Communications of the ACM
A Healthy Dose of AI
Building artificial intelligence into medical devices can speed diagnoses and potentially improve treatments and outcomes.
From ACM NewsAn edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
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Computers Read the Fossil Record
For a field whose raison d'être is to chronicle the deep past, palaeontology is remarkably forward-looking when it comes to organizing its data.
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Pluto-Bound Probe Faces Its Toughest Task: Finding Pluto
Some 4.7 billion kilometres from Earth, the New Horizons spacecraft is heading for a historic rendezvous with Pluto. To achieve this, it will need to hit a very...
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Intriguing Geology of Ceres Revealed in New Pictures
Ceres, the largest asteroid in the Solar System, is finally getting its close-up. NASA's Dawn spacecraft arrived in March, and is now taking photographs from as...
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Europe's First Humans: What Scientists Do and Don't Know
Over the past two years, breakthroughs in ancient genomics and archaeology have revolutionized the story of the first humans in Europe—who are thought to have appeared ...
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Ancient American Genome Rekindles Legal Row
The genome of a famous 8,500-year-old North American skeleton, known as Kennewick Man, shows that he is closely related to Native American tribes that have for...
From ACM Careers
U.s. 'export Rules' Threaten Research
The U.S. government is considering policy changes that could dramatically affect how researchers handle equipment and information that have national-security implications...
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The Pentagon's Gamble on Brain Implants, Bionic Limbs and Combat Exoskeletons
When Geoffrey Ling talks about the future of technology, his ideas go flying around the room like a whirlwind.
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Image Software Spots Links in Tattoo Ink
In an unusual twist on biometrics research, US computer scientists have joined with law-enforcement officials to find new ways to automatically detect tattoos on...
From ACM Careers
Crispr, the Disruptor
Three years ago, Bruce Conklin came across a method that made him change the course of his lab.
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Mystery of Black Hole Fireworks Solved
Gigantic jets of gas that leap out of galaxies at nearly the speed of light occur only after two galaxies merge, a survey of the distant Universe shows.
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Military Technology: Laser Weapons Get Real
Silently, the drone aircraft glides above the arid terrain of New Mexico—until it suddenly pivots out of control and plummets to the ground.
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'instinctive' Robot Recovers From Injury Fast
Computer scientists have endowed a six-legged robot with the ability to rapidly modify its motion to cope with damage, such as the loss of a foot.
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Quantum Physics: What Is Really Real?
Owen Maroney worries that physicists have spent the better part of a century engaging in fraud.
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.s. Science Academies Take On Human-Genome Editing
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) will launch a major initiative to develop guidelines for editing human genomes...
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Five Factors That Will Decide If Philae Wakes
Ever since the European Space Agency's Philae lander ran out of batteries on 15 November, just three days after it bounced on to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko...
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Pluto-Bound Craft Hunts For Hazardous Moons
On 11 May, a telescope aboard a NASA craft will turn and stare at Pluto—like a space-robot equivalent of a sailor watching for shoals that could take out his vessel...
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Images Expose Thunder in Exquisite Detail
On a U.S. military base outside Gainesville, Florida, atmospheric scientists make lightning by shooting rockets into thunderstorms.
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The Trouble with Reference Rot
The scholarly literature is meant to be a permanent record of science.
From ACM Careers
Nih Reiterates Ban on Editing Human Embryo Dna
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has reaffirmed its ban on research that involves gene editing of human embryos. In a statement released on 29 April,...
From ACM Opinion