Self-organizing traffic lights: A realistic simulation

In this paper, we extend these results to a realistic setting, implementing self-organizing traffic lights in an advanced traffic simulator using real data from a Brussels avenue. On average, for different traffic densities, travel waiting times are reduced by 50% compared to the current green wave method. More…

Why is spider silk so strong?

The different silks have unique physical properties such as strength, toughness and elasticity, but all are very strong compared to other natural and synthetic materials. Dragline silk combines toughness and strength to an extraordinary degree. A dragline strand is several times stronger than steel, on a weight-for-weight basis, More…

Alzheimer’s Protein Injected Into Mice

Scientists injected a sticky goo from Alzheimer’s victims into the brains of mice and watched it take over, provocative research that promises to help shed new light on the earliest stages of the memory-robbing disease. More…

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Supernova leads to questions about death of stars

Astronomers have discovered a distant supernova, or exploded star, so large that it will force scientists to question their understanding of how certain older stars disintegrate.Scientists have believed that dying stars known as ‘’white dwarfs'’ can’t expand to more than 1.4 times the size of our sun without exploding in a massive thermonuclear blast.That rule, known as the ‘’Chandrasekhar Limit,'’ has served as the foundation of decades of astrophysical research and helped scientists estimate the size of the universe.But a team of astronomers on 20th September said that they have found a supernova in a galaxy 4 billion light years away that reached a mass twice that of the sun before exploding.‘’It should not be possible to break this limit but nature has found a way,'’ said Andy Howell, the University of Toronto researcher who discovered the supernova.‘’Now we have to figure out how nature did it,'’ Howell said in a statement.The star could have been spinning so fast that centrifugal force pushed it beyond the usual limit, Howell and other researchers said.The explosion also could have come from two white-dwarf stars merging.
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Triple Sunrise

Produced by sunlight shining through common atmospheric ice crystals with hexagonal cross-sections, such halos can actually be seen more often than rainbows. The remarkable sunrise picture captures a beautiful assortment of the types most frequently seen, including a sun pillar (center) just above the rising Sun surrounded by a 22 degree halo arc. More…

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Rocket Scientists Not As Smart as Originally Thought

Rocket scientists, long considered the gold standard in intelligence among all professionals, are not nearly as smart as originally thought, according to a controversial new study published today by the American Association of Brain Surgeons. More…

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