Data security

The most secure hash function (a mathematical function at the core of data security) in use today is vulnerable to attacks, according to an article in the March issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. A US researcher says that the mathematical theory of hash functions needs much more development before one can come up with more secure algorithms.

Lunar impact

Ohio State University scientists have found the remains of ancient lunar impacts that may have helped create the surface feature called the “man in the moon”. The finding, reported in the journal Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, holds implications for lunar prospecting, and may solve a mystery about how past impacts on Earth affected it’s geology today.

Greek treatise

Italian researchers have recovered part of an ancient Greek treatise, the earliest cartography of the Greek-Roman era, by piecing together 50 fragments of a first-century B.C. parchment used in a mummy’s wrapping, reports Discovery News. The papyrus “helps write new pages of Greek literature and cartography”, says Claudio Gallazzi, a professor of papirology at the University of Milan.

Sense of taste

Neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin have shown that expectations and suggestions also have an effect on how taste registers in the brain. “Neural responses to taste in the primary taste cortex are modulated by expectations and not solely by the objective quality of taste,” the researchers write in the journal Nature Neuroscience.