Continuing searching palindromic sqaure numbers finds a new record number, a 55 digit parlindromic square:

 1373512530649258635292477609^ 2 = 1886536671850530641991373196913731991460350581766356881

Quite a few records for other palindromic sequences have also been broken my multi-core searching algorithm. Check http://www.worldofnumbers.com/palrecs.htm for details.

But the focus of this posting is really about a simple palindromic acronym: STS, which stands for Science Talent Search. It is a science/math competition for high-school seniors sponsored by Intel.

STS has just announced their 40 finalists for the year of 2007 (http://www.societyforscience.org/sts/), and our son is the lucky one from Washington state. His research paper is titled: Explicit Equations in the Plane for Elliptic Curves Given as Space Quartics.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks Intel for promoting science/math in schools.