Paderborn University (Germany) has selected a Cray CS500 cluster accelerated by FPGAs as the first phase of its Noctua multi-petaflop supercomputer. The new supercomputer will be comprised of 272 compute nodes, connected by Intel’s 100 Gbps Omni-Path fabric. Each node will be equipped with two 20-core Xeon Gold (Skylake) processors, yielding a system core count …
Engineers have worked made drones the size of a bumblebee and loaded them with even tinier sensors and cameras. Almost every part of a drone has been made smaller, except for the brains of the entire operation — the computer chip. Standard computer chips for quadcoptors and other similarly sized drones process an enormous amount …
An amber specimen is now said to hold one of the best, most beautiful and most useful examples of dinosaur feathers. In recent decades, it’s become increasingly clear that modern-day birds are related to dinosaurs. And, while specimens of amber containing the remnants of feathered dinosaurs have been found before, an amber specimen described on …
Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) are the two main companies working on Elon Musk’s vision of the Hyperloop. Both have set eyes on similar markets – the US, Emirates, Northern and Eastern Europe – to try and launch a first prototype of the innovation. Both are working on a magnetic levitation system that …
As of right now Real Clear Politics has the electoral college at 254 for Trump and 215 for Clinton. However, Pennsylvania is 99% counted and has Trump ahead 48.7 to 47.7 and Pennsylvania has 20 electoral college votes. The elected President needs 270 or more electoral college votes. Trump is also ahead in Michigan with …
A synthetic genetic circuit programmed into an attenuated Salmonella enterica subspecies can be used to systemically deliver an anti-tumor toxin into mice with cancer. The circuit allows the bacterial cells inside a tumor to synchronously self-destruct by lysis, releasing the toxin directly in the tumor Researchers at the University of California San Diego and the …
China’s nuclear power installed capacity, including that in operation and under construction, is predicted to top 88 gigawatts by 2020, said Zhang Huazhu, head of the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA), a national industry organization. Nuclear power will play a bigger role in improving the country’s energy structure, coping with climate change and controlling air …
Carnival of Space 313 is up at Pam Hoffman’s Spacer blog. Air and Space magazine – Melted Moon by Dr. Paul Spudis discusses impact melts on the lunar surface The fresh lunar crater Giordano Bruno — a wealth of fascinating landforms to study Nextbigfuture – Several of the new NASA NIAC projects. Pions and Muons …
Wired – Volunteers from the Planethunters website have identified 15 new habitable planet candidates among data collected by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. One of the 15, a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting the solar-type star KIC 12735740, has been officially confirmed as a planet (with 99.9 percent certainty). Named PH2 b, it is the second confirmed planet to …
HPCWire – Last year, John Kelly from IBM suggested that a byproduct of success in building an exaflop computer would be a petaflop in 1/3 of a rack. If we assume that DOE’s target of 20 megawatts (MW) power consumption for an exascale system is achieved and that 1/3 of a rack is about one …
The Carnival of Space 252 is up at Venus Transit. Centauri Dreams looks at the question of whether our civilization would be detectable from another star, assuming a level of technology not much higher than our own. The upcoming Square Kilometer Array may help make detecting other civilizations more likely, but will it be as …
