Computer scientists at the University of Alberta have solved the ancient game of checkers: After 18-and-a-half years and sifting through 500 billion billion (a five followed by 20 zeroes) checkers positions, Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer and colleagues have built a checkers-playing computer program that cannot be beaten. Completed in late April this year, the program, Chinook, …
Tag: science
Putting the effect before the cause
It’s generally believed time travel into the past is impossible. Only…nobody can quite figure out why it’s impossible. So just maybe, it isn’t. John Cramer’s experiment to see if it’s possible to detect an effect before a cause is going ahead: University of Washington physicist (and science-fiction author) John Cramer is moving forward with his …
Here’s hoping it works!
A universal ‘flu vaccine is in the first stage of human tests: This vaccine is intended to provide protection against all ‘A’ strains of the virus that causes human influenza, including pandemic strains.***At the moment, Phase I clinical trials on humans are underway – that is, the candidate vaccine is being administered to a small …
On the pouring of ketchup
It’s not easy to find the perfect topic for a mid-summer science column, when people are more interested in getting to the lake, swimming in the pool, or barbecuing in the backyard than– Wait, wait. “Barbecuing in the backyard…” I think I’ve got it–the perfect summer science topic! Thanks to Robert Allgeyer, whose definitive paper …
Posted with my wife’s permission:
“Study: Women Are in Charge at Home“: A study, which was just released, finds that wives have more power than their husbands in making decisions and dominating discussions.
Nanotechnology marches on…
…to the soccer field. Near-microscopic robots playing soccer. Is this a great time to be alive, or what?
And the first shall be…first
A few years ago I wrote about the effect of birth order on personality, a topic of particular interest to me as the youngest of three boys. At the time I noted that birth order has been studied since early last century, when psychologist Alfred Adler suggested that an only child may become over-protected and …
Another reason to never even try a cigarette:
Apparently inhaling a single cigarette can be enough to trigger nicotine addiction: A new study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine shows that 10 percent of youth who become hooked on cigarettes are addicted within two days of first inhaling from a cigarette, and 25 percent are addicted within a month. The …
Sleep now, or forever hold your Zzzzzs
Are you getting enough sleep? Probably not: the average North American sleeps an hour less per night than was common 40 years ago. Ordinarily, if we fail to get enough sleep one night, our body attempts to make up for it during the next night by sleeping longer and/or sleeping more deeply. Since alarm clocks …
Wine’s not just good for your heart…
…it may also (both red and white) combat tooth-decay and upper-respiratory-tract-infection bacteria.
Pottery (nothing to do with Harry)
I majored in journalism in university but I minored in art. (Well, actually I minored in Dungeons and Dragons, but the university refused to give me credit for it. Go figure.) Of all my art classes, my favorite was pottery. I loved making pots, but as a certain hideously ugly four-kilogram cream pitcher can attest, …
Firstborn children are the cleverest
I’m the youngest of three boys. I’ve sent this story to my oldest brother in the hope he might be able to explain it to me.
My latest live walk and vlog
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