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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


The Physics of Life
From ACM News

The Physics of Life

First, Zvonimir Dogic and his students took microtubules—threadlike proteins that make up part of the cell's internal 'cytoskeleton'—and mixed them with kinesins...

Feuding Physicists Turn to Philosophy For Help
From ACM News

Feuding Physicists Turn to Philosophy For Help

Is string theory science?

Paradox at the Heart of Mathematics Makes Physics Problem ­nanswerable
From ACM News

Paradox at the Heart of Mathematics Makes Physics Problem ­nanswerable

A logical paradox at the heart of mathematics and computer science turns out to have implications for the real world, making a basic question about matter fundamentally...

Japan's Venus Orbiter Makes Comeback
From ACM News

Japan's Venus Orbiter Makes Comeback

Japan's Akatsuki spacecraft has entered orbit around Venus, five years after its first attempt failed.

Gene-Editing Summit Supports Some Research in Human Embryos
From ACM News

Gene-Editing Summit Supports Some Research in Human Embryos

Gene-editing technology should not be used to modify human embryos that are intended for use in establishing a pregnancy, an international summit declared in a...

Artificial Intelligence Called In to Tackle Lhc Data Deluge
From ACM News

Artificial Intelligence Called In to Tackle Lhc Data Deluge

The next generation of particle-collider experiments will feature some of the world's most advanced thinking machines, if links now being forged between particle...

Biologists Create More Precise Molecular Scissors For Genome Editing
From ACM News

Biologists Create More Precise Molecular Scissors For Genome Editing

By tweaking an enzyme that cuts DNA, synthetic biologists say that they can make genome editing even more specific—an essential improvement if the technique is...

Genome Editing: 7 Facts About a Revolutionary Technology
From ACM News

Genome Editing: 7 Facts About a Revolutionary Technology

The ethics of human-genome editing is in the spotlight again as a large international meeting on the topic is poised to kick off in Washington DC.

Martian Moon Set to Form Ring Around Red Planet
From ACM News

Martian Moon Set to Form Ring Around Red Planet

One day, Mars may have rings like Saturn does.

Leap-Second Decision Delayed By Eight Years
From ACM News

Leap-Second Decision Delayed By Eight Years

A leap second is gone in the blink of an eye. But a long-awaited decision on whether to ditch these occasional time insertions—which ensure that official time is...

Icy Volcanoes May Dot Pluto's Surface
From ACM News

Icy Volcanoes May Dot Pluto's Surface

Two icy volcanoes may lurk near Pluto's south pole, images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft suggest.

Synthetic Biology Lures Silicon Valley Investors
From ACM Careers

Synthetic Biology Lures Silicon Valley Investors

In 2012, Emily Leproust was trying to raise money to start Twist Bioscience, a company that aimed to synthesize DNA more quickly and more cheaply than existing...

Software Predicts Slew of Fiendish Crystal Structures
From ACM News

Software Predicts Slew of Fiendish Crystal Structures

Sketch the structure of an organic molecule on a napkin and it may not be apparent that there are millions of possible ways that it could assemble as a 3D crystal...

Artificial-Intelligence Institute Launches Free Science Search Engine
From ACM News

Artificial-Intelligence Institute Launches Free Science Search Engine

With Google Scholar, PubMed, and other free academic databases at their fingertips, scientists may feel they have plenty of resources to trawl through the ever-growing...

Rosetta Sniffs Oxygen Around Comet 67p
From ACM News

Rosetta Sniffs Oxygen Around Comet 67p

Scientists have detected molecules of oxygen in the hazy halo of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko—an unexpected discovery that may challenge theories about the formation...

Vast Cosmic Voids Merge Like Soap Bubbles
From ACM News

Vast Cosmic Voids Merge Like Soap Bubbles

Vast regions of near-empty space in the Universe are growing and shrinking, much as bubbles merge and separate in soapsuds, astronomers have discovered.

Pluto's Geology Is Unlike Any Other
From ACM News

Pluto's Geology Is Unlike Any Other

Take a pinch of Mars, a sprinkle of Saturn's moon Iapetus and a dash of Neptune's moon Triton—and the recipe will yield something like Pluto.

Brain Scans Pinpoint Individuals from a Crowd
From ACM News

Brain Scans Pinpoint Individuals from a Crowd

Our brains are wired in such distinctive ways that an individual can be identified on the basis of brain-scan images alone, neuroscientists report.

Fragment of Rat Brain Simulated in Supercomputer
From ACM News

Fragment of Rat Brain Simulated in Supercomputer

A controversial European neuroscience project that aims to simulate the human brain in a supercomputer has published its first major result: a digital imitation...

The Future of Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin and Beyond
From ACM News

The Future of Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin and Beyond

When the digital currency Bitcoin came to life in January 2009, it was noticed by almost no one apart from the handful of programmers who followed cryptography...
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