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As predicted, Chinese supercomputer Tianhe-2 (also known as the Milky Way-2) has now been crowned the most powerful supercomputer in the world. Arriving years ahead of schedule, and packing 32,000 Xeon processors alongside 48,000 Xeon Phi accelerator processors, the supercomputer can manage a quadrillion mathematical calculations per second (33.85 petaflops), double that of last year's king (and closest rival), the Titan. In this year's results, 80 percent of the Top 500 used Intel processors, while 67 percent had processors with eight or more cores -- as clock speeds stall, supercomputer development has now focused on processors running in parallel. Top 500 editor Jack Dongarra adds that "most of the features of the [Tianhe-2] system were developed in China, and they are only using Intel for the main compute part," meaning that you can expect to see more Chinese entrants (and possibly champions) over the next few years. For now, however, the US still claims the majority of the Top 500, with 253 top-ranking supercomputers.

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Even though scientists created this glorious internet you see before you, current scientific practice is still based more on publishing academic papers than sharing ideas online. As one of the more prominent proponents of the open web, Mozilla stepped in to offer a solution with a new open science initiative called Science Lab. It's designed to bridge the gap between the open web community and researchers so that they can share ideas, tools and best practices on how the web can be used to solve problems and improve research techniques. Led by Kaitlin Thaney, a long-time open science advocate, the Lab will initially focus on bringing digital literacy to the scientific community with the help of Software Carpentry, a program that teaches basic computer skills to researchers. From there, the group hopes to foster a global conversation on how to encourage the use of the web in science. It's great to see that the internet has a lot more to offer the field than just Foursquare check-ins.

[Image credit: Håkan Dahlström, Flickr]

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In a plot twist straight out of Orphan Black, the Supreme Court has ruled that naturally occurring DNA cannot be patented, but synthetic biological material is fair game. The case involved Myriad Genetics, a company specializing in molecular testing, after it tried to patent two genes -- BRCA1 and BRCA2 -- that are often linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The Association for Molecular Pathology filed the suit, arguing that the patent would place undue restrictions on research since only Myriad would be allowed to tinker with those genes. The ruling established that isolating naturally occurring genetic material -- as Myriad did -- wasn't enough to justify legal ownership, but so-called complementary DNA (meaning it's man-made) would be eligible for patenting. Myriad had no comment at the time of this writing, but Sandra Park, an attorney with the ACLU Women's Rights Project said, "Myriad did not invent the BRCA genes and should not control them. Because of this ruling, patients will have greater access to genetic testing and scientists can engage in research on these genes without fear of being sued."

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What DARPA does with animal test subjects behind closed doors is one thing, but here we have something else entirely: mad-scientist kits that allow anyone at home to control the movement of a real-life cockroach. Backyard Brains, the crew behind Twitter Roach, have been selling RoboRoach sets for creating cyborg insects for some time. But today, after getting as far as they can on their own, they're seeking Kickstarter funding to improve their design and develop "educational materials" to go with it. The project will go live in the next 30 minutes or so, and pledges of $100 or more will get you a surgery kit consisting of a PCB "backpack," battery and three sets of electrodes. The PCB pairs with mobile devices via the Bluetooth LE profile and a companion app delivers commands to the 'roach, allowing you to steer the creature by swiping across your screen. Cough up $150 or more and they'll send you a dozen 'roaches to get you started.

The electrodes we mention need to be implanted into the cockroach's antennae so directional triggers can be sent to the nerves within -- effectively fooling the creature into thinking it's hit an obstacle and needs to change course. This is where it starts to get uncomfortable. Backyard Brains are touting the RoboRoach as an educational tool, specifically stating that "this product is not a toy." Something that's glossed over on the Kickstarter page, however, is the allegedly painless surgery step: how you attach the electrodes to the insect. People can make their own minds up regarding the ethics of the campaign, and can start by heading to the Kickstarter source link once it goes live at 9am ET. We've also embedded an old tutorial video below we found on the company's site, which demonstrates the surgery process. Be warned: there's antenna-clipping and other mutilations involved, which make our skin crawl even more than the thought of handling the cockroaches in the first place.

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Witness now the death of a star in glorious 3D. It's not quite as exciting as all that, but astronomers have managed to map the eruptions of the nova using footage from the Hubble telescope. Above are three images of T Pyxidis (that's T Pyx to its friends), a double star system located some 15,600 light-years away -- the white globular bit in the middle is the star. The researchers reported to their surprise that the ejected matter has largely stayed in the area of the star, creating a disk of debris, likely expanding but not leaving the orbit. The findings suggest that the companion in the star system helps dictate where that material goes. More info on the research can be found after the break.

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NASA is determined to bring the final frontier closer than ever -- or at least a small, photographic slice of it. Using NASA's Swift satellite, astrophysicists at Goddard Space Flight Center and Pennsylvania State University were able to create a stunningly detailed survey of the two galaxies closest to us: the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. The 160-megapixel image was painstakingly stitched together using thousands of smaller photographs captured with Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope. Rendering the galaxies in UV wavelengths allows researchers to study details unseen in visible light images, like individual stars surrounding the Tarantula Nebula in the LMC (the large pink cluster in the photo above). This high-res mosaic provides ample opportunity to study the life cycles of stars, from birth to death, in detail astrophysicists could previously only dream about. Fancy a tour? Check out the video after the break -- or journey on past the source link to download the 457MB TIFF.

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Although there have been attempts at lensless cameras before, few of them would replace our point-and-shoots when they're frequently expensive, or capture photos outside of the visible light spectrum. We shouldn't have either of those problems with Bell Labs' new prototype. The experiment uses an LCD as a grid of apertures that filter the light reaching a sensor. As that sensor can piece together an image simply by grabbing random aperture samples and correlating the data, it only needs a sliver of the usual information to produce a usable shot. The lens-free, mostly off-the-shelf approach could lower the costs of both the sensor and the overall camera, but it could also lead to simpler comparison tools: the correlation makes it easier to tell if an object is missing, for example. Bell Labs hasn't talked about any production plans, but we have a hunch that Alcatel-Lucent would rather not let its research wing's technology go to waste.

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