ScienceDaily: Computers & Math News

Why Super Mario runs from left to right: People prefer it Posted: 13 Mar 2015 10:08 AM PDT There may be a fundamental bias in the way people prefer to see moving items depicted in pictures, according to research. An analysis of photos of people and objects in motion revealed a common left-to-right bias.

Tablet use: significance of usage position, potential for neck damage Posted: 13 Mar 2015 05:34 AM PDT Tablet use has rocketed. Last year in the US, for example, 42% of under 18’s owned one and more than half of 35-49 year olds used them regularly. This figure seems unlikely to decrease and yet only limited guidance is available on minimizing health risks. Tablet use requires significant head and neck flexion and has implications for potential neck injury to users. In a new article, researchers evaluate the head-neck biomechanics during tablet use, the implications for the neck musculature and future ergonomics recommendations.

Mobile quarantine station for malicious android apps Posted: 13 Mar 2015 05:34 AM PDT The attacks were perfidious: In February this year, the Czech IT security company Avast declared that it had identified several malicious game apps for mobile phones in the Google Play Store -- ones that would only become criminally active on the device after several weeks. Then the affected smartphones or tablet computers would suddenly take minutes, instead of seconds, to display all the usual settings in proper colors. Or a message would appear when unlocking the device, claiming that the memory was infected or full of pornographic data. Anyone following the instructions given there would be redirected to suspicious sites, which make users download even more malicious programs (malware).

Building a genomic GPS Posted: 12 Mar 2015 02:38 PM PDT A new 'app' for finding and mapping chromosomal loci using multicolored versions of CRISPR/Cas9, one of the hottest tools in biomedical research today, has been developed by scientists.

Computer scientists simplify parallel programming Posted: 12 Mar 2015 05:28 AM PDT Modern software takes computational speed for granted. But modern microprocessors can only speed up by increasing the number of cores. To take full advantage of multiple cores, software developers have to arrange their code in such a way that it is executable in parallel – an error-prone and expensive task. Computer scientists have developed a tool that parallelizes the necessary code sections automatically, and also gives developers programming advice. In the long term, they are planning to extend their “Sambamba” system to automatically parallelize any given program.

New computer vision system helps estimate compactness of bunches of grapes in vineyards objectively and non-invasively Posted: 11 Mar 2015 11:08 AM PDT A new computer vision system has been developed that helps to determine the compactness of bunches of grapes, a characteristic that strongly influences the quality of the grape and the wine.

When it comes to nuclear disaster, safety really is in numbers Posted: 11 Mar 2015 09:43 AM PDT The safety of nuclear plants, as well as the medical management of acute radiation syndrome, could soon be dramatically improved thanks to a new mathematical equation.