Communications of the ACM
An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
From ACM News
The Physics of Life
First, Zvonimir Dogic and his students took microtubules—threadlike proteins that make up part of the cell's internal 'cytoskeleton'—and mixed them with kinesins...
From ACM News
Paradox at the Heart of Mathematics Makes Physics Problem nanswerable
A logical paradox at the heart of mathematics and computer science turns out to have implications for the real world, making a basic question about matter fundamentally...
From ACM News
Gene-Editing Summit Supports Some Research in Human Embryos
Gene-editing technology should not be used to modify human embryos that are intended for use in establishing a pregnancy, an international summit declared in a...
From ACM News
Artificial Intelligence Called In to Tackle Lhc Data Deluge
The next generation of particle-collider experiments will feature some of the world's most advanced thinking machines, if links now being forged between particle...
From ACM News
Biologists Create More Precise Molecular Scissors For Genome Editing
By tweaking an enzyme that cuts DNA, synthetic biologists say that they can make genome editing even more specific—an essential improvement if the technique is...
From ACM News
Genome Editing: 7 Facts About a Revolutionary Technology
The ethics of human-genome editing is in the spotlight again as a large international meeting on the topic is poised to kick off in Washington DC.
From ACM News
Martian Moon Set to Form Ring Around Red Planet
One day, Mars may have rings like Saturn does.
From ACM News
Leap-Second Decision Delayed By Eight Years
A leap second is gone in the blink of an eye. But a long-awaited decision on whether to ditch these occasional time insertions—which ensure that official time is...
From ACM News
Icy Volcanoes May Dot Pluto's Surface
Two icy volcanoes may lurk near Pluto's south pole, images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft suggest.
From ACM Careers
Synthetic Biology Lures Silicon Valley Investors
In 2012, Emily Leproust was trying to raise money to start Twist Bioscience, a company that aimed to synthesize DNA more quickly and more cheaply than existing...
From ACM News
Software Predicts Slew of Fiendish Crystal Structures
Sketch the structure of an organic molecule on a napkin and it may not be apparent that there are millions of possible ways that it could assemble as a 3D crystal...
From ACM News
Artificial-Intelligence Institute Launches Free Science Search Engine
With Google Scholar, PubMed, and other free academic databases at their fingertips, scientists may feel they have plenty of resources to trawl through the ever-growing...
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Rosetta Sniffs Oxygen Around Comet 67p
Scientists have detected molecules of oxygen in the hazy halo of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko—an unexpected discovery that may challenge theories about the formation...
From ACM News
Vast Cosmic Voids Merge Like Soap Bubbles
Vast regions of near-empty space in the Universe are growing and shrinking, much as bubbles merge and separate in soapsuds, astronomers have discovered.
From ACM News
Pluto's Geology Is Unlike Any Other
Take a pinch of Mars, a sprinkle of Saturn's moon Iapetus and a dash of Neptune's moon Triton—and the recipe will yield something like Pluto.
From ACM News
Brain Scans Pinpoint Individuals from a Crowd
Our brains are wired in such distinctive ways that an individual can be identified on the basis of brain-scan images alone, neuroscientists report.
From ACM News
Fragment of Rat Brain Simulated in Supercomputer
A controversial European neuroscience project that aims to simulate the human brain in a supercomputer has published its first major result: a digital imitation...
From ACM News
The Future of Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin and Beyond
When the digital currency Bitcoin came to life in January 2009, it was noticed by almost no one apart from the handful of programmers who followed cryptography...
From ACM News