Burning down the house (with FireGrid)

How do you get the raw data needed to make computer simulations and predictions about the spread of a given type of fire?

By equipping a test room with sensors, cameras and monitors to record everything — and then lighting a match.

All inside a large, hangar-like building called a “burn hall facility,” complete with an elevated viewing area for the audience, and an experienced team of fire engineers who coordinated the setup and execution of the experiment in a predictable and safe manner.

Feature - GPU

Common cheap chips get jobs done faster

For labs on a budget, graphic processing units could open the door to computationally intensive research.

EGEE

A week at CERN

In mid-June, EGEE hosted Ilaria Marchese, a student from the International School of Geneva, on work-experience for a week. Ilaria, who will be 15 in August, shares her thoughts on her week, women in science and research, and life at CERN.

Link of the week Gaia This satellite’s mission is to conduct a census of the one billion (alias one thousand million) stars in our galaxy. Read more				Image of the week Red, green and blue for a new view Read more