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Ever wondered what the climate would be like in Middle Earth, the fantasy land of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? So did a researcher at the University of Bristol, UK. And he had access to a supercomputer...

Once fully operational, the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope could produce data at a rate more than 100 times greater than current global internet traffic. Successful handling of this unparalleled data deluge will be key to the project's ability to find answers to some of the most complex puzzles in astronomy.

For roughly two decades, scientists have struggled to understand the ratio of lithium isotopes found within the bellies of the oldest stars in the universe. Now, with the aid of high-performance computing, an international group of researchers has put this cosmic problem to rest.

EuroCloud's Przemyslaw Fuks gives his view on the power of cloud computing to improve education, both within and outside the classroom.

Last month, CERN played host to the 2nd Workshop on Energy for Sustainable Science at Research Infrastructures. Delegates discussed how various aspects of large-scale research infrastructures could be made more energy efficient, including the computing centers which underpin the science carried out.

Last week, iSGTW was at the EUDAT second conference in Rome, Italy. EUDAT, which is funded under the European Commission's FP7 scheme, seeks to support a collaborative data infrastructure which will allow researchers to share data within and between communities and enable them to carry out their research effectively. 

Scientific output is not just about academic papers: datasets, software, and various forms of multimedia may be produced in the course of research. It is vital that these diverse outputs be citable using persistent identifiers, so that the sharing and the reuse of such materials can be tracked. 

Two weeks ago, the ODIN first year conference was held at CERN to discuss the challenges related to increasing the interoperability of persistent author and object identifiers. These efforts are of particular relevance to large research organizations like CERN, where some high-level datasets have recently been made available to other scientists for re-use.  Equally, the large numbers of collaborators working on the experiments on the Large Hadron Collider can make correct attribution of articles and datasets challenging, too.

Liver fibrosis, a  kind of scarring of the liver's tissue, is usually diagnosed with a biopsy – an invasive surgical procedure to remove liver cells for lab testing. However, physicist Olivier Beuf believes that we can do better and has put together a team to develop an imaging technique that can be used in a clinical examination.

Using the European Grid Infrastructure, he and his team have developed a 3D map showing how fibrosis affects blood flow in a diseased liver. These 3D maps could provide a reliable alternative to the usual biopsy procedure and have the potential to improve patients' well-being, as well as our understanding of liver disease.

Fermín Serrano, coordinator of Europe's 'Socientize' project, lays out his manifesto for citizen science. He argues that citizen science is much more than just a useful communication tool, or an efficient way of maximizing researchers' resources. He believes citizen science has the power to teach people important new skills and is a way to fundamentally democratize scientific research.

Ewan Birney, associate director of the European Bioinformatics Institute, says that biology has now transformed to become a 'big-data science'. Ahead of his keynote talk at this month’s EUDAT 2nd conference, he explains that the field faces both what he terms 'blue-' and 'white-collar problems' in handling this data deluge.

Plus, could DNA really be the future of data storage? Birney believes it could be. "DNA is remarkable," he says. "Just one gram of DNA can store about a petabyte’s worth of data… it's estimated that you could put the whole internet into the size of a van!"