Communications of the ACM
Python-Based Compiler Achieves Performance Speedups
The Codon compiler, from a team led by researchers from MIT CSAIL, allows developers to create new domain-specific languages … From ACM TechNewsAn 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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Vibrant Pluto Stuns Scientists
They are 5 billion kilometres from the Sun in the dim, far-flung outskirts of the Solar System, but Pluto and its large moon Charon turn out to be astonishingly...
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Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Gets a $100-Million Boost
You could say that the silence has been deafening.
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Pluto Spacecraft Temporarily Loses Contact with Earth
Ten days before its historic flyby of Pluto, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft lost contact with mission control, for unknown reasons, for an hour and 21 minutes on...
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Machine Ethics: The Robot's Dilemma
In his 1942 short story 'Runaround', science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov introduced the Three Laws of Robotics—engineering safeguards and built-in ethical principles...
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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...
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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...
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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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