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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Geneticists Attempt to Heal Rifts with Aboriginal Communities
From ACM News

Geneticists Attempt to Heal Rifts with Aboriginal Communities

In 1938, anthropologists Norman Tindale and Joseph Birdsell set off on an 18-month, 29,000-kilometre expedition to survey Australia's indigenous groups.

Majority of Mathematicians Hail from Just 24 Scientific 'families'
From ACM Careers

Majority of Mathematicians Hail from Just 24 Scientific 'families'

Most of the world's mathematicians fall into just 24 scientific 'families', one of which dates back to the fifteenth century.

'radically Rewritten' Bacterial Genome ­nveiled
From ACM News

'radically Rewritten' Bacterial Genome ­nveiled

Synthetic biologists report the most far-reaching rewiring yet of a bacterial genome.

Let the Structural Symphony Begin
From ACM News

Let the Structural Symphony Begin

Like other structural biologists, Eva Nogales works in extraordinary times.

Crispr's Hopeful Monsters: Gene-Editing Storms Evo-Devo Labs
From ACM News

Crispr's Hopeful Monsters: Gene-Editing Storms Evo-Devo Labs

Most summers since 1893, young developmental and evolutionary biologists have flocked to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to master the tricks of their trade.

Spiking Genomic Databases with Misinformation Could Protect Patient privacy
From ACM News

Spiking Genomic Databases with Misinformation Could Protect Patient privacy

Large genomic databases are indispensable for scientists looking for genetic variations associated with diseases. But they come with privacy risks for people who...

The Bandwidth Bottleneck that Is Throttling the Internet
From ACM News

The Bandwidth Bottleneck that Is Throttling the Internet

Researchers are scrambling to repair and expand data pipes worldwide — and to keep the information revolution from grinding to a halt.

The Bandwidth Bottleneck that Is Throttling the Internet
From ACM News

The Bandwidth Bottleneck that Is Throttling the Internet

On 19 June, several hundred thousand US fans of the television drama Game of Thrones went online to watch an eagerly awaited episode—and triggered a partial failure...

Beyond Crispr: A Guide to the Many Other Ways to Edit a Genome
From ACM News

Beyond Crispr: A Guide to the Many Other Ways to Edit a Genome

The CRISPR–Cas9 tool enables scientists to alter genomes practically at will.

Legal Confusion Threatens to Slow Data Science
From ACM News

Legal Confusion Threatens to Slow Data Science

Knowledge from millions of biological studies encoded into one network—that is Daniel Himmelstein's alluring description of Hetionet, a free online resource that...

Welcome to the Cyborg Olympics
From ACM News

Welcome to the Cyborg Olympics

Vance Bergeron was once an amateur cyclist who rode 7,000 kilometres per year—much of it on steep climbs in the Alps.

Planet Hunters Seek New Ways to Detect Alien Life
From ACM News

Planet Hunters Seek New Ways to Detect Alien Life

In the search for life beyond Earth, false alarms abound.

Human Brain Mapped in ­nprecedented Detail
From ACM News

Human Brain Mapped in ­nprecedented Detail

Think of a spinning globe and the patchwork of countries it depicts: such maps help us to understand where we are, and that nations differ from one another.

How China Is Rewriting the Book on Human Origins
From ACM News

How China Is Rewriting the Book on Human Origins

On the outskirts of Beijing, a small limestone mountain named Dragon Bone Hill rises above the surrounding sprawl.

Brain-Data Gold Mine Could Reveal How Neurons Compute
From ACM News

Brain-Data Gold Mine Could Reveal How Neurons Compute

Inspired by the large-scale sky surveys with which astronomers explore the cosmos, neuroscientists in Seattle, Washington, have spent four years systematically...

Clouds Get High on Climate Change
From ACM News

Clouds Get High on Climate Change

Clouds are moving up, up and away. An analysis of satellite data has found that, since the early 1980s, clouds have shifted towards Earth's poles and cloud tops...

Obama's Top Scientist Talks Shrinking Budgets, Donald Trump, and His Biggest Regret
From ACM Opinion

Obama's Top Scientist Talks Shrinking Budgets, Donald Trump, and His Biggest Regret

John Holdren is no stranger to the spotlight. Over his long career in science, Holdren—a physicist by training—has worked on controversial issues such as climate...

'ransomware' Cyberattack Highlights Vulnerability of ­niversities
From ACM News

'ransomware' Cyberattack Highlights Vulnerability of ­niversities

The first Patrick Feng knew about a cyberattack on his university was when one of his colleagues told him that her computer had been infected by hackers and rendered...

A Simpler Twist of Fate
From ACM News

A Simpler Twist of Fate

Until the day it dies, a cell that has become a skin cell remains a skin cell—or so scientists used to think.

Plan to Synthesize Human Genome Elicits Mixed Response
From ACM News

Plan to Synthesize Human Genome Elicits Mixed Response

Proposals for a large public-private initiative to synthesize an entire human genome from scratch—an effort that could take a decade and require billions of dollars...
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