News tagged with computer simulations

Fighting crimes against biodiversity: How to catch a killer weed

Invasive species which have the potential to destroy biodiversity and influence global change could be tracked and controlled in the same way as wanted criminals, according to new research from Queen Mary, University of London.

Biology / Ecology

created 13 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Physics research suggests new pathways for cancer progression

Observing that certain cancer cells may exhibit greater flexibility than normal cells, some scientists believe that this capability promotes rapid tumor growth. Now computer simulations developed by Boston University Biomedical ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Obstacles no barrier to higher speeds for worms, researchers find

Obstacles in an organism's path can help it to move faster, not slower, researchers from New York University's Applied Math Lab at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences have found through a series ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Stellar astrophysics explains the behavior of fast rotating neutron stars in binary systems

Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known. They have diameters of about 20 kilometres, but at the same time roughly the mass of our sun. A sugar-cube sized piece of its ultra-compact matter ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

A spider web's strength lies in more than its silk

While researchers have long known of the incredible strength of spider silk, the robust nature of the tiny filaments cannot alone explain how webs survive multiple tears and winds that exceed hurricane strength.

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (11) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Oxygen molecule survives to enormously high pressures

Using computer simulations, a Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) researcher has shown that the oxygen molecule (O2) is stable up to pressures of 1.9 terapascal, which is about nineteen million times higher than atmosphere pressure. ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Jan 30, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1

PhET simulations provide interactive learning tools

(PhysOrg.com) -- What causes a balloon to stick to a sweater? How do microwaves heat coffee? How is electricity generated from a bar magnet?

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Jan 26, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Scorpions inspire scientists in making tougher surfaces for machinery

Taking inspiration from the yellow fattail scorpion, which uses a bionic shield to protect itself against scratches from desert sandstorms, scientists have developed a new way to protect the moving parts of ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Jan 25, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (8) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

For volcanologists worldwide, a new digital home for all things volcano

(PhysOrg.com) -- Volcanologists now have their own online network: VHub.org, which promotes collaboration among volcano researchers and community partners by providing a place to share everything from eruption data to ash ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jan 25, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Computer simulations give insights into how carbon dioxide reacts with a sequestering liquid

(PhysOrg.com) -- Worse than toddlers on a sugar high, carbon dioxide molecules just don't like standing still. The tiny molecules, just three atoms, leap from place to place in less than a trillionth of a ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Jan 18, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A baby crystal is born

Lead sulfide (PbS) forms when an equal number of lead and sulfur atoms exchange electrons and bond together in cubic crystals. Now scientists have determined that a structure comprising 32 lead-sulfur pairs is the smallest ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Jan 17, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 2

Polymer science team designs new nanotech technique for lower-cost materials repair

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the super-small world of nanostructures, a team of polymer scientists and engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered how to make nano-scale repairs to a damaged ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Subaru's sharp eye confirms signs of unseen planets in the dust ring of HR 4796 A

(PhysOrg.com) -- The SEEDS (Strategic Exploration of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru Telescope/HiCIAO) project, a five-year international collaboration launched in 2009 and led by Motohide Tamura of NAOJ ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 30, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (11) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

'Green routing' can cut car emissions without significantly slowing travel time

The path of least emissions may not always be the fastest way to drive somewhere. But according to new research from the University at Buffalo, it's possible for drivers to cut their tailpipe emissions without significantly ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Dec 14, 2011 | popularity 2.3 / 5 (3) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

A good nose: Researchers decipher interaction of fragrances and olfactory receptors

Banana, mango or apricot - telling these smells apart is no problem for the human nose. How the olfactory organ distinguishes such similar smells has been uncovered by an interdisciplinary team of German researchers at the ...

Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry

created Dec 13, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Computer simulation

A computer simulation, a computer model or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system. Computer simulations have become a useful part of mathematical modeling of many natural systems in physics (computational physics), chemistry and biology, human systems in economics, psychology, and social science and in the process of engineering new technology, to gain insight into the operation of those systems, or to observe their behavior.

Computer simulations vary from computer programs that run a few minutes, to network-based groups of computers running for hours, to ongoing simulations that run for days. The scale of events being simulated by computer simulations has far exceeded anything possible (or perhaps even imaginable) using the traditional paper-and-pencil mathematical modeling: over 10 years ago, a desert-battle simulation, of one force invading another, involved the modeling of 66,239 tanks, trucks and other vehicles on simulated terrain around Kuwait, using multiple supercomputers in the DoD High Performance Computer Modernization Program; a 1-billion-atom model of material deformation (2002); a 2.64-million-atom model of the complex maker of protein in all organisms, a ribosome, in 2005; and the Blue Brain project at EPFL (Switzerland), began in May 2005, to create the first computer simulation of the entire human brain, right down to the molecular level.

For more information about Computer simulation, read the full article at Wikipedia.
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