computer science professor

PopSci's annual "Worst Jobs in Science" issue hits stands this week, and let us tell you, it's a lulu (whale-feces collector, anyone?). But a new study reveals two guys who just might have the best job in science: Northeastern University computer science professor Gene Coopman and grad student Dan Kunkleput put grant money to good use during a study published last week that proves any Rubiks cube configuration can be solved in 26 moves, beating the previously held record of 27 moves set in 1997.

An Internet cafe announcing itself with an internationally known symbol in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

In this, the fourth of a series, Popular Science profiles one of the favored teams competing to win the Darpa Grand Challenge autonomous-vehicle race, which will take place on Saturday, October 8, near Primm, Nevada. Today we look at Stanford's entry, affectionately dubbed Stanley, which is designed to automatically choose the best route. Stay tuned to popsci.com for more previews throughout the week and for minute-by-minute videos and updates on race day.

The quest to build the world´s most potent supercomputer is like a never-ending Olympic event, with the pride of entire nations at stake. This summer, the U.S. will tighten its grip on the gold when engineers at the Department of Energy´s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory boost the speed of IBM´s reigning champion Blue Gene/L to an anticipated 270 teraflops-a floor-shaking 270 trillion calculations per second.

Tony Rose

Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada

All computers lock up or crash, and no operating system is immune (as a matter of fact, we crashed once as we wrote this answer), but singling out specific reasons oversimplifies the issue, explains Daniel Jackson, a computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The underlying cause, Jackson says, is that hardware and software developers are trying to bring products to market in "Internet time"-that is, hyperfast. The result: Quality and reliability suffer.