Astronomers from Italy and Chile have investigated an accreted stellar stream named Icarus in the Milky Way’s disk. Results of the study, detailed in a research paper published October 16 on the preprint server arXiv, yield crucial information regarding the nature of this stellar stream.
The type of semiconductive nanocrystals known as quantum dots are both expanding the forefront of pure science and also hard at work in practical applications including lasers, quantum QLED televisions and displays, solar cells, medical devices, and other electronics.
A sensitive perception of the environment is crucial for guiding our behavior. However, an overly sensitive response of the brain’s neural circuits to stimuli can lead to neurodevelopmental disorders such as epilepsy. University of Basel researchers report in the journal Nature how neuronal networks in the mouse brain are fine-tuned.
One of the characteristics of depression is a tendency to perceive sensory stimuli and everyday situations in an excessively negative way. But the mechanisms underpinning this “negativity bias,” which can fuel the development of depressive symptoms, had previously remained largely unknown.
As technology advances, the limitations of conventional electronic computers are becoming increasingly apparent, especially when tackling complex computational challenges. NP-complete problems, which grow exponentially with size, represent some of the toughest puzzles in computer science. These issues have significant implications across various fields, including biomedicine, transportation, and manufacturing. In the quest for more effective…
A new study sheds light on how highly creative individuals, such as visual artists and scientists, may have brains that function differently compared to others. The research, published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, reveals that people who exhibit exceptional creativity—referred to as “Big C” creative individuals—demonstrate…
Different brain regions are connected by—and interact through—networks of neurons. But the extent to which neuronal wiring drives shared function between these different regions is not well understood. Is this structure-function relationship the same throughout the brain? The same across functions?
The study of X-ray emission from astronomical objects reveals secrets about the universe at the largest and smallest spatial scales. Celestial X-rays are produced by black holes consuming nearby stars, emitted by the million-degree gas that traces the structure between galaxies, and can be used to predict whether stars may be able to host planets hospitable to life.
A new proof shows that an upgraded version of the 70-year-old Dijkstra’s algorithm reigns supreme: It finds the most efficient pathways through any graph.
It doesn’t just tell you the fastest route to one destination.
In an interview toward the end of his life, Dijkstra credited his algorithm’s enduring appeal in part to its unusual origin story. “Without pencil and paper you are almost forced to avoid all avoidable complexities,” he said.
Dijkstra’s algorithm doesn’t just tell you the fastest route to one destination. Instead, it gives you an ordered list of travel times from your current location to every other point that you might want to visit — a solution to what researchers call the single-source shortest-paths problem. The algorithm works in an abstracted road map called a graph: a network of interconnected points (called vertices) in which the links between vertices are labeled with numbers (called weights). These weights might represent the time required to traverse each road in a network, and they can change depending on traffic patterns. The larger a weight, the longer it takes to traverse that path.
