Computers

Melanoma is by far the deadliest form of skin cancer, killing more than 7,000 people in the United States in 2019 alone. Early detection of the disease dramatically reduces the risk of death and the costs of treatment, but widespread melanoma screening is not currently feasible. There are about 12,000 practicing dermatologists in the US, and they would each need to see 27,416 … [Read more...] about Identifying ‘ugly ducklings’ to catch skin cancer earlier

When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, doctors and researchers rushed to find effective treatments. There was little time to spare. "Making new drugs takes forever," says Caroline Uhler, a computational biologist in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Institute for Data, Systems and Society, and an associate member of the Broad … [Read more...] about A machine-learning approach to finding treatment options for COVID-19: Researchers develop a system to identify drugs that might be repurposed to fight the coronavirus in elderly patients

Images provide information -- what we can observe with our own eyes enables us to understand. Constantly expanding the field of perception into dimensions that are initially hidden from the naked eye, drives science forward. Today, increasingly powerful microscopes let us see into the cells and tissues of living organisms, into the world of microorganisms as well as into … [Read more...] about A sharper look at the interior of semiconductors: A high-resolution imaging technique can be used to investigate materials in a non-destructive manner and with nanometer precision

Materials having excess electrons are typically conductors. However, moiré patterns -- interference patterns that typically arise when one object with a repetitive pattern is placed over another with a similar pattern -- can suppress electrical conductivity, a study led by physicists at the University of California, Riverside, has found. In the lab, the researchers overlaid a … [Read more...] about Moiré patterns facilitate discovery of novel insulating phases

Scientists created a framework to test the predictions of biological optimality theories, including evolution. Evolution adapts and optimizes organisms to their ecological niche. This could be used to predict how an organism evolves, but how can such predictions be rigorously tested? The Biophysics and Computational Neuroscience group led by professor Gašper Tkačik at the … [Read more...] about Can evolution be predicted? Scientists created a framework to test the predictions of biological optimality theories, including evolution

It does not happen often. But on rare occasions, physicians make mistakes and may make a wrong diagnosis. Patients may have many diseases all at once, where it can be difficult to distinguish the symptoms of one illness from the other, or there may be a lack of symptoms. Errors in diagnosis may lead to incorrect treatment or a lack of treatment. Therefore, everyone in the … [Read more...] about Researchers develop algorithm to find possible misdiagnosis

Between January 2012 and March 2018, there were an average of 1,000 failures each year at large North American gas power plants due to unscheduled fuel shortages and fuel conservation interruptions. This is a problem as the power grid depends on reliable natural gas delivery from these power plants in order to function. More than a third of all U.S. electricity is generated … [Read more...] about Switching to firm contracts may prevent natural gas fuel shortages at US power plants

For the first time, physicists from the University of Basel have produced a graphene compound consisting of carbon atoms and a small number of nitrogen atoms in a regular grid of hexagons and triangles. This honeycomb-structured "kagome lattice" behaves as a semiconductor and may also have unusual electrical properties. In the future, it could potentially be used in electronic … [Read more...] about Kagome graphene promises exciting properties

Astronomers have tested a method for reconstructing the state of the early Universe by applying it to 4000 simulated universes using the ATERUI II supercomputer at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). They found that together with new observations the method can set better constraints on inflation, one of the most enigmatic events in the history of the … [Read more...] about Supercomputer turns back cosmic clock

The tiniest microchips yet can be made from graphene and other 2D-materials, using a form of 'nano-origami', physicists at the University of Sussex have found. This is the first time any researchers have done this, and it is covered in a paper published in the ACS Nano journal. By creating kinks in the structure of graphene, researchers at the University of Sussex have made the … [Read more...] about Graphene ‘nano-origami’ creates tiniest microchips yet: Nanomaterial developments could lead to computers and phones running thousands of times faster