Decades before “big data” and “the cloud” were a part of our everyday lives and conversations, a custom computer cluster based at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) enabled physicists around the world to remotely and simultaneously analyze and visualize data. The Parallel Distributed Systems Facility (PDSF) cluster, which had served…
Researcher Wins Machine-Learning Competition With Code That Sorts Through Simulated Telescope Data
A new telescope will take a sequence of hi-res snapshots with the world’s largest digital camera, covering the entire visible night sky every few days—and repeating the process for an entire decade. That presents a big data challenge: What’s the best way to rapidly and automatically identify and categorize all of the stars, galaxies, and…
Berkeley Lab to Build an Advanced Quantum Computing Testbed
The U.S. Department of Energy announced today that Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will receive $30 million over five years to build and operate an Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT). Researchers will use the testbed to explore superconducting quantum processors and evaluate how these emerging quantum devices can be utilized to advance scientific research. As…
Scientists Harness the Power of Deep Learning to Better Understand the Universe
A Big Data Center collaboration between computational scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and engineers at Intel and Cray has yielded another first in the quest to apply deep learning to data-intensive science: CosmoFlow, the first large-scale science application to use the TensorFlow framework on a CPU-based high…
New Simulations Break Down Potential Impact of a Major Quake by Building Location and Size
With unprecedented resolution, scientists and engineers are simulating precisely how a large-magnitude earthquake along the Hayward Fault would affect different locations and buildings across the San Francisco Bay Area. A team from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, both U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national labs, is leveraging powerful supercomputers…
Researchers Use Machine Learning to Search Science Data
As scientific datasets increase in both size and complexity, the ability to label, filter and search this deluge of information has become a laborious, time-consuming and sometimes impossible task, without the help of automated tools. With this in mind, a team of researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley are developing…
Applying Machine Learning to the Universe’s Mysteries
Computers can beat chess champions, simulate star explosions, and forecast global climate. We are even teaching them to be infallible problem-solvers and fast learners. And now, physicists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and their collaborators have demonstrated that computers are ready to tackle the universe’s greatest mysteries. The team…
Researchers Successfully Use Distributed Acoustic Sensing For Seismic Monitoring
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown for the first time that dark fiber – the vast network of unused fiber-optic cables installed throughout the country and the world – can be used as sensors for detecting earthquakes, the presence of groundwater, changes in permafrost conditions, and a…
NIH Awards $9.3M for Further Development of PHENIX Structural Biology Software
New Class of ‘Soft’ Semiconductors Could Transform HD Displays
A new type of semiconductor may be coming to a high-definition display near you. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that a class of semiconductor called halide perovskites is capable of emitting multiple, bright colors from a single nanowire at resolutions as small as 500 nanometers. The…
R&D Gives Magnetic Boost to Next-gen X-ray Laser Projects
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Argonne National Laboratory have collaborated to design, build, and test two devices, called superconducting undulators, which could make X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) more powerful, versatile, compact, and durable. X-ray FELs are powerful tools for studying the microscopic structure and other properties of…
New Leaf Study Sheds Light on ‘Shady’ Past
Construction of World’s Most Sensitive Dark Detector Moves Forward
LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), a next-generation dark matter detector that will be at least 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor, has cleared another approval milestone and is on schedule to begin its deep-underground hunt for theoretical particles known as WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, in 2020. WIMPs are among the top prospects for explaining dark…