Space Junk: Supercomputing's Final Frontier

Tons of junk piling up in space causes lots of problems for the space travel. Fortunately, researchers at the University of Texas have launched a supercomputing project to simulate space junk collisions, and better protect unsuspecting space travelers from potential dangers.

(Read my entire blog at GoParallel)

DOE Supercomputer Budget Threatened with Major Cuts

June was the pits for the Department of Energy’s Titan supercomputer. First researchers at the DOE learned they had been knocked off the top slot of the world’s fastest supercomputers — bested by China’s new Milky Way 2 supercomputer. Then the news last week of a threatened major budget cut.

(Read my entire blog on the topic at GoParallel)

Intel Powers Most of the World's Fastest Supercomputers

The unveiling of China’s Milky Way 2 supercomputer two years ahead of schedule could prove that even robust projections for the high performance computer market may be way too conservative. That would bode very well for Intel, which finds itself represented in more than 80% of all of the systems that made the Top500 list and 98% of those screamingly fast systems making their first appearance on the list.

(See my complete blog on the topic at GoParallel)

Supercomputing Titans Pack Punch, But Lack Power to Beat Exflop Barrier

Supercomputing’s holy grail – the exaflop performance barrier – is still a dream, despite efforts with China’s new Tianhe-2 supercomputer. When unveiled this month, China’s great wall of coprocessors did perform admirably, but far below the industry’s golden heights.

(Read my complete blog at Go Parallel)

Fast and Cool: New Tigon HPC Unveiled

The new Aurora Tigon supercomputer is the first in the market that applies liquid cooling directly to both Intel Xeon 5 processors and Intel Xeon Phi 5120D Phi coprocessors inside. By cooling water temperature to over 50C degrees, Tigon eliminates the need for data center air cooling.

Created by Eurotech SpA, which specializes in supercomputing and embedded, Tigon was unveiled last week at the International Supercomputer Conference (ISC) in Leipzig, Germany. Early measurements pegged performance at 3 GFlops/Watt and approximately 310 TFlop/s for single rack, with a footprint of approximately 1.5 m2.

(Read my complete blog at Go Parallel)

Solutions to doctor shortage needed

As an estimated 14 million additional Americans become eligible for health insurance next year under the Affordable Care Act, recent survey data reveals that the number of doctors entering the healthcare field remains flat, and existing physicians are reducing the number of patients they are willing to service. Solutions to the shortage are urgently needed experts say.

“We are at a critical juncture,” said Steven Wartman, MD, PhD, president and CEO of the Association of Academic Health Centers. “As the 2014 deadline for most Americans to have health insurance approaches, the healthcare workforce is not ready, and we are quickly running out of time.”

(Read my complete blog on the topic at Healthcare Finance News)

Unions make inroads in healthcare

In April, unionized nurses at the Quincy Medical Center in Massachusetts ended a one-day strike over looming job losses, only to see 30 of those in their ranks laid off the next day.

A month later, in Worcester, Mass., the UMass Memorial Medical Center and the union representing 1,100 nurses reached a contract agreement that narrowly avoided a strike there, guaranteeing maximum patient-to-nurse ratios.

(Read my complete blog on the topic at Healthcare Finance News)