Researchers in Applied Math Lab used pyramid-shaped paper "bugs" to determine that in flight, top-heavy structures are more likely to maintain balance than the standard structure that bears a lower center of gravity. The results of the NSF and DOE-funded study may contribute to an alternative approach to aircraft design. The full Press Release is available from NYU Today.

Evan Korth and Computer Science major Tal Safran are interviewed by CNN about the growing job opportunities offered to Computer Science majors. The full video is available online from CNN Money.

Mike Shelley, Jun Zhang, and researchers from the Applied Math Lab find that obstacles in an organism's path could help it move quicker rather than slower. The NSF and DOE-supported study bases its findings off of both live microscopic worms (the nematode C. elegans) and a computer model. This comparative study between experiment and simulation enahances the understanding of biological locomotion strategies of such organisms in complex geometries. Moreover, the simulated dynamics reproduces life-like behaviours that had been interpreted as coming from sensing and response of the worm to its local environment. The full Press Release is available from NYU Today.

The first International Hackathon for the Social Good in the Arab World was held October 28-30 at NYU Abu Dhabi. The event brought together 50 student participants, from colleges in the Middle East and the US, and more than 20 experts acting as speakers, mentors, and judges, for three-days of intensive programming. NYU-NY undergraduates Max Stoller and Tengchao Zhou, teaming with Monir Abu Hilal from PSUT (Jordan) won second prize for their application "OpenMena," a web-based resource designed to provide government data in an accessible format for computer programmers.
The full press release is available from NYUAD.Read More

In the New York Times, Chris Bregler discusses the performance-based animation technologies which are used to make convincing chimpanzees in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes."

The Risk Economics Lab for Decision Metrics has been established at Courant with a $1 million leadership pledge from the David K. A. Mordecai and Samantha Kappagoda Charitable Trust.  The RiskEcon Lab, housed within the newly created Center for Computational Economics and Algorithmic Data Analytics, will apply a range of computational methods to researching geopolitical and socioeconomic issues, such as aging and health trends, immigration, and consumer behavior.  The full press release is available from NYU Today.

THE CENTER FOR MATHEMATICAL TALENT at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU is pleased to announce a partnership with the NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES to offer an After School STEM Mentoring program in mathematics for July and August 2011.

1. Summer Fellows will attend 10 hours of training in lessons and activities in mathematics from which they can choose what they would like to teach.
2. Summer Fellows will be offered $1000 per course instructed plus a small travel stipend Space is limited. Each "course" will consist of a 3-week module that meet twice a week for two hours each (four hours each week; 12 hours total).

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Chris Bregler, Rob Fergus, Postdoc Graham Taylor, and PhD student Ian Spiro use an innovative data collection method -- a collaborative music video project by a Dutch progressive-electro band -- in order to develop computer vision technology.  The full article is available from NYU Today.

In the new book Stored Clocked Programs Inside DNA: A Simplifying Framework for Nanocomputing, Dennis Shasha and recent Courant Alumna Jessie Chang "have outlined a method for storing programs inside DNA that simplifies nanocomputing."  The full article is available from NYU Today.

Yann LeCun and researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard, MIT, and Wageningen University have received a $4.5 million 5-year grant to develop a "bird-sized, self-flying plane that can navigate through both forests and urban environments."  The full article is available from NYU Today