In an article about to be published in EPJ Plus, Daan Frenkel from the University of Cambridge, UK, outlines the many pitfalls associated with simulation methods such as Monte Carlo algorithms or other commonly used molecular dynamics approaches.
The context of this paper is the exponential development of computing power in the past 60 years, estimated to have increased by a factor of 1015, in line with Moore's law. Today, short simulations can reproduce a system the size of a bacterium.
Spending many hours in centre-based child care does not lead to more aggression and disobedience in children, according to a new study using data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).
Data from 72,000 mothers and their children, including siblings, were obtained from MoBa. Using questionnaires, mothers were asked about aggression and obedience at both 18 and 36 months and the amount of time their children spent in child care. In addition to comparing children from different families, the researchers compared siblings who had different amounts of child care.
The Virginia Tech – Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/) is expanding its ground-breaking research of testing football helmets to reduce the number of concussions to now include hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse.
Jupiter's volcanic moon Io spews out volcanic gas, which reaches its atmosphere and becomes ionized, forming what is known as the Io plasma torus.
Cambridge, Mass. – January 28, 2013 - A team of materials scientists at Harvard University and the University of Exeter, UK, have invented a new fiber that changes color when stretched. Inspired by nature, the researchers identified and replicated the unique structural elements that create the bright iridescent blue color of a tropical plant's fruit.
The multilayered fiber, described today in the journal Advanced Materials, could lend itself to the creation of smart fabrics that visibly react to heat or pressure.
Ex-tropical cyclone Oswald doesn't know when to stop causing problems for Queensland, Australia, and now teamed up with a low pressure area, it continues to bring heavy rainfall. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the remnants and saw Oswald hugging the southeastern Queensland coast.
NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite saw tropical cyclone Garry moving through the open waters of the South Pacific Ocean on January 25, 2013 at 0909 UTC (4:09 a.m. EST). Tropical Cyclone Garry was classified as a category two tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale a couple hours earlier but had started to weaken when TRMM flew over. Sustained wind speeds were estimated to be less than 85 knots (~98 mph) and Garry is forecast to continue weakening while moving toward the southeast.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The "empty nest" of past generations, in which the kids are grown up and middle-aged adults have more time to themselves, has been replaced in the United States by a nest that's full – kids who can't leave, can't find a job and aging parents who need more help than ever before.
According to a new study by researchers at Oregon State University, what was once a life stage of new freedoms, options and opportunities has largely disappeared.
Cape Cod, Massachusetts has a problem. The iconic salt marshes of the famous summer retreat are melting away at the edges, dying back from the most popular recreational areas. The erosion is a consequence of an unexpected synergy between recreational over-fishing and Great Depression-era ditches constructed by Works Progress Administration (WPA) in an effort to control mosquitoes.
Pulsars—tiny spinning stars, heavier than the sun and smaller than a city—have puzzled scientists since they were discovered in 1967.
Now, new observations by an international team, including University of Vermont astrophysicist Joanna Rankin, make these bizarre stars even more puzzling.
The scientists identified a pulsar that is able to dramatically change the way in which it shines. In just a few seconds, the star can quiet its radio waves while at the same time it makes its X-ray emissions much brighter.
Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite revealed that a band of thunderstorms on the eastern side of Tropical Storm Oswald's remnants still contained some punch. Oswald's remnants have triggered severe weather warnings in parts of Queensland, Australia.
Flying high over Antarctica, a NASA long duration balloon has broken the record for longest flight by a balloon of its size.
The record-breaking balloon, carrying the Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder (Super-TIGER) experiment, has been afloat for 46 days and is on its third orbit around the South Pole.
Using a satellite X-ray telescope combined with terrestrial radio telescopes the pulsar was found to flip on a roughly half-hour timescale between two extreme states; one dominated by X-ray pulses, the other by a highly-organised pattern of radio pulses.
The research was led by Professor Wim Hermsen from The Netherlands Institute for Space Research and the University of Amsterdam and will appear in the journal Science on the 25th January 2013.
(Edmonton) A University of Alberta professor has revealed the workings of a celestial event involving binary stars that results in an explosion so powerful it ranks close to Supernovae in luminosity.
Astrophysicists have long debated about what happens when binary stars, two stars that orbit one another, come together in a common envelope.When this dramatic cannibalizing event ends there are two possible outcomes; the two stars merge into a single star or an initial binary transforms in an exotic short-period one.
You might expect dung beetles to keep their "noses to the ground," but they are actually incredibly attuned to the sky. A report published online on January 24 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shows that even on the darkest of nights, African ball-rolling insects are guided by the soft glow of the Milky Way.