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The article discusses the use of big data in research and focuses on the work of college professor David Lazer. Topics discussed include the use of algorithms in big data research, efforts by technology company Google to use big data to detect outbreaks of the flu, and attempts to use microblogging tool Twitter as a source of research data.

The article profiles Tao Yang, professor of computer science at the University of California at Santa Barbara, California. Yang is chief scientist for Ask.com, the search engine formerly known as Ask Jeeves, which revamped its site in February 2006, dropping its butler mascot. Using the Expert-Rank search algorithm, which Yang helped develop five years ago, Ask.com identifies "expert" Web pages and uses their links to rank other sites, rather than by overall Web popularity. Yang also helped Ask.com develop the way it provides answers.

Reports that a computer-science professor at the University of California at Los Angeles has developed a high-powered technique for unscrambling and Rubik's Cube in fewer than 20 moves. The plans of the professor, Richard Korf, to describe the technique in a paper at a 1997 meeting of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence; What a Rubik's Cube is; Korf's focus on heuristic search algorithms.

The article discusses admissions dean Juan E. Gilbert from Clemson University, who developed the Applications Quest algorithm to aid in the selection of students based on ability and to encourage diversity in incoming classes. Quantitative measurement of student differences and enrollment director Susan Allen from Auburn University are mentioned, as well as diversity measurements for race, income level, and academic interest.

Provides information on the computer program designed by Thomas Callaghan, a junior at the Georgia Institute of Technology, which uses a number of monkeys to chose the football teams for the big bowl games. Details on how the algorithm of the program works; Claim of Callaghan that his program can arrive at the same picks as the controversial BCS formula.