Los Alamos Press Highlights

New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge winners revealed

Albert Zuo, left, and Eli Echt-Wilson of Albuquerque La Cueva High School. LANL photo.

The 24th annual New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge took place this week at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM. Open to any New Mexico high-school, middle-school or elementary school student, the project-based learning event is geared to teaching a wide range of skills, including research, writing, teamwork, time management, oral presentations and computer programming.

The top honors went to Eli Echt-Wilson and Albert Zuo from Albuquerque’s La Cueva High School. For their project “Modeling Tree Growth and Resource Use with Applications.” (Full Story)

La Cueva High School takes top honors at NM Supercomputing Challenge

Organizers of the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge say two high school students from Albuquerque have taken the top prize at this year’s competition.

La Cueva High School’s Eli Echt-Wilson and Albert Zuo came up with a unique model that simulates the growth of individual tree branches and leaves based on underlying biological processes. (Full Story)

Also in the Los Alamos Monitor and the Santa Fe Hometown News

 The solar window is here

Quantum dot LSC devices under ultraviolet illumination. LANL image.

There's a new option for the aesthetically demanding: special windows that can capture the light that hits them.

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Milano-Bicocca have created a transparent solar window. They embedded quantum dots (nanocrystals made of semiconducting materials already used in solar panel systems to capture energy) into a transparent polymer. And because solar cells don't absorb all the light that hits them, light still comes through the window. (Full Story)

NNSA announces $25M grant for nonproliferation

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development today announced the award of a $25 million grant to a North Carolina State University-led consortium for research and development in enabling capabilities for nonproliferation. This sizeable, long-term investment will support the consortium at $5 million per year for five years. The grant is in response to a funding opportunity announcement issued in May 2013. (Full Story)

What Power8 and OpenPOWER might mean for HPC

IBM's Tom Rosamilia (left) and Doug Balog reveal the company’s Power8 Systems. IBM photo.

One could argue that what IBM is trying to accomplish with the OpenPOWER Foundation in an open way with many partners up and down the hardware and software stacks is based on ideas it put to the test many years ago in the “Roadrunner” petascale-class x86-Cell hybrid system at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This was the first large-scale accelerated system, and IBM seeks to make what was exotic with Roadrunner six years ago easier to do today and something more akin to normal in the years ahead. (Full Story)

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