2SCIEN0CE NEWS OF THE YEAR | Numbers
08
2 - 1 | The largest prime number found
43,112,609
that could have been caused
by geological processes other
than the formation of massive, land-based ice sheets
(SN Online: 10/2/08).
Ancient rocks Scientists
may have found the world’s
oldest intact rocks in a patch
of bedrock on the eastern
shore of Canada’s Hudson
Bay. Analyses suggest the
rocks are about 4. 28 billion
years old (SN: 10/11/08, p. 12).
Forget bird-brained
Paleon-tologists discover a new species of carnivorous dinosaur,
Aerosteon riocoloradensis,
that breathed like a bird (SN:
10/25/08, p. 14).
Life down deep As much
as 70 percent of the Earth’s
microbial life resides on and
just below the ocean floor,
two new studies suggest (SN:
6/21/08, p. 7).
Inorganic building blocks
Hydrocarbons in the fluids
spewing from a set of hydrothermal vents on the Atlantic seafloor were produced
by inorganic chemical reactions within the ocean crust,
a finding with implications
for the origins of life (SN:
2/2/08, p. 67).
Math success doesn’t
add up for U.S. girls
Environment may play important role
The perception that girls don’t measure up to boys when
it comes to math was refuted by a study of more than
7 million students in 10 states. Reporting in Science on
July 25, a group of researchers argue that boys’ higher
SAT math scores are a statistical artifact that results
because more girls take the test.
Peer pressure, gender stereotyping and low expectations have more to do with the dearth of women in math
than ability, scientists report in the November Notices of
the American Mathematical Society (SN: 11/8/08,
p. 10). “It’s not that girls don’t have the intrinsic aptitude to excel at this level, but that something’s happening in the U.S. to inhibit it,” says study author Janet
Mertz of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. An international study of 15-year-olds also reveals that male
scores on tests tend to be more variable than female
scores, scientists report in the Nov. 28 Science.
Beautiful game A theorem
identifies cases in which
infinite-choice games will
have at least one Nash
equilibrium — a situation
in which each player gets
the best deal possible (SN:
11/8/08, p. 10).
Leafy networks Using an
artificial model of a leaf, scientists unveil a mathematical principle underlying how
leaf veins are arranged to
enable plants to perspire as
fast as possible (SN Online:
6/30/08).
Infinity, small or big A mathematician develops a new
proof to show that infinity
comes in different sizes (SN
Online: 1/8/08).
Primequest The Great
Internet Mersenne Prime
Search, a cooperative computing project, helps find a
prime with nearly 13 million
digits (SN Online: 9/20/08).
Knot of light Researchers
find a theoretical way to tie
light into complex knots and
links (SN Online: 9/12/08).
Creeping up on Riemann
Two mathematicians find
the first example of a third-degree transcendental
L-function, which could
help them prove Riemann’s
famous prime number conjecture (SN Online: 4/2/08).
Another new study suggests that electrons in certain quantum systems could
embody all the information
necessary to solve the conjecture. The graph above
shows points (where all
colors meet, along one vertical and one horizontal
axis) at which calculation
of Riemann’s zeta function
would give zero values (SN:
9/27/08, p. 14).
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT, NUMBERS: JEFFREY STOPPLE/UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA;
WWW.DIMENSIONS-MATH.ORG
To stop a pandemic
Researchers propose a new
strategy for distributing
shots that could, at least
in theory, stop a pandemic
from spreading through net-
works of social interactions
(SN Online: 7/4/08).
Accidental astrophysicists
Mathematicians who
thought they’d extended a
fundamental result in algebra also prove Sun Hong
Rhie’s conjecture on gravitational lensing (SN Online:
6/13/08).
