A six-month study led by the Computational Research and Environmental Energy Technologies Divisions with funding from Google has found that moving common software applications used by 86 million U.S. workers to the cloud could save enough electricity annually to power Los Angeles for a year. The study, conducted with Northwestern University, is summarized in a report issued yesterday. More>
Posts Tagged ‘Computational Research Division’
Moving Select Computer Services to the Cloud Promises Significant Energy Savings
Wednesday, June 12th, 2013Lab’s Wehner Quoted in NBC News Story on Oklahoma Tornado
Tuesday, May 21st, 2013
Do tornadoes follow well-worn tracks? Where do the deadliest twisters hit? Will climate change make such storms worse? Monday’s devastating tornado in Oklahoma raises some questions for which scientists have ready answers, and others that could puzzle them for years to come. “The short answer is, we have no idea,” Michael Wehner, a climate researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told NBC News. For years, Wehner has been studying the climate models for extreme weather, and he’s a lead author for the next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as the federal government’s latest national assessment on climate change. More>
Mathematics of Popping Bubbles in Foam
Monday, May 13th, 2013
Bubble baths and soapy dishwater, the refreshing head on a beer and the luscious froth on a cappuccino. All are foams, beautiful yet ephemeral as the bubbles pop one by one. Now, two researchers from Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have described mathematically the successive stages in the complex evolution and disappearance of foamy bubbles, a feat that could help in modeling industrial processes in which liquids mix or in the formation of solid foams such as those used to cushion bicycle helmets. More>
Bert de Jong to Lead CRD’s Scientific Computing Group
Wednesday, May 8th, 2013
Bert de Jong of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been named the new leader of the Scientific Computing Group in Berkeley Lab’s Computational Research Division (CRD). De Jong will join Berkeley Lab on July 1. At PNNL, de Jong leads the High Performance Software Development Group responsible for NWChem at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a national scientific user facility providing integrated experimental and computational resources for environmental molecular science research. More>
Brain Browser Holds Promise for Precision Medicine
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Researchers from Berkeley Lab, UCSF and Oblong Industries presented a prototype of their brain simulation and innovative navigation interface at UCSF’s OME Precision Medicine Summit on Thursday, May 2. Experts believe that this visualization holds promise for the field of precision medicine, which will allow future doctors to cross-reference an individual’s personal history and biology with patterns found worldwide and use that network of knowledge to pinpoint and deliver care that’s preventive, targeted, timely and effective. More>
Berger, Sethian Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Thursday, May 2nd, 2013
The National Academy of Sciences announced the election of two Berkeley Lab researchers to this year’s class of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 14 countries. They were elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Representing Berkeley Lab this year are James Berger (left) from the Physical Biosciences Division and James Sethian from the Computational Research Division. More>
In Memoriam: Computational Research Division’s Alex Slepoy
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013
Alex Slepoy of the Computational Research Division’s Complex Systems Group passed away on March 19. He was 50 years old. Slepoy was a computer systems engineer that worked on developing high performance methods in scientific computing. He started work at the Lab in 2011, and was an affiliate from 1997 to 2000. Slepoy worked on several research projects, including a feasibility study for analyzing radiation-sensing data and on the CRD cybersecurity project. Before joining Berkeley Lab, he spent three years managing a modeling and simulation program for the National Nuclear Security Agency, and prior to that developed massively parallel codes in computational biology, chemistry and materials science at Sandia National Laboratories.
Taghrid Samak Works to Impact Social Development in Egypt
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013
Since the Egyptian uprising that ultimately toppled the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak began on Jan. 25, 2011, Taghrid Samak of Berkeley Lab’s Computational Research Division has watched as the initial hope for her homeland has unraveled into a “messy” situation, as she puts it. But last month, Samak was at MIT, meeting with other Egyptian professionals to take concrete steps to address at least some of the pressing issues in the country that launched the Arab Spring. She chaired the 2013 EgyptNEGMA (Networking, Entrepreneurship, Growth, Mobilization, and Action) conference to review 10 finalist proposals for advancing social development in Egypt and choosing the top three. More>
Meeting the Computing Challenges of Next-Generation Climate Models
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
The Lab recently hosted an international workshop that brought together top climatologists, computer scientists and engineers from Japan and the United States to exchange ideas for the next generation of climate models as well as the hyper-performance computing environments that will be needed to process the data from those models. “In order to simulate these kinds of storms, you really do need high-resolution climate models,” said Michael Wehner of the Computational Research Division. “A model run can produce 100 terabytes of model output. The reason it’s so high is that in order to look at extreme weather you need high-frequency data. It’s a challenge to analyze all this data.” The computer simulation above shows hurricanes from category 1 through 5 over 18 years, which generated nearly 100 terabytes of data.More>
Lab Staff Host Albany High Students on Annual Job Shadow Day
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
As they have for the past five years, Berkeley Lab staff members hosted Albany High School juniors as part of the school’s annual Job Shadow Day last week. In all, six scientists in the Computational Research (CRD), Environmental Energy Technologies (EETD) and Materials Sciences (MSD) Divisions played host/mentor this year. Hans Johansen and Terry Ligocki of the Applied Numerical Algorithms Group, Andy Nonaka of the Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering and Daniela Ushizima of the Visualization Group volunteered as hosts in CRD. Nelson Coates of MSD hosted two students and Jonathan Slack of EETD also hosted a student. More>
