Anticipating the big one

At 10 a.m. on November 13, 5.3 million people in Southern California participated in the largest earthquake preparedness drill in U.S. history.

The Great Southern California ShakeOut — a collaboration between the United States Geological Society, the National Science Foundation, and the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), among others — provided detailed information to the public about what would happen in the event of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake.

(Experts at the SCEC say there is a 99% probability of an earthquake of at least magnitude 6.7 in the next 30 years.)

The ShakeOut effort required hundreds of the nation’s top seismologists, thousands of years of collective research, and the combined computational capability of some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

Opinion - Medicine

Grids in radiation treatment

Treating cancer patients with radiation is inherently contradictory.

The goal is to apply a large, uniform dose of radiation to a small target, while minimizing collateral damage.

Feature - Bridging grids and clouds

G-Eclipse

Developers announced the creation of a graphical work- bench.

They say it will enable seamless access to both grids and clouds with the same simplicity as users accessing the Internet from their web-browsers.

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