By Ken Strandberg The European X-ray Free-electron Laser (European XFEL), recently completed its first experiments that captured images of an antibiotic-disabling enzyme. Scientists use X-rays to bombard molecules and project molecular smatterings on a sensor that reconstructs what the target looks like. With these high-energy X-rays we now have 3D visualizations of actual molecules, like…
Closely spaced hydrogen atoms could facilitate superconductivity in ambient conditions
An international team of researchers has discovered the hydrogen atoms in a metal hydride material are much more tightly spaced than had been predicted for decades — a feature that could possibly facilitate superconductivity at or near room temperature and pressure. Such a superconducting material, carrying electricity without any energy loss due to resistance, would…
Particle physics turns to quantum computing for solutions to tomorrow’s big-data problems
Giant-scale physics experiments are increasingly reliant on big data and complex algorithms fed into powerful computers, and managing this multiplying mass of data presents its own unique challenges. To better prepare for this data deluge posed by next-generation upgrades and new experiments, physicists are turning to the fledgling field of quantum computing to find faster…
Novel SwRI software tool extracts important chemical exposure data
Southwest Research Institute is introducing Floodlight™, a novel software tool that efficiently discovers the vast numbers of chemical components—previously known and unknown—present in the food, air, drugs and products we are exposed to every day. This cheminformatics machine learning tool integrates algorithms with analytical chemistry software to provide deep analysis of gas chromatography mass spectrometry…
BP looks to ORNL, ADIOS to help rein in data
Researchers across the scientific spectrum crave data, as it is essential to understanding the natural world and, by extension, accelerating scientific progress. Lately, however, the tools of scientific endeavor have become so powerful that the amount of data obtained from experiments and observations is often unwieldy. In other words, it is possible to have too…
ORNL researchers advance performance benchmark for quantum computers
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a quantum chemistry simulation benchmark to evaluate the performance of quantum devices and guide the development of applications for future quantum computers. Their findings were published in npj Quantum Information. Quantum computers use the laws of quantum mechanics and units known as qubits…
The Quantum Information Edge launches to accelerate quantum computing R&D for breakthrough science
A nationwide alliance of national labs, universities, and industry launched today to advance the frontiers of quantum computing systems designed to solve urgent scientific challenges and maintain U.S. leadership in next-generation information technology. The Quantum Information Edge strategic alliance is led by two of the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratories: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory…
MIT News: Producing better guides for medical-image analysis
MIT researchers have devised a method that accelerates the process for creating and customizing templates used in medical-image analysis, to guide disease diagnosis. One use of medical image analysis is to crunch datasets of patients’ medical images and capture structural relationships that may indicate the progression of diseases. In many cases, analysis requires use of…
Nation’s First Exascale-Capable Supercomputer Advances Clean Fusion Research
3D Magnetic Interactions Could Lead to New Forms of Computing
A new form of magnetic interaction which pushes a formerly two-dimensional phenomenon into the third dimension could open up a host of exciting new possibilities for data storage and advanced computing, scientists say. In a new paper published today in the journal Nature Materials, a team led by physicists from the University of Glasgow describe how…
New Research Unlocks Properties for Quantum Information Storage and Computing
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have come up with a way to manipulate tungsten diselenide (WSe2)—a promising two-dimensional material—to further unlock its potential to enable faster, more efficient computing, and even quantum information processing and storage. Their findings were published today in Nature Communications. Across the globe, researchers have been heavily focused on a class of…
Argonne Computational Model to Accelerate Engine Development for Hypersonic Flight
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, working in collaboration with Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Convergent Science Inc., have created a new numerical modeling tool that allows for a better understanding of a powerful engine that could one day propel the next generation of airplanes and rockets. Rotating detonation…
Supercomputing Dynamic Earthquake Rupture Models
Some of the world’s most powerful earthquakes involve multiple faults, and scientists are using supercomputers to better predict their behavior. Multi-fault earthquakes can span fault systems of tens to hundreds of kilometers, with ruptures propagating from one segment to the other. During the last decade, scientists have observed several cases of this complicated type of…
TACC Ranch Technology Upgrade Improves Valuable Data Storage
There’s a joke by comedian Steven Wright that goes, “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” Users of advanced computing can likely relate to this. The exponential growth of data poses a steep challenge to efforts for its reliable storage. For over 12 years, the Ranch system at the Texas Advanced Computing Center…
New German Supercomputer Poised to Significantly Accelerate Research
AI and High-performance Computing Extend Evolution to Superconductors
Owners of thoroughbred stallions carefully breed prizewinning horses over generations to eke out fractions of a second in million-dollar races. Materials scientists have taken a page from that playbook, turning to the power of evolution and artificial selection to develop superconductors that can transmit electric current as efficiently as possible. Perhaps counterintuitively, most applied superconductors…
Quantum Computing Boost From Vapor Stabilizing Technique
Nature Inspires a Novel New Form of Computing, Using Light
McMaster researchers have developed a simple and highly novel form of computing by shining patterned bands of light and shadow through different facets of a polymer cube and reading the combined results that emerge. The material in the cube reads and reacts intuitively to the light in much the same way a plant would turn…
Data Science Helps Engineers Discover New Materials for Solar Cells and LEDs
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a high-throughput computational method to design new materials for next generation solar cells and LEDs. Their approach generated 13 new material candidates for solar cells and 23 new candidates for LEDs. Calculations predicted that these materials, called hybrid halide semiconductors, would be stable and exhibit…
Learning Magnets Could Lead to Energy-efficient Data Processing
The power consumption of data centers around the world is increasing. This creates a high demand for new technologies that could lead to energy-efficient computers. In a new study, physicists at Radboud University have demonstrated that this could also be achieved by using chips whose operation is inspired by that of the human brain. The…
Digital Quantum Simulators Can Be Astonishingly Robust
Quantum Cloud Computing With Self-check
Many scientists are currently working on investigating how quantum advantage can be exploited on hardware already available today. Three years ago, physicists first simulated the spontaneous formation of a pair of elementary particles with a digital quantum computer at the University of Innsbruck. Due to the error rate, however, more complex simulations would require a…
Physicists Create Prototype Superefficient Memory for Future Computers
Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and their colleagues from Germany and the Netherlands have achieved material magnetization switching on the shortest timescales, at a minimal energy cost. They have thus developed a prototype of energy-efficient data storage devices. The paper was published in the journal Nature. The rapid development of information…
Research Group Uses Supercomputing to Target the Most Promising Drug Candidates From a Daunting Number of Possibilities
Identifying the optimal drug treatment is like hitting a moving target. To stop disease, small-molecule drugs bind tightly to an important protein, blocking its effects in the body. Even approved drugs don’t usually work in all patients. And over time, infectious agents or cancer cells can mutate, rendering a once-effective drug useless. A core physical…
Argonne Scientists Further Physics With Supercomputing, Prepare for Delivery of First U.S. Exascale System
James Proudfoot regularly shares his technical expertise for significant global scientific endeavors. To date, his efforts have supported many projects at Fermilab, his current home base at Argonne National Laboratory, and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Project (LHC). At CERN in 2012, Proudfoot assisted the team in their successful pursuit of the Higgs Boson. Today, he…