Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2017
From ACM News
Scientists Are Designing Artisanal Proteins For Your Body
Our bodies make roughly 20,000 different kinds of proteins, from the collagen in our skin to the hemoglobin in our blood. Some take the shape of molecular sheets. Others are sculpted into fibers, boxes, tunnels, even scissors…
From ACM News
Physics Found Gravitational Waves. Now Come the Existential Questions
On September 14, 2015, at 3:50 AM Central time, a tiny vibration shuddered down the 2.5-mile-long arms of a massive machine in Livingston, Louisiana.
From ACM TechNews
Can Computers Help S Synthesize New Materials?
Following their proposal of a neural network-based artificial intelligence system that sifts through scientific papers and finds "recipes" for specific types of materials, researchers at MIT say they have developed an AI that…
From ACM TechNews
Twitter + Citizen Science + AI = Improved Flood Data Collection
Researchers at the University of Dundee in the U.K. are developing an early-warning system for flood-prone communities using a combination of Twitter, citizen science, and artificial intelligence techniques.
From ACM TechNews
A 'stem' Parent Boosts Girls' Participation in Science Degrees
Researchers at the universities of Michigan and Arkansas recently conducted a study showing that having one parent or guardian work in a STEM field makes it more likely for girls to enroll in a "hard sciences" college degree …
From ACM TechNews
Machine Learning Will Change Jobs
Carnegie Mellon University professor Tom Mitchell and MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson expect machine-learning computer systems to have a transformative economic impact, and have outlined 21 criteria for assessing whether a task or occupation…
From ACM News
Cracking the Brain's Enigma Code
Brain-controlled prosthetic devices have the potential to dramatically improve the lives of people with limited mobility resulting from injury or disease.
From ACM News
The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine
From inside the control room carved into the rock more than half a mile underground, Mika Persson can see the robots on the march, supposedly coming for his job here at the New Boliden mine.
From ACM News
Blockchain Pumping New Life Into Old-School Companies Like IBM
Blockchain is getting bigger at Big Blue.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Develop Method to Track Human Movements More Accurately
Researchers at the North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering, Hefei University of Technology in China, and the University of North Texas have developed a data-driven method to better detect and track human movements for …
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Discover a Valleytronics Route Towards Reversible Computer
Researchers at the Singapore University of Technology and Design have detailed a solid working design of a valleytronic logic gate that executes the full set of two-input Boolean logics.
From ACM TechNews
Hacked Dog Pics Can Play Tricks on Computer Vision AI
Researchers at MIT have demonstrated a new way to fool computer vision algorithms that enable artificial intelligence systems to see.
From ACM TechNews
Watch Robots Do Chin-ps, Push-ps, and Sit-ps For the Sake of Science
A team of Japanese researchers has developed Kengoro and Kenshiro, two humanoid robots that can perform push-ups, do crunches, stretch, and even sweat while exercising. With human-like movements, the robots could help scientists…
From ACM TechNews
Metal Printing Offers Low-Cost Way to Make Flexible, Stretchable Electronics
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a method for directly printing metal circuits, creating flexible, stretchable electronics.
From ACM TechNews
Quick-Learning Neural Network Powered By Memristors
Researchers at the University of Michigan say they have invented a memristor-assembled reservoir computing system that reduces training time and enhances the capacity of similar neural networks.
From ACM News
Finalists in Nasa's Spacecraft Sweepstakes: A Drone on Titan, and a Comet-Chaser
Would you like NASA to fly a drone across Saturn's largest moon, or to send a probe to collect samples from a duck-shaped comet?
From ACM News
Can America's Power Grid Survive an Electromagnetic Attack?
Last month, federal agencies and utility executives held GridEx IV, a biennial event where officials responsible for hundreds of local utilities game out scenarios in which North America's power grid could fail.
From ACM TechNews
Science Application Developers Share Pioneering Strategies For Exascale Computing
Three U.S. Department of Energy scientists discuss providing scalability and performance portability to prepare for exascale computing.
From ACM TechNews
'listening' Drone Helps Find Victims Needing Rescue in Disasters
Researchers in Japan say they have developed technology capable of distinguishing simultaneous speech from multiple persons, demonstrating simultaneous meal ordering by 11 people and creating a robot game show host that manages…
From ACM TechNews
73 Percent of Developers Who Don't se AI Plan to Learn How in 2018
Although only 17 percent of software developers worked with artificial intelligence or machine learning this year, 73 percent of those who did not say they are planning to learn about the technologies next year, according to …
From ACM News
How Facebook's Political nit Enables the Dark Art of Digital Propaganda
Under fire for Facebook Inc.'s role as a platform for political propaganda, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has punched back, saying his mission is above partisanship.
From ACM TechNews
nhackable Computer nder Development With $3.6m DARPA Grant
Engineers at the University of Michigan are using a $3.6-million grant from DARPA to create an impenetrable computer by turning computer circuits into unsolvable puzzles.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Steer the Flow of Electrical Current With Spinning Light
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a device to demonstrate a way to control the direction of the photocurrent within semiconductor materials without deploying an electric voltage.
From ACM TechNews
An Early Flu Season Thwarts Cdc's Forecasting Challenge
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has hosted a flu forecasting challenge for the last five years in which academic and industry participants organize predictive models then assesses them at the end of the season…
From ACM TechNews
This Slightly Haunting Childlike Robot Has Helped Scientists Crowdsource Research For Over a Decade
Over the last 13 years, the iCub robot developed by researchers at the Italian Technology Institute has enabled researchers from around the world to conduct a range of studies, from language acquisition to fine motor skills.
…From ACM News
Researchers Fooled a Google AI Into Thinking a Rifle Was a Helicopter
Tech giants love to tout how good their computers are at identifying what's depicted in a photograph.
From ACM Careers
Why Doesn't the N.f.l. se Tracking Technology For First-Down Calls?
It was a scene almost designed to show the folly of the N.F.L.'s first-down measurement system.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Compute Their Way to the Center of the Earth
Researchers are using Germany's Julich Supercomputing Center to better understand how materials behave in the extreme conditions beneath the Earth's surface.
From ACM TechNews
The Top Seven Programming Languages of 2018
Coding Dojo has released a list of the top seven most in-demand programming languages coders should be aware of over the next year.
From ACM TechNews
niversity of Sydney Develops Quantum Trick to Block Background Sensor 'chatter'
Researchers have developed a method to block background "chatter," which they say solves a common problem associated with quantum sensing devices.