oak ridge national laboratory

Miniature spectrometer can detect biological hazards

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a miniature device that can identify as little as a fraction of a spore of anthrax and other biological hazards within 30 milliseconds. Such prompt detection and identification of hazardous materials could greatly enhance the protection of first-responder emergency personnel and the capabilities of early warning systems.

Cray, gov't team on first split-personality supercomputer

With the delivery next month of the Cray X1 supercomputer, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Cray Inc. will take a big step toward investigating computer architectures for scientific discovery. The Cray X1 is the first U.S. computer to offer vector processing and massively parallel processing capabilities in a single architecture and will be used to solving scientific problems in climate, biology, nanoscale materials, fusion and astrophysics.