It’s estimated that every year in the US there are 1.6 million to 3.8 million sports-related traumatic brain injuries. And if not diagnosed in a timely and accurate manner, they can lead to further complications including depression and even suicide. So researchers at the University of Notre Dame have developed a voice recognition iPad app that listens for signs of a brain injury in someone’s speech, providing an almost instant diagnosis. More »
A lot of biodiversity research relies on being able to recognize and catalog the species in a given ecosystem. That’s a task made slightly easier when spiders are involved thanks to researchers at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain who’ve developed algorithms that can automatically recognize an arachnid based on the design of the web it spins. More »
Researchers at MIT have discovered that when nanowires just billionths of a meter thick are inserted into liquids, they passively draw it upwards along its length without any outside power or suction. It’s like the world’s tiniest Dyson that you never have to find an outlet to plug in. More »
IBM has been producing some of the best performing supercomputers in the world for a number of years. In fact, back in 2008 and 2009 IBM developed and launched a supercomputer called Roadrunner. This supercomputer was the first to be able to operate at sustained performance in the petaflop range.
The computer was installed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory where it has been in use for the last five years. Yesterday, the laboratory officially decommissioned Roadrunner. The supercomputer has 12,960 IBM PowerXCell 8i processors and 6480 AMD Opteron dual-core processors.
Those processors shared 114 TB of memory and about 1.09 million TB of storage. The supercomputer isn’t being completely dismantled, researchers will continue to utilize the machine and its impressive power for various experiments. These experiments will include things such as determining the methods for compressing operating system memory and optimizing data routing.
With Roadrunner being decommissioned from research duties, scientists and other researchers can now use the computer for projects that couldn’t have been done while the supercomputer was being used for research projects. The computer is housed in 6000 ft.² of space and cost $125 million to build. Roadrunner may not be fast enough for the scientists and researchers at Los Alamos, but the computer is still incredibly fast and sits at number 22 on the list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. The computer gulps power needing 2345 kW when running full tilt. Modern supercomputers need significantly less power to achieve significantly more performance.
[via PCMag]
World’s first petaflop supercomputer gets decommissioned is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, is a fundamental piece of legislation which forms the foundation of US law regarding digital rights. It’s far from perfect for consumers—but it also has a massive impact on the progress of research, too. More »
For all the money and effort poured into supercomputers, their lifespans can be brutally short. See IBM’s Roadrunner as a textbook example: the 116,640-core cluster was smashing records just five years ago, and yet it’s already considered so behind the times that Los Alamos National Laboratory is taking it out of action today. Don’t mourn too much for the one-time legend, however. The blend of Opteron and Cell processors proved instrumental to understanding energy flow in weapons while also advancing the studies of HIV, nanowires and the known universe. Roadrunner should even be useful in its last gasps, as researchers will have a month to experiment with the system’s data routing and OS memory compression before it’s dismantled in earnest. It’s true that the supercomputer has been eclipsed by cheaper, faster or greener competitors, including its reborn Cray arch-nemesis — but there’s no question that we’ll have learned from Roadrunner’s brief moment in the spotlight.
Filed under: Science
Via: NBC
Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory
When constructing computer circuits, most folks start with silicon and metal, but not the researchers at Stanford. The boffins in Palo Alto want to build computers out of living tissue, and to that end they’ve created a biological transistor, called the transcriptor. Transcriptors substitute DNA for semiconductors and RNA for the electrons in traditional transistors — essentially, the transcriptor controls the flow of a specific RNA protein along a DNA strand using tailored combinations of enzymes. Using these transcriptors, researchers built logic gates to derive true/false answers to biochemical questions posed within living cells. Using these bio-transistors, researchers gain access to data not previously available (like whether an individual cell has been exposed to certain external stimuli), in addition to allowing them to control basic functions like cellular reproduction.
This new breakthrough — when combined with the DNA-based data storage and a method to transmit DNA between cells the school’s already working on — means that Stanford has created all the necessary components of a biologic computer. Such computers would allow man to actually reprogram how living systems operate. Of course, they haven’t built a living genetic PC just yet, but to speed up its development, the team has contributed all the transcriptor-based logic gates to the public domain. Looking to build your own biologic computer? A full explanation of the transcriptor awaits below.
Filed under: Science
Via: The Verge
Source: Stanford University, Science Magazine
The next-generation of video game consoles will usher in some amazing visuals, which we already caught a glimpse of during Sony’s PlayStation 4 unveiling. Activision’s R&D department took center stage yesterday during the company’s GDC panel called “next-generation character rendering,” which after you see their tech demo, will have you wondering if it’s creepy or super awesome.
The real-time character demo is a 2-minute long video that highlights a number of amazing improvements in regards to a character’s facial gestures. The demo, which is all running in real-time, captures the actor’s face, eye movements, skin imperfections and nearly every emotion the actor could think of. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Assassin’s Creed 4 First Gameplay Trailer Shows Off Underwater Exploration, Splinter Cell: Blacklist Video Highlights ‘Ghost’, ‘Panther’ and ‘Assault’ Play Styles, 
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken have developed a new type of motion capture system that doesn’t require the live action performers to wear those skintight body suits covered in cumbersome tracking markers. And the typical 360 degree array of infrared sensors capturing their movements can be reduced to just a handful of strategically placed video cameras. More »
We already told you about the CASIS and MassChallenge startup accelerator partnership aiming to find the next great research project to send into space, and give that project over $100,000 to help bring it to fruition. Now, Engadget wants to help make it easier for you, dear reader, to get your idea into orbit by offering the chance to trim $100 off the $199 application fee.
The process is simple: you click the source link below and fill out a short form outlining your idea and providing your contact info. Then, should CASIS like what it sees, it’ll send out promo codes to ten of you to be used when submitting the full application on the MassChallenge website. Sound good? Well, hop to it folks, because CASIS is looking to deliver the promo codes by April 1st. Not that you should need much incentive to jump on the opportunity… we’re talking about sending your pet project into space, after all.
Filed under: Science
Source: Research proposal form
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
