An interesting story making the rounds this week about researchers who have cracked a centuries-old secret message using statistical translation techniques. From Wired UK: Computer scientists from Sweden and the United States have applied modern-day, statistical translation techniques — the sort that are used in Google Translate — to decode a 250-year old secret message.   The original document, nicknamed the Copiale Cipher, was written in the late 18th century and found in the East Berlin Academy after the Cold War. It’s since been kept in a private collection, and the 105-page, slightly yellowed tome has withheld its secrets ever since.  

Back in February, we noted that the National Science Foundation and Science were partnering to run another International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge to celebrate the grand tradition of visualization — specifically for communicating science, engineering, and technology for education and journalistic purposes. Well, now the submissions are being put to a public vote — with winners to be published in Science and on Science Online. Among this year’s entries are a number of interactive video games that are advancing science and engineering (after the jump):