Just this weekend, Massachusetts confirmed the presence of the more contagious strain of SARS-CoV-2, known as B-117. And without enough COVID-19 tests and contact tracers, current contact tracing methods might be insufficient in preventing its spread throughout the Commonwealth. But bidirectional contact tracing, or tracking positive COVID-19 cases both to newly infected individuals and back to their original source, can be twice as effective as current methods.
Secure messaging platforms aren’t necessarily private. Though the messages’ contents might be encrypted, or protected from unauthorized users, the apps can still collect other private information about the platform’s users and communications. This collection of information about users’ data, known as metadata, is what sparked the historic Federal Trade Commission (FTC) penalty on Facebook in […]
BY: GINA MANTICA People’s fear of 5G technology is rational. Such technology does emit radiation, even if it’s at low levels. But 5G isn’t all that different from 4G, and it certainly doesn’t cause COVID-19 despite such rumors having spread rapidly across the globe. Researchers need to better understand how misinformation like this spreads in […]
BY: NATALIE GOLD From November 10-12, the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science(DIMACS) at Rutgers University held the Workshop on Co-Development of Computer Science and Law. The event focused on the future of converging computational techniques and legal principles, and the necessity of providing a computer science perspective on the legal and social […]
BY: GINA MANTICA The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly accelerated the digital boom. This new virtual world, though convenient, comes with issues of digital privacy and cybersecurity that the law is not yet equipped to handle. But reexamining current policies through a technical lens could provide a temporary solution. Concepts from mathematics can help scientists, lawyers, and […]
BY: GINA MANTICA Every surface is composed of thousands of tiny, individual, interacting atoms. To study how two surfaces interact, researchers have to take into account not only the characteristics of each atom, but also the properties of the larger surfaces that the atoms join together to create. Dealing with such large amounts of data […]
BY: NATALIE GOLD Clinical trials are a vital part of advancing medicine. Just take the COVID-19 vaccine for example: without the existence and continuation of clinical trials, the United Kingdom would not have been able to begin administering a vaccine this week. But there are other clinical trials unrelated to the coronavirus that are necessary […]
Many people hear the term “greener earth” and envision flourishing rainforests. But former Junior Faculty Fellow Dan Li hears this phrase and pictures mathematical equations. Li and colleagues use computational models to understand the role that physics plays in climate change so that they can propose effective mitigation strategies. Their article, recently published in Science […]
Scholars and scientists across the globe have found new ways to ensure that important research does not come to a halt during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University recently showed how Hariri Institute-funded collaborative work can not only continue safely, but also flourish in the face of change. […]
If scientists and lawmakers don’t know how much it costs to conserve private lands, then they cannot enact sufficient policies to protect it. Christoph Nolte, a Junior Faculty Fellow at the Hariri Institute for Computing and an Assistant Professor in Earth & Environment at the BU College of Arts & Sciences, used machine learning to build a map that shows the value of lands across the contiguous United States.