Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed
It's a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection. October's list includes the microstructural differences between regular and gluten-free spaghetti, capturing striking snakes in action, the mystery behind the formation of Martian gullies, and-for all you word game enthusiasts-an intriguing computational proof of the highest possible scoring Boggle board.
Highest-scoring Boggle board
Credit: Dan Vanderkam
Sometimes we get handy story tips from readers about quirkily interesting research projects. Sometimes those projects involve classic games like Boggle, in which players find as many words as they can from a 4*4 grid of 16 lettered cubic dice, within a given time limit. Software engineer Dan Vanderkam alerted us to a preprint he posted to the physics arXiv, detailing his quest to find the Boggle board configuration that yields the highest possible score. It's pictured above, with a total score of 3,625 points, according to Vanderkam's first-ever computational proof. There are more than 1,000 possible words, with replastering" being the longest.