Tuesday, November 22, 2011

'Colony' software speeds up high-performance computing processes

(U.S. DOE Research News) Am I responsible for the actions of my brother? According to Oak Ridge National Laboratory computer scientist Terry Jones, the answer may be "yes" for computer nodes. As the number of processors continues to increase in leadership-class supercomputers, their ability to perform parallel computation—doing multiple calculations simultaneously—becomes increasingly important...11/21

Software Tools Will Need Refresh for ORNL's Titan Supercomputer

(HPC Wire) Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s National Center for Computational Sciences is a Department of Energy supercomputing center that houses the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility and the Jaguar supercomputer...11/21

Wayne Manges named Distinguished ISA Fellow

(Knoxville News Sentinel) [Need to scroll] Wayne William Manges has been named a Distinguished ISA Fellow by the International Society of Automation. He is a program manager at Oak Ridge National Laboratory...11/21

ORTEC: How it all began

(Oak Ridger) This story begins in the late 1950s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It tells about the events leading up to the formation of Oak Ridge Technical Enterprises Corp. (ORTEC), including the decision to form the company. It is a saga involving technical and administrative issues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and also perceived, as well as misperceived, ethical, cultural, and policy issues...11/21

Previous ORNL Stories

DOE

National Lab 'Flips Switch' on East Coast's Largest Solar Array

(DOE Press Release) On Friday, the Energy Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory "flipped the switch" on the largest solar photovoltaic array in the eastern United States. The 164,312 solar panels hosted at the Lab in New York State -- one of the largest solar farms built on federal property in the nation -- will produce enough energy to power up to 4,500 homes...11/21

State & Regional

GM to make Equinox in TN, add 2nd vehicle for 2015

(AP) General Motors says it will start building its Chevrolet Equinox at its plant in Tennessee next year and begin making a midsized vehicle there for the 2015 model year...11/21

National

U.S. Firms Keen to Add Foreign Jobs

(Wall Street Journal) U.S.-based multinational corporations added 1.5 million workers to their payrolls in Asia and the Pacific region during the 2000s, and 477,500 workers in Latin America, while cutting payrolls at home by 864,000, the Commerce Department reported...11/22

Supercommittee announces failure in effort to tame debt

(Washington Post) A special congressional committee created to try to curb the national debt abandoned its work and conceded failure Monday, the latest setback in a long effort by Washington to overcome ideological differences and stem the rising tide of red ink...11/21

energy & science policy

FY 2012 Appropriations Bill for National Institute of Standards and Technology

(AIP) On Friday, President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 2112 which contains funding for the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)...11/21

Inside Energy Extra

11/21 A daily report on U.S. energy policy
[ORNL users only]
- DOE-backed firm to sell N.Y. plant
- EPA to miss deadline for refinery regs
- Judge sets deadline on polar bear rule
- China move could help EV companies
- States tout need for low-sulfur fuel

science & technology

A Rare Isotope Helps Track an Ancient Water Source

(NY Times) The Nubian Aquifer, the font of fabled oases in Egypt and Libya, stretches languidly across 770,000 square miles of northern Africa, a pointillist collection of underground pools of water migrating, ever so slowly, through rock and sand toward the Mediterranean Sea...11/21

The Lightest Material on Earth

(The Atlantic) Scientists at the University of California, Irvine, announced the creation of the world's lightest material in the journal Science last week. The material, which is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam, is 99.99% air...11/22

Darpa: Do Away With Antibiotics, Then Destroy All Pathogens

(Wired News) Last year, federal officials warned that Americans were on the verge of “a post-antibiotic era.” And that’s exactly what the Pentagon’s far-out research agency is after...11/21

Can Electric Cars Help Automakers Reach 55 MPG?

(NPR) Under fuel-economy rules announced by the White House this summer, cars will have to get an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 — nearly double the current average. Reaching that goal will take not only feats of engineering but also changing how Americans think about their cars and how they drive them...11/21