Comment Re:New Scientist = odd number fail (Score 1) 73
Thanks very much for pointing this out. I edited the story for New Scientist and it's fixed now.
Submission + - Ancient puzzle gets new lease of 'geomagical' life (newscientist.com)
techbeat writes: An ancient mathematical puzzle has found a new lease of life, reports New Scientist. The magic square is the basis for Sudoku, pops up on the back of a turtle in Chinese legend and provides a playful way to introduce children to arithmetic. But all this time it has been concealing a more complex geometrical form, says recreational mathematician Lee Sallows. He recently released dozens of examples of his "geomagic squares" online. "To come up with this after thousands of years of study of magic squares is pretty amazing," blogged author Alex Bellos. Magic squares are used to help create codes for transmitting information and in the design of drug trials so geomagic ones may have real-world uses, says mathematician Peter Cameron. New Scientist has also put up a gallery of the geomagic squares.
Submission + - Problem-solving bacteria crack Sudoku (newscientist.com)
techbeat writes: A strain of Escherichia coli bacteria can now solve the logic puzzles – with some help from a group of students at the University of Tokyo, Japan, reports New Scientist. The team begin with 16 types of E. coli, each colony assigned a distinct genetic identity depending on which square it occupied within a four-by-four sudoku grid.The bacteria can also express one of four colours to represent the numerical value of their square. As with any sudoku puzzle, a small number of the grid squares are given a value from the beginning by encouraging the bacteria in these squares to differentiate and take on one of the four colours.The Tokyo team's sudoku-solving bacteria competed in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week.
Submission + - Levitating graphene is fastest-spinning object (newscientist.com)
techbeat writes: A flake of exotic carbon a few atoms thick has claimed a record: the speck has been spun faster than any other object, at a clip of 60 million rotations per minute. Previously, micrometre-sized crystals have been spun at up to 30,000 rpm using an optical trap. It is thanks to graphene's amazing strength that the flakes are not pulled apart by the much higher spinning rate, says Bruce Kane at the University of Maryland in College Park. Spinning could be a way to probe the properties of graphene, or manipulate it in new ways.
Submission + - LHC spies hints of infant universe (newscientist.com)
techbeat writes: The big bang machine may already be living up to its nickname, writes New Scientist. Researchers on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, have seen hints of what may be the hot, dense state of matter thought to have filled the universe in its first nanoseconds.
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Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists? -- Kelvin Throop III
