science wire

UW research: World population could be nearly 11 billion by 2100
A new statistical analysis shows the world population could reach nearly 11 billion by the end of the century, according to a United Nations report issued June 13. That's about 800 million, or about 8 percent, more than the previous projection of 10.1 billion, issued in 2011. The projected rise is mostly due to fertility in Africa, where the U.N. had expected birth rates to decline more quickly than they have.

Securing the cloud
A new algorithm solves a major problem with homomorphic encryption, which would let Web servers process data without decrypting it.

SDSC’s Gordon: A Non-Conventional Supercomputer Fosters Non-Traditional Research Projects
When the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of San Diego, California, debuted Gordon early last year, the system's architects envisioned that its innovative features - such as

Older drivers more likely to buy new vehicles
ANN ARBOR-Adults under 50 have long been the ideal target group for advertisers, but when it comes to buying new vehicles, older consumers may be a marketer's best bet, says a University of Michigan researcher.

Whirlpools on the Nanoscale Could Multiply Magnetic Memory
"We spent 15 percent of home energy on gadgets in 2009, and we're buying more gadgets all the time," says Peter Fischer of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

Salil Vadhan named Simons Investigator
Award offers computer scientist a 5-year appointment with $100,000 of research support per year The Simons Foundation has appointed Salil Vadhan , Vicky Joseph Professor of Computer Science an

Mathematicians Analyze Social Divisions Using Cell Phone Data
Differences divide us. Human society fractures along lines defined by politics, religion, ethnicity, and perhaps most fundamentally, language. Although these differences contribute to the great variety of human lives, the partitions they create can lead to conflict and strife, impeding efforts toward social justice and economic development.

Mathematics of Popping Bubbles in a Foam
Written By Robert Sanders Bubble baths and soapy dishwater, the refreshing head on a beer and the luscious froth on a cappuccino.

Heady mathematics: Describing popping bubbles in a foam
Bubble baths and soapy dishwater, the refreshing head on a beer and the luscious froth on a cappuccino.

Affordability drives Washington housing recovery in first quarter of 2013
Washington state's housing market improved in the first quarter of 2013 - the third quarterly rise in a row - with median prices increasing and affordability improving statewide, according to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington.

Grant Boosts Particle Physics and Mathematics Research for Two Penn Professors
Two University of Pennsylvania professors have won the chance to pursue their research full-time this fall. The Simons Foundation has awarded fellowships to Mirjam Cvetic of the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Ron Donagi of the Department of Mathematics, both in the School of Arts and Sciences.

Engineers’ new metamaterial doubles up on invisibility
The new material's artificial "atoms" are designed to work with a broad range of light frequencies. With adjustments, the researchers believe it could lead to perfect microscope lenses or invisibility cloaks.

Two Berkeley Lab Researchers Elected to National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences announced the election of two Berkeley Lab researchers to this year's class of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 14 countries.

Artificial Photosynthesis, Bio-inspired Design
Artificial photosynthesis is a dream technology that mimics a natural leaf, converting water and carbon dioxide into fuels with sunlight.

Pride, prejudice and strategic thinking: Jane Austen wrote the book on game theory
Quiz: This beautiful mind was promoting game theory long before Cold War think tanks used mathematics to understand strategic maneuvering.

UCLA scholars named Guggenheim Fellows
Four UCLA faculty members are among an esteemed group of 175 of scholars, artists and scientists from the United States and Canada to receive 2013 Guggenheim Fellowships.

Rayid Ghani, Obama campaign chief data scientist, joins UChicago
Rayid Ghani, chief scientist of the highly regarded Obama for America data analytics team, has joined the University of Chicago to explore using data to solve complex social problems.

The grooviest words of medieval times
From hepcat to slacks, from right on to whassup, words and phrases have helped novelists and filmmakers evoke a particular time or place.

How hard is it to ’de-anonymize’ cellphone data?
A new formula that characterizes the privacy afforded by large, aggregate data sets may be discouraging, but could help sharpen policy discussion.

Prescription for double-dose algebra proves effective
Martin Gartzman sat in his dentist's waiting room last fall when he read a study in Education Next that nearly brought him to tears.

Can control theory make software better?
Techniques used to ensure that airplanes won't stall out in flight could be adapted to prove that computer programs won't divide by zero. "Formal verification" is a set of methods for mathematically proving that a computer program does what it's supposed to do. It's universal in hardware design and in the development of critical control software that can't tolerate bugs; it's common in academic research; and it's beginning to make inroads in commercial software.

Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays? Stanford professor lets you decide
Stanford astrophysicist's new book takes a statistical approach to the Shakespeare authorship question and, after presenting evidence, asks readers to decide for themselves.

Building the Massive Simulation Sets Essential to Planck Results
To make the most precise measurement yet of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - the remnant radiation from the big bang - the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Planck satellite mission has been collecting trillions of observations of the sky since the summer of 2009.

College enrollment does not lead to problem drinking in adulthood
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Despite the high levels of binge drinking that take place on college campuses, college enrollment does not lead to substance abuse problems later in adulthood, and it may actually prevent adult substance abuse among youth who would not be expected to attend college, according to researchers at Penn State.

Four UC San Diego Faculty Members Named Alfred P. Sloan Foundation 2013 Fellows
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has announced the selection of researchers as recipients of Sloan Research Fellowships for 2013, including four scholars from the University of California, San Diego. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars, the next generation of scientific leaders.

Living Language: Faculty Q&A With Linguist John McWhorter
John McWhorter may be best known for his magazine and newspaper writing about race, but the Philadelphia native is at heart a dyed-in-the-wool academic whose first inkling that he would spend his lif

Beefing up public-key encryption
MIT researchers show how to secure widely used encryption schemes against attackers who have intercepted examples of successful decryption.

Scientists create automated ‘time machine’ to reconstruct ancient languages
Ancient languages hold a treasure trove of information about the culture, politics and commerce of millennia past. Yet, reconstructing them to reveal clues into human history can require decades of painstaking work. Now, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have created an automated "time machine," of sorts, that will greatly accelerate and improve the process of reconstructing hundreds of ancestral languages.

Washington housing recovery strengthened in fourth quarter 2012
Washington state's housing market continued to improve during the fourth quarter of 2012 as the number of homes sold and median prices increased while affordability also improved statewide, according to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington.

Stanford mathematician models the spread – and prevention – of crime as a wave
Stanford Report, February 1, 2013 Postdoctoral scholar Nancy Rodríguez's traveling wave model suggests that it's only possible to prevent crime from spreading when the population as a whole is "anti-crime." Crime can happen anywhere, but it usually doesn't. Researchers have noticed that criminal activity seems to be concentrated in self-perpetuating hotspots.

En]Coding Architecture 2013" at Carnegie Mellon Presents Experimental Work Through Computational Thinking and Digital Fabrication
: Pam Wigley / 412-268-1047 / pwigley [a] andrew.cmu (p) edu PITTSBURGH-[En]Coding Architecture 2013 at Carnegie Mellon University is a conference focused on the paradigm shift in architecture and the role of the architect/designer in a new age.

Competition that computes

In conversation: George Daniel Mostow, geometer of the Nth dimension
In awarding Yale's George Daniel Mostow its 2013 Wolf Foundation Prize in mathematics - one of the field's premier global awards - the foundation offered this crisp assessment: "Few mathematicians,"

Choice Names Carnegie Mellon University’s Joseph B. Kadane’s "Principles of Uncertainty" A 2012 Outstanding Academic Title
: Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo [a] cmu (p) edu PITTSBURGH- Choice , the magazine published by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), has named Carnegie Mellon Universit

Walter Baily, influential mathematician, 1930-2013
Walter Baily, a globetrotting University of Chicago mathematician whose research extended the range of algebraic geometry, died Jan.

An idea that changed the world
ComputeFest panel, part of Wintersession, explains Markov's pivotal breakthrough from a lecture 100 years ago By Corydon Ireland Harvard News Office The Russian Revolution of 1917 was

Keck Foundation awards $1 million to team of UCLA scientists
A team of UCLA scientists has been awarded a prestigious $1 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation for research aimed at reshaping and improving how images and large data sets are collected and analyzed in science, engineering, medicine and other fields. "The Keck Foundation grants are very competitive, and we are honored to be selected," said Joseph Rudnick, dean of the UCLA Division of Physical Sciences and senior dean of UCLA's College of Letters and Science.

MacArthur Foundation grant fuels computational city research
A new Chicago-based research center using advanced computational methods to understand the rapid growth of cities will receive a $500,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Guaranteed delivery -- in ad hoc networks
A new algorithm for message dissemination in decentralized networks is faster than its predecessors but, unlike them, guarantees delivery.

Mostow, master of geometry, wins top Israeli honor
George Daniel Mostow, a Yale professor emeritus renowned for his contributions in geometry, has been awarded a 2013 Wolf Foundation Prize, often called the Nobel Prize of Israel.

Can We Accurately Model Fluid Flow in Shale?
Given that over 20 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, a third of the United States' total reserves, are thought to be trapped in shale, and given the rush to exploit shale oil and gas resources by

News Digest: Honor: Daniela Witten
Posted under: For UW Employees , Honors and Awards , Research , Science , Technology , UW and the Community Public health statistician one of Forbes' rising stars What are the odds?