Top Stories:

The Speed of Science: ESnet Lays Foundation for 100 Gpbs

This month the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) announced a major step toward creating  one of the world's fastest and most advanced scientific networks to accelerate U.S. competitiveness in science and technology. Known as the Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI), the effort represents a $62 million multi-year investment by the DOE Office of Science in next-generation networking technology. More>

Magellan Tackles the Mysterious Proton Spin

Although researchers do not fully understand the underlying physics of why protons spin, they do know that this phenomenon contributes to the stability of the universe, magnetic interactions, and is a vital component of MRI technology. In an effort to better understand this phenomenon, STAR researchers are working with NERSC and Berkeley Lab staff to build a real-time cloud-based data processing system to analyze events recorded by the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Data was carried between Brookhaven and NERSC via ESnet. More>

NewsBytes:

NERSC Increases Scientific Productivity With Data Tracking

New supercomputers and networks are contributing to record levels of scientific productivity. To effectively meet the increasing scientific demand for storage systems and services the center’s staff must first understand how data moves within the facility, and thanks to a new dynamic database created by the NERSC Storage Systems Group this process just got a lot easier. The database continually collects statistics from all of these sources and compiles them into a single, searchable repository. The system also automatically generates daily e-mail reports and graphs that illustrate how data moves in and out of the facility’s archival storage. More>

ESnet Tells the World Bandwidth on Demand Will Only Get You So Far

This spring, ESnet staff traded ideas with the global technical community at conferences around the world, discussing the limitations of bandwidth on demand and how to compose services that are easy for users to understand and use. More>

TechWomen Visit Lab; Taghrid Samak Serves As Cultural Mentor

The TechWomen program is a Department of State initiative to bring women who are technical leaders from the Middle East and North Africa for a month of mentoring and exchange of ideas with Silicon Valley companies. Participants from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Palestine were in the Bay Area for the month of June and visited Berkeley Lab on June 24. Taghrid Samak, a postdoctoral fellow in CRD’s Advanced Computing for Science Department and a native of Alexandria, Egypt, was volunteering as a cultural mentor for three of the participants.

For their visit, Jonathan Carter gave an overview of the Lab and Computing Sciences; Amy Chen, Sherry Li, and Elizabeth Bautista talked about their work at the lab; and Deb Agarwal gave a talk on leadership. The women had lunch with Computing Sciences staff and also went on a tour of the ALS.

Samak was invited to join the TechWomen group in Washington DC for the 4th of July weekend, where they attended meetings at the Department of State. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at the closing luncheon on July 6, announcing that next year TechWomen would be complemented by TechGirls, which will bring teenage girls to the U.S. for a month of educational activities.

Berkeley Lab Hosts International AstroComputing Summer School

From July 18-29, Daniel Kasen of UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division, and Peter Nugent of CRD, NERSC, and the Lab’s Computational Cosmology Center hosted the 2011 University of California High-Performance Astro-Computing Center (UC-HIPACC) International AstroComputing Summer School on Computational Explosive Astrophysics.

This year's summer school focused on computational explosive astrophysics, including the modeling of core collapse and thermonuclear supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, neutron star mergers, and other energetic transients. Lectures included instruction in the physics and numerical modeling of multi-dimensional hydrodynamics, general relativity, radiation transport, nuclear reaction networks, neutrino physics, and equations of state. Afternoon workshops guided students in running and visualizing simulations on supercomputers using codes such as FLASH, CASTRO, GR1D, and modules for nuclear burning and radiation transport. All students were given accounts and computing time at NERSC and have access to the codes and test problems in order to gain hands-on experience running simulations at a leading supercomputing facility.

Berkeley Lab instructors include:
· Katie Antypas: Introduction to High Perfomance Computing/NERSC
· Hank Childs: Introduction to HPC/Visualization; Using NERSC Workshop
· Ann Almgren: AMR Hydrodynamics; Self Gravity/AMR; CASTRO/Scaling/Core Collapse Workshop; Parallelization/Advanced Topics
· Dan Kasen: Radiation Transport/SN Light Curves; Monte Carlo/SynApps Workshop
· Rollin Thomas: Radiation Transport/SN spectra and Synapps; Monte Carlo/SynApps Workshop

In the News:

MIT Technology Review: A Network for Wild Experimentation

Internet2, a consortium devoted to developing advanced networking applications and technologies, and the Energy Sciences Network (ESNet), which provides powerful data connections for scientists at national laboratories, universities, and research institutes, are putting together experimental networks on top of dormant networking resources known as "dark fiber." While the researchers say it will be years before the advances reach individuals and businesses, they think the work will ultimately ensure that the Internet functions smoothly in the future. More>

GCN: Energy building 100-gigabit/sec network to handle data 'explosion'

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Internet2 advanced networking consortium announced July 13 plans to build a prototype 100-gigabits/sec prototype network as the first step toward an eventual terabit-speed network. The prototype network will be built for the Energy Department’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) with a $62 million grant under the economic stimulus law. It is part of the Advanced Networking Initiative to produce a next-generation science and research infrastructure, and will include research on energy efficient networking. More>

ISGTW: Science Clouds 2011 debunks cloud myths and more

Last month, researchers interested in cloud computing gathered in San Jose, California for the Science Cloud 2011 Workshop. A few bloggers who were in attendance highlighted a presentation by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Shane Canon entitled, "Debunking Some Common Misconceptions of Science in the Cloud." More>

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