ann Druyan, an American author and producer specializing in cosmology and popular science, once said For most of the history of our species we were helpless to understand how nature works. We took every storm, drought, illness, and comet personally. We created myths and spirits in an attempt to explain the patterns of nature. As disordered as nature appears, a number of natural phenomena adhere … Continue reading Understanding pattern formation during morphogenesis
Can we build a functional brain using computers? In order to answer that question, we need to know how the brain is built in nature. The human brain is composed of more than 10 billion cells called neurons that can be electrically activated upon stimulation. Neurons produce special proteins called ion channels that are inserted in their cell membranes. These channels allow ions (i.e., electrically … Continue reading Modeling the brain with computers
Cars that drive themselves. A program that trounces the best human players at Jeopardy! A machine that defeats the world champion at chess. It would seem that the quest to create human-level artificial intelligence (AI) is making astounding progress, and the end is in sight. But is it? This year, Google’s self-driving car was granted a special license plate by the State of Nevada, allowing … Continue reading Artificial intelligence: Will computers pass the Turing test by 2029? Does it matter?
“Bruce, did you know that it was an openly gay Englishman who was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans’ Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do – and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being … Continue reading Difficult to decode: Alan Turing’s life and its implications
Alan Turing’s revolutionary ideas about computation helped launch the field of cognitive science. One of his major contributions to cognitive science was the idea of a Turing machine, a hypothetical contraption capable of carrying out any algorithm or mechanical procedure using input and output symbols. Could the human mind be considered a kind of organic Turing machine? Could a machine be created that simulates a … Continue reading Cognitive neuroscience: Connecting neuroimaging and neural nets