Making sense of big data is often likened to finding a needle in a haystack. But a dean at UNLV’s engineering college says he’s improved the analogy. Organizing big data is more like finding one-tenth of a needle in a haystack, argues Rama Venkat, head of the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering. “(And) there are not enough scientists to figure out what is in it,” he said.

Perhaps this was on your mind this morning when you were getting ready for work: Pressure-induced Tetrahedral to Orthombic Phase Transition in MgF2.

It was 34 years ago, in 1981, that the first patients of HIV were identified. Even now, there remain more than 36 million people worldwide living with HIV. In 2014, 1.2 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses. Three UNLV research professors, each manning a different front — from educational memoirs to life-saving baby showers to a possible cure — continue to make headway in this worldwide battle.