Technology

Terascale Cluster Supercomputer to be Built on Linux, Itanium 2s

Hewlett-Packard and Rice University’s Computer and Information Technology Institute today announced their plans to build Texas’ fastest academic supercomputer, based on HP’s Intel Itanium 2-based workstations and servers. The Rice Terascale Cluster is expected to be the first computer at a Texas university with a peak performance of 1 teraflop, or 1 trillion floating-point operations per second. More than 30 researchers from fields as diverse as biochemistry, political science, physics and computational engineering have already booked time on RTC.

Researchers claim advance in quantum cryptography

Researchers have demonstrated a new high-speed quantum cryptography method that uses the properties of light to encrypt information into a form of code that can only be cracked by violating the physical laws of nature. The method promises security even against information security’s greatest foe: the not-yet-invented but still-feared powerful quantum computer, which could break almost any conventional code. The researchers transmitted encrypted data at the rate of 250 megabits per second. Because it uses standard lasers, detectors and other existing optical technology to transmit large bundles of photons, the protocol is more than 1,000 times faster than its main competitor, a technique based on single photons that is difficult and expensive to implement, the researchers say.

Accidental finding could lead to full-spectrum solar cell

Researchers have found that the electrical properties of the semiconductor indium nitride are different from what been previously thought — by a wide margin. The result is that an alloy incorporating the material can convert virtually the full spectrum of sunlight — from the near infrared to the far ultraviolet — to electrical current. “It’s as if nature designed this material on purpose to match the solar spectrum,” said one researcher involved.

Mitochondrial DNA as a Cancer Biomarker

As part of a national effort to identify biomarkers for early detection of cancer, the federal National Institute for Standards and Technology is developing safer, faster, and more efficient methods for sequencing the DNA from mitochondria, the tiny energy factories of cells. Mutations within the DNA of mitochondria — a circular strand containing more than 16,000 nucleotide base pairs — have been implicated in a variety of cancers. In one small study by Johns Hopkins University, for example, such mutations were found in lung cancer cells but not the normal cells of the same patients. NIST researchers are working to validate the mitochondrial DNA sequence measurement technology and increase the speed of the sequencing protocol. They hope that this will lead to improved methods that could be used in clinical applications.

Algorithm Predicts Interactions Between Unsolved Protein Structures

Researchers in New York have developed an algorithm that can predict interactions between proteins whose structures are unsolved. The computational tool takes protein interaction prediction to a new level because it works on proteins on which little structural information exists, providing three-dimensional models of the protein-protein complex and identifying the amino acid residues that interact. Said the team’s lead researcher: “The overall goal is to develop personalized medicine, which is based on understanding how a drug affects you versus how it affects me.”

Using Computers, Scientists Successfully Predict Evolution of E. Coli

For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to create accurate computer models of Escherichia coli (E. coli), a bacterium that makes headlines for its varied roles in food poisoning, drug manufacture and biological research. By combining laboratory data with recently completed genetic databases, researchers can craft digital colonies of organisms that mimic, and even predict, some behaviors of living cells to an accuracy of about 75 percent. Now, NSF-supported researchers at the University of California at San Diego have created a computer model that accurately predicts how E. coli metabolic systems adapt and evolve when the bacteria are placed under environmental constraints.

Defeating ‘clingy’ bacteria could help treat urinary tract infections

Clingy bacteria often spell trouble. Scientists have discovered how bacteria manufacture hair-like fibers used to cling to the lining of the kidney and bladder where they cause urinary tract infections (UTIs). The results are published in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cell. “Our findings should lead to new drugs to treat UTIs by blocking the formation of these protein fibers,” says study leader Scott J. Hultgren, Ph.D., the Helen Lehbrink Stoever Professor of Molecular Microbiology. “They also should improve our general understanding of how disease-causing bacteria build, fold and secrete proteins that enable them to cause disease.”

Scientists show how Kaposi’s sarcoma virus causes cancer cells to grow

Scientists have shown for the first time how the virus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma inhibits the body’s immune response and causes cancer cells to grow through a technique called immune evasion. Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, or KSHV,causes Kaposi’s sarcoma, a cancer of the blood vessel cells that often occurs in tissues under the skin or mucous membranes, and is the most common malignancy occurring among AIDS patients. KSHV belongs to the family of herpesviruses that includes the causes of genital herpes, cold sores and chickenpox. The same researchers who previously discovered KSHV examined the expression of a virus-derived cytokine (a hormone-like substance that regulates cells during an immune response) in KSHV and found it not only inhibits immune function, but also causes cancerous cells to grow

Scientists Eavesdrop on Cellular Conversations by Making Mice ‘Glow’

Scientists have coupled the protein that makes fireflies glow with a device similar to a home video camera to eavesdrop on cellular conversations in living mice. The team’s research will allow scientists to study how cellular proteins talk to one another. These communications trigger changes that regulate a healthy body and cause disease when the signals go awry. The findings may speed development of new drugs for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurological diseases.

Choreography, not molecular prepattern, creates vertebrate building blocks

In a study that combines state-of-the-art biological imaging with gene expression analysis, scientists at the California Institute of Technology have uncovered a fundamental insight into the way embryonic cells and tissue move about to form key structures along the vertebrate axis. The study, which could lead to a better understanding of human development, takes advantage of the accessibility of chick embryos to embryonic manipulation. The study enters on segments known as somites, which form along either side of the future spinal cord of an embryo. Somites give rise to mature structures such as ribs, individual vertebrae, and even skin. The key role of somite segmentation in the patterning of the nervous system and the vertebral column has been long known. But the question of precisely how an individual somite buds off from a block of tissue in a pattern that is repeated all along the animal’s torso, from head to tail, is poorly understood.

No Difference Between Ionized Bracelet and Placebo for Pain Relief

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic say that wearing ionized bracelets for the treatment of muscle and joint pain is no more effective than wearing placebo bracelets. Authors of the published study randomly assigned 305 participants to wear an ionized bracelet for 28 days and another 305 participants to wear a placebo bracelet for the same duration. The study volunteers were men and women 18 and older who had self-reported musculoskeletal pain at the beginning of the study. Neither the researchers nor the participants knew which volunteers wore an ionized bracelet and which wore a placebo bracelet. Bracelets were worn according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. Both types of bracelets were identical and were supplied by the manufacturer, QT, Inc.

MIT, HP team on massive digital archive

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology today announced the worldwide launch of DSpace, a massive digital repository system which will capture, store, distribute and preserve the intellectual output of MIT’s faculty and research staff. Developed jointly by the MIT Libraries and the Hewlett-Packard Co., DSpace will transform how MIT distributes and archives the results of its research, and will serve as a model for other universities and institutions with similar needs.