Tag Archives: National Science Foundation

White House announces $100 million in funding to help map the human brain

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The Obama administration has officially announced a long-running research project aimed at mapping the human brain. The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative will launch with around $100 mill…


The Yeti rover begins its duties on the Antarctic ice

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Researchers on field studies in the South Pole used to be resupplied by airdrops — but budgetary concerns have made the National Science Foundation begin to resupply by land. However vehicular land travel is risky: tears in the …


Alt-week 9.15.12: The ultimate wind machine, Egyptian Lego and the office of our dreams

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Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. Sometime we wonder, what would we have ended up doing if we didn’t spend our time trawling the web for the week’s best alternative tech stories? We …


Researchers propose à la carte internet services, overhaul for web infrastructure

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A quintet of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation have envisioned a new internet architecture, one where features could be purchased à la carte. The proposed framework would allow users to fine tune their experience by choosin…


10 Gigabit per-second connection between US and China demoed

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You, sir or ma’am, should probably not get too excited. Chances are, this trans-Pacific 10 Gigabit link won’t do you any good, personally. On the other hand, researchers working together across the oceanic divide have tons to cheer about. The China Ed…


White House aims to make internet ’90 percent cheaper’ to build, teams up with Mozilla for $500k competition

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The government’s US Ignite partnership aims to push the growth of next-generation broadband networks, teaming up with over 100 start-ups, universities and existing tech companies like HP, Comcast and Verizon for the project. The President is set to s…


Supercomputer gets a memory boost with 380 petabytes of magnetic tape

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Remember the Cray XK6 at the University of Illinois that drives the National Science Foundation’s Blue Waters project? Well, it looks like it’s getting a little memory upgrade, sorta. We’re not talking a slick new SSD here, or even a sweet NAS, all t…


VT nears completion of HokieSpeed, world’s 96th most powerful supercomputer

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If basking in the presence of a powerful supercomputer is on your list of “must-haves” when selecting a proper university, then you may wish to fire off an admissions application to the Hokies at Virginia Tech. The school’s HokieSpeed system is now …


University gets $188 million AMD-based supercomputer, free copy of Norton

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It used to be that you only needed a bachelor’s degree and elbow patches to be taken seriously as an academic, but now it’s all about that 50-petaflop supercomputer with 500 petabytes of storage whirring away in the basement. The University of Illin…