Top Stories:

Visualizing Gulf of Mexico Oil Dispersion

Using software developed by computer scientists in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Computational Research Division, FTLE in VisIt, researchers studying ocean currents in the Gulf of Mexico found that small-scale turbulence in the water directly impacts the transport of pollutants. More>

The Path a Proton Takes

Experts believe that fuel cells may someday serve as clean energy conversion devices for transportation and other applications, but there are still some design issues that engineers need to sort out before this can happen. One challenge is to develop an inexpensive and robust polymer membrane that effectively conducts protons. In a step toward achieving that goal, researchers are running computer simulations at NERSC to understand how protons move through different polymer membranes. More>

NewsBytes:

New to Berkeley Lab Computing Sceinces

Introducing: Daniel Burke and George Michelogiannakis. More>

DOE's Investment Ensures AmeriFlux Data for All

Twenty years ago, researchers began installing sensors in a variety of ecosystems to study how carbon dioxide, energy and water vapor cycles through the environment. Today, these sensors have been deployed at 120 locations across the Americas. Because the Department of Energy recognizes that these datasets could benefit a variety of scientific communities, it is funding an effort to make this data accessible to a wide-range of researchers. More>

State Department's TechWomen Visit NERSC and Berkeley Lab

Berkeley Lab researchers in the Computational Research, Physics and Physical Biosciences Divisions hosted TechWomen—from Algeria, Lebanon and Tunisia—last month. Launched by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2011, TechWomen is an international exchange that uses technology as a means to empower women and girls in the Middle East and North Africa. During their stay, the women also toured the Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). More>

Open House Visitors Experience "Science at Warp Speed"

On October 13, nearly 6,000 members of the community gained science knowledge and learned more about the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the annual Open House. Virtually every division hosted exhibits, including the Computational Research Division, NERSC and the Scientific Networking Division's ESnet.

“Science at Warp Speed: A Journey Through Space and Time in 3D” was the theme of the Computing Sciences exhibit. Volunteers for the day included David Skinner, Terence Sun, Tony Wang, Lauren Rotman, Eli Dart, Eric Roman, Orianna Demassi, Andrew Uselton, Daniela Ushizima, Deb Agarwal, Jon Bashor, Margie Wylie and Linda Vu. Exhibit support was also provided by Joerg Meyer and Yushu Yao. Pictures can be found on the Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences Facebook Page.

In the News:

Symmetry Magazine: Andy Nonaka Helps Bring the Universe into Full Focus

An article on visualization in Symmetry, a joint Fermilab/SLAC magazine, reports that the work of Andy Nonaka, an applied mathematician in Berkeley Lab’s Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering, is helping provide a better understanding of the physics of Type 1a supernovae. The article also cites the role of supercomputers like NERSC’s Hopper system in providing the simulation data used in visualizations. More>

IEEE Spectrum: Could Supercomputing Turn to Signal Processors (Again)?

An article in IEEE Spectrum reports that building high-performance computers used to be all about maximizing flops, or floating-point operations per second. But, the engineers designing today’s high-performance systems are keeping a close eye not just on the number of flops but also on flops per watt.

Judged by that energy-efficiency metric, some digital-signal processing (DSP) chips—the sophisticated signal conditioners that run our wireless networks, among other things—might make promising building blocks for future supercomputers, recent research suggests. But John Shalf of CRD cautions that double-precision calculations and the subsystems required for a supercomputer would significantly lower the machine’s overall energy efficiency. More>

Signal Online: Making Sense of Big Data from Supercomputers

Signal Online reports that big data can mean big problems for the people trying to derive usable information from a large number of sources. Since coming into existence in March, the Scalable Data Management, Analysis and Visualization Institute (SDAV) has made strides to resolve this issue for programs running on supercomputers. The young organization’s efforts have can be applied to a variety of scientific fields, and its tools are open source so others can take advantage of the findings. SDAV Director Arie Shoshani of CRD is interviewed in the article. More>

HPCwire: PPPL Wins Grant to Develop Plasma Edge Simulation Code,
Will Use NERSC Computers

A center based at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has won a highly competitive $12.25 million grant to develop computer codes to simulate a key component of the plasma that fuels fusion energy. The five-year DOE award could produce software that helps researchers design and operate facilities to create fusion as a clean and abundant source of energy. Some of the computation for the project will be done at NERSC. More>

Find out where Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences stories have been mentioned in the news.

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