Lifeboat Foundation

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science announced allocations of supercomputer access to 56 high-impact computational science projects for 2023 through its Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program. These awards, which will pursue transformational advances in science and engineering, account for 60% of the available time on the leadership-class supercomputers at DOEs Argonne and Oak Ridge national laboratories.

The projects will support a broad range of large-scale research campaigns to advance knowledge in areas ranging from astrophysics to sustainable energy technologies to materials design and discovery.

Jointly managed by the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), the INCITE program is the primary means by which the facilities fulfill their mission to advance open science by providing the scientific community with access to their powerful supercomputing resources. The ALCF and OLCF are DOE Office of Science user facilities.

As LHC Run 3 gets into its stride and the first results at a new energy frontier roll in (p5), all eyes are on what’s next: the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), scheduled to start operations in 2029. Civil engineering for the major upgrade is complete (p7) and new crystal collimators for HL-LHC operations are to be put to the test during the current run (p35). Looking beyond the LHC, how best to deal with the millions of cubic metres of excavation materials from a future circular collider? (p9), and a new project to explore the use of high-temperature superconductors for FCC-ee (p8). The HL-LHC and proposed future colliders also feature large in the recent US Snowmass community planning exercise (p23).

Scientists have discovered the brightest energy burst ever detected in space — and Astronomy Twitter is abuzz over the electrifying finding.

As Vice reports, this uber-bright gamma ray burst (GRB), which are huge bursts of energy that occur during major galactic events such as star deaths, was detected by both NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory at England’s University of Leicester.

“Brightest GRB ever just dropped,” University of Alabama astrophysicist Marcos Santander tweeted.

Astronomers have detected an enormous extragalactic structure hiding in an uncharted region of space far beyond the Milky Way ‘s center.

This phantom region, known as the zone of avoidance, is a blank spot on our map of the universe, comprising somewhere between 10% and 20% of the night sky. The reason we can’t see it — at least with standard visible light telescopes — is because the Milky Way’s bulging center blocks our view of it; the center of our galaxy is so dense with stars, dust and other matter that light from the zone of avoidance gets scattered or absorbed before reaching Earth’s telescopes.

However, researchers have had better luck uncovering the zone’s secrets with telescopes that can detect infrared radiation — a type of energy that’s invisible to human eyes, but powerful enough to shine through dense clouds of gas and dust. Infrared surveys of the zone of avoidance have found evidence of thousands of individual galaxies shining through the cosmic fog, though little is known about the large-scale structures that lurk there.

Could energy efficiency be quantum computers’ greatest strength yet?

Bartlomiej Wroblewski/iStock.

Continue reading “Quantum computers’ secret power: How they could dramatically boost energy efficiency” »

Iran’s priority in entering the Ukrainian war arena was to test NATO’s defenses against its drones, to assess the strength of these defenses in the face of Iranian offensive capabilities. It can be said that in the initial stages, the Shahed-136 drone actually managed to achieve exceptional success against NATO air defense employed by the Ukrainian army. This marks a victory for Tehran.

However, the ultimate evaluation of the Shahed-136 drone’s capability against NATO defenses will have to wait until NATO supplies Ukraine with more air defenses in the days ahead. The implications of these advances for the balance of power between Russian and Ukrainian forces, as well as the reputation of the types of weapons supplied to the Ukrainian military, were certainly realized by NATO’s leadership in the wake of these drone attacks. NATO swiftly rushed to implement additional air defense systems designed to deal with such small, drones that are capable of flying at low altitudes.

Continue reading “Iran‘s Combat Drones in Ukraine War, a New Market” »

A tribute to the Garden City (Bengaluru), a ‘Walk in The Garden’ experience is designed to take passengers through green walls, hanging gardens, and outdoor gardens.