Bringing models closer to reality
When the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia launched on January 16, 2003, a large piece of foam fell off and hit the left wing. Alerted of the impact, NASA engineers used a computer model to predict...
Oct, 19, 2012
Words of Advice from the Scientists Featured in Profiles in Computer Science Courage
Find Your Passion
“Not every computer scientist will fall in love with the field like I did,...
Apr, 01, 2011
Watching the beginning of the infection process in the longest and biggest virus simulation to date.
After a satellite tobacco necrosis virus particle infects a cell, it sheds the calcium ions that hold the capsid proteins together. Next, the proteins start to repel each other, the capsid swells and...
Jun, 06, 2012
“The creative scientist studies nature with the rapt gaze of the lover, and is guided as often by aesthetics as by rational considerations in guessing how nature works.”—...
Jan, 01, 2006
Plot shows how functional communities in yeast protein interaction networks change in size and nature at different levels of resolution
Splashes of bold color seem to drip down the page, bringing to mind the paintings of Jackson Pollock. Spurred by the beauty of the image she had created, Anna Lewis,* a graduate student studying...
Apr, 01, 2011
3D images help physicians design appropriate interventions.
Images of realistic and colorful 3D human body parts line the hall outside the lab. Blood and muscle look like blood and muscle; bone looks like bone. You almost expect to find human cadavers being...
Sep, 01, 2011
How adding jet packs to characters' hands can help optimize animations
An animated human figure seeking the optimal path from point A to point B typically relies on computationally expensive hard constraints that force the trajectories to be physically realistic. But...
Jun, 20, 2013
Balancing Breadth and Depth
The last decade saw a proliferation of training programs at the intersection of life science and computation, with more than 60 new degree and certificate programs launched in the United States alone...
Sep, 01, 2005
The structure of RNA is an important key to its function—including its role in disease. However, the structure of most RNAs is unknown because their extreme flexibility and high charge...
Mar, 01, 2009
There comes a tipping point in systems-biology studies of gene function where knowing some genes’ functions can, using a computational approach, help hone in on the functions of other genes....
Apr, 01, 2010
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