Some scientists dream about big data. The dream bridges two divided realms. One realm holds lofty peaks of number-crunching scientific computation. Endless waves of big data analysis line the other realm. A deep chasm separates the two. Discoveries await those who cross these estranged lands. Unfortunately, data cannot move seamlessly between Hadoop (HDFS) and parallel file systems (PFS)....
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Surgery and radiation remove, kill, or damage cancer cells in a certain area. But chemotherapy—which uses medicines or drugs to treat cancer—can work throughout the whole body, killing cancer cells that have spread far from the original tumor. Finding new drugs that can more effectively kill cancer cells or disrupt the growth of tumors is one way to improve survival rates for ailing...
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The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) today announced the formation of a five-year advanced computing partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for up to $3.1 million. Under the contract, TACC will provide resources, including supercomputers, networks, storage, and expertise in applying computational methods to fundamental research, science and engineering challenges. Advanced...
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As with many fields, computing is changing how geologists conduct their research. One example: the emergence of digital rock physics, where tiny fragments of rock are scanned at high resolution, their 3-D structures are reconstructed, and this data is used as the basis for virtual simulations and experiments. Digital rock physics complements the laboratory and field work that geologists,...
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Much of the data of the World Wide Web hides like an iceberg below the surface. The so-called 'deep web' has been estimated to be 500 times bigger than the 'surface web' seen through search engines like Google. For scientists and others, the deep web holds important computer code and its licensing agreements. Nestled further inside the deep web, one finds the 'dark web,' a place where images...
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Asegun Henry wants to avert the worst effects of climate change by finding new forms of renewable energy and improving the materials that contribute to energy use. "The way we produce electricity today pollutes the environment," said Henry, a mechanical engineering professor at Georgia Tech. "My research is primarily centered on converting us from a fossil fuel-based infrastructure to a...
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The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) has been recognized in the annual HPCWire Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards, presented at the 2016 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC16), in Salt Lake City, Utah. The list of winners was revealed at the HPCWire booth at the event, and on the HPCWire website, located at www.HPCwire.com....
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It sounds like something out of the Borg in Star Trek. Nano-sized robots self-assemble to form biological machines that do the work that keeps one alive. And yet something like this really does go on. Every cell in our body - be they flesh and blood, brain and everything in between - has identical DNA, the twisted staircase of nucleic acids uniquely coded to each organism. Complex...
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Even though it's almost impossible to see, computational biophysicist Rommie Amaro is using the Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin to model the largest atomic level system of the tumor suppression protein p53 to date — over 1.5 million atoms. The simulations identify new "pockets" to reactivate p53 which would be a tremendous...
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DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) contains all of the genetic information for a living organization and is involved in many fundamental biological processes. Information in DNA is stored in chemical bases that pair up. The order of these base pairs contain essential information for an organism. Physical properties of DNA, such as elasticity, strength, and elongation, also play an important role in...
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