Feature:
Science in motion (June 3, 2009)
Scientific visualization harnesses the power of computing and human vision
as full partners in scientific reasoning. As this gallery of computer-animated
simulations shows, there is no end to the possibilities in sight.
Full story
Keeping on course (April 14, 2009)
The next big physics facility will collide bunches of protons and oppositely charged positrons,
but there’s a problem: The bunches leave electromagnetic wakes that can perturb particles
that follow. Researchers are applying major computer capacity to decipher the phenomenon before
the collider is built.
Full story
Divide and conquer (January 9, 2009)
Better nanoscale materials for devices like solar cells may depend on bigger, more detailed
computational models. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have a method that
splits up such models to make them run well on giant computers.
Full story
Challenge sparks U.S. leadership computer plan (November 14, 2007)
A Japanese supercomputer’s record-setting performance surprised American scientists –
and set off a drive to keep American science competitive.
Full story
Oil crisis stalled cars, but jump-started a
supercomputing revolution (July 31, 2007)
The oil embargo of 1973 forever changed the way Americans
think about energy – and it altered the path of
scientific research. Alvin Trivelpiece had a lot to do with
that change.
Full story
From deep freeze to furnace (June 4, 2007)
A researcher is modeling what happens when hydrogen pellets frozen
to near absolute zero are shot into a plasma more than six times hotter
than the sun. What he’s learning could help lead to
clean, abundant energy.
Full story
Burning questions (April 16, 2007)
Powerful computers are simulating how turbulence enhances –
or retards – combustion in clean, efficient engines.
A grant of 2.5 million processor hours from the Department of
Energy’s INCITE program made the model possible.
Full story
Kernels:
Annotations accelerate supercomputer programs
(June 30, 2009)
Computer scientists must tweak codes to optimize performance on today supercomputers
a time-consuming process that often doesn translate from one platform to another. Orio,
a new software tool, uses annotations to automate the process.
Full story
Advancing the science of advancing interfaces (December 5, 2008)
Moving interfaces are everywhere, James Sethian says – in flames, computer chip
manufacturing and even inkjet printers. For almost 30 years, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
researcher has led efforts to build computer codes that track these complex fronts. The methods
he's devised have led to better semiconductors, improved medical images and other practical
applications.
Full story
Planning, placement and more: Optimization makes it easier (August 13,
2007)
Many everyday decisions may be thought of as optimization problems – problems that
seek to maximize or minimize desired quantities or qualities given certain constraints. Cynthia
Phillips and fellow researchers consider enormously complex optimization problems and
devise algorithms that let computers solve such problems quickly and efficiently.
Full story
Overture plays on methods for faster, more accurate models (July
31, 2007)
In simulating a physical phenomenon, some researchers use a single technique
or algorithm. That approach is not always the best choice. Bill Henshaw, an
applied mathematician at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, researches
ways to combine computational “tools” that automatically adapt
to efficiently attack specific parts of the simulation.
Full Story
Clustermatic: Supercomputing made easy –
almost (July 2, 2007)
DOE researchers have made it easier to link off-the-shelf PCs
into powerful parallel clusters.
Full story
Building tiny detectors (June 18, 2007)
An applied mathematician looks at how molecules’ shapes
affect the way minuscule structures come together. His work has
applications to tiny sensors capable of detecting substances in
minute amounts.
Full story
MADNESS makes sense (April 16, 2007)
A mathematical software framework called MADNESS could
help scientists study and simulate systems previously thought
nearly impossible. It has potential applications in energy,
drug development and other fields.
Full story
Putting the pieces together (April 16, 2007)
Scientists are redefining the computer operating system concept to provide
a framework for custom systems efficient enough for the next generation of
high-performance computers.
Full story
Big Iron:
Future flames (September 15, 2009)
Ultra-lean premixed flames hold promise for boosting efficiency and cutting emissions in
thousands of boilers, furnaces and turbines, but they’re often unstable and subject
to quenching. Detailed computer models are helping researchers understand and improve these
complex chemical reactions.
Full story
Causing a stir (August 17, 2009)
Sandia National Laboratory scientists use one of the world’s
most powerful computers to decipher turbulent flows in flames –
a key factor in understanding and improving combustion, which is still
likely to be the world’s main energy source for decades.
Full story
Hard target (June 1, 2009)
Concrete may be as common as dirt today, but much of what’s known about
pouring this vital material is based on the gut feelings
of experienced crews. Now computer models are illuminating what influences
flow and how that affects stress and environmental impact.
Full story
Power from plants (February 26, 2009)
The woody material in plant stems and leaves could be an abundant source
of ethanol is an economical way can be found to break it into sugars.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are deploying massive computer
resources to decipher this obstacle.
Full story
Moving mounds of data (February 12, 2009)
The increasing power of high-performance computers has created a parallel
increase in the data they process and produce. But moving mountains of
data can lead to bottlenecks that limit computers’ speed. Researchers
are finding ways to break those barriers.
Full story
Hot stuff (August 13, 2007)
A computer simulation will show how new, efficient nuclear power plants can
keep their cool. The project will use a grant of 1 million processor hours
from the Department of Energy’s INCITE program.
Full story
Star material (July 2, 2007)
A simulation of the deaths of massive stars is shedding
light on the origin of everything, from the iron in our
blood to the planet we live on.
Full story
Speed bump (April 16, 2007)
Computer scientists helped bump up the speed with which a combustion simulation program
ran by as much as 10 times. The simulation ran on some of the world’s most
powerful high-performance computers.
Full story
At the Universities:
Unfolding protein folding (August 7, 2009)
Proteins can be unpredictable, kinking into shapes that
help to determine these biological workhorses’
functions – or dysfunctions. A University of
Washington biologist is using high-performance computers
to explore the energy landscape these complex molecules
inhabit to help solve the protein puzzle and come up with
improved designs.
Full story
Clearing up clouds (June 12, 2009)
A team of researchers led by a University of Colorado scientist
is hoping to disperse some of the haze surrounding clouds&Rsquo; behavior
and influence on the atmosphere. The tool: a simulation operating at
an exceptionally fine scale.
Full story
Quiet, please (November 18, 2008)
The "noise" of an operating system's background activity can be a big
distraction for supercomputers. University of New Mexico and Sandia
National Laboratory researchers have ideas for keeping it quiet.
Full story
Plotting plasmas could influence fusion (July 31, 2007)
Computer simulation of the behavior of high-temperature plasmas is
crucial to the development of fusion reactors, a potential source
of clean energy. Russel Caflisch of UCLA and fellow researchers
are using a multiscale mathematics approach to deal with the
huge range of length and time scales that accurate modeling
requires.
Full story
Programming myths, folklore, and recurring bugs (June 18, 2007)
“Urban legends” – mixtures of truth, exaggeration
and falsity – exist within virtually all fields, and software development
is no exception. How such folklore enters the computer programming
culture – and can improve software developer productivity –
is what interests Victor Basili, a computer science professor at the University
of Maryland-College Park.
Full story
Digging up FOSLS (June 4, 2007)
A technique devised by a University of Colorado mathematician unravels
complex equations, letting computers solve them more quickly and
efficiently. He’s applied it to models of blood flow
and pressure in the eye.
Full story
Sniffing out bad code (April 16, 2007)
A program designed to find and fix bad computer codes now is
finding malicious programming and maintaining software on some
of the world’s biggest computers.
Full story
Calculating error pollution (April 16, 2007)
University of Texas researchers are out to make computer
simulations more precise with mathematical methods to estimate
errors. Potential results include smaller, faster
electronics, cures for disease, and other applications.
Full story
Synchronized:
Coal conversion technology gets computational tweaks
(September 11, 2009)
Scientists are using the world’s most powerful computer for open
science to guide engineers designing bigger, more efficient reactors
to convert coal into synthetic gas. The work could help make a
ubiquitous energy source gentler on the environment.
Full story
Tracking contamination from reservation to river
(June 26, 2009)
Scientists are using the world’s most powerful computer for open
science to guide engineers designing bigger, more efficient reactors
to convert coal into synthetic gas. The work could help make a
ubiquitous energy source gentler on the environment.
Full story
Research gets to heart of arrhythmia causes
(May 7, 2009)
For millions of people, disease can derail the sequence of chemical and
electrical events that make heart muscles contract, causing dangerous
arrhythmias. Scientists are using computer models to understand these
problems.
Full story
Methods model flows and assess uncertainty
(February 9, 2009)
Two brothers are developing mathematical models of subsurface flow and
transport to better understand things like how contaminants migrate
through groundwater. They're also quantifying the uncertainty of these
and other models.
Full story
Collaboration fuses codes for efficient simulation
(June 4, 2007)
Ravi Samtaney knew computer resources beyond anything practically available
would be required to run codes he designed to simulate a reactor the size
of ITER, the international experiment to develop commercially feasible fusion
energy.
Full story
Collaborative effort helps optimize cavities in accelerators
(April 16, 2007)
When they’re miles around and buried underground, it’s tough to
improve particle-smashing accelerators – unless you use simulation,
as a collaboration between computer researchers and physicists did.
Full story
Genealogy:
More than a bit faster (December 23, 2008)
An eight-year effort to improve database indexing is paying off
for a group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers.
FastBit, their program to accelerate searches, recently earned
recognition as a promising technology.
Full story
Computing climate (June 18, 2007)
When it comes to improving computer climate models and making
them run on powerful machines, one Department of Energy program
was the CHAMMP. Models it improved more than a decade ago
still contribute to global climate change science.
Full story
Message passing passage (April 16, 2007)
The big computers of today might not have been possible
if some dedicated experts hadn’t gathered at an
“unappetizing” hotel in the 1990s. The
standard they created is used on virtually every high-performance
computer today.
Full story
New Faces:
Debusschere earns honors for sorting out uncertainty (April 24, 2009)
A Sandia National Laboratories scientist is wading into the unpredictable
reactions driving processes like gene regulation and electricity generation
from fuel cells. He earned a prestigious honor for his work, which could
advance medicine and energy.
Full story
OS innovator Maccabe skates into Oak Ridge (March 20, 2009)
At the University of New Mexico, Barney Maccabe helped pioneer the “lightweight&rfquo;
operating systems for high-performance computers. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory
he’s helping bring petascale computing into the mainstream of scientific
computing – and practicing his substantial hockey skills.
Full story
Alston S. Householder Fellow explores explosive issues (February 5, 2008)
Ralf Deiterding’s quest for unexplored areas in scientific computing has led to si
mulations of detonation at the finest detail.
Full story
Researcher finds small scales aren’t just drops in the ocean (August 13, 2007)
Susan Kurien sweats the (relatively) small stuff. She and her fellow researchers study
how small-scale ocean phenomena can affect large-scale climate.
Full story
Scientist joins computers, biology for discovery (June 4, 2007)
Chris Oehmen is the “glue guy” whose work helps hold together
research collaborations spanning disciplines from microbiology
to chemistry to high-performance computing.
Full story
Speed demon (April 16, 2007)
Todd Munson is addicted to speed – the kind that makes computers run
faster. The researcher works on optimization codes that makes programs
run their best.
Full story
