Science Highlights
Research conducted and supported by PSC computational resources, educational programs, and staff expertise
Blue Acres
PSC, XSEDE Support Gene Assembly of Key Aquaculture Species Commercial abalone “aquaculture”—farming the shellfish in enclosures—has exploded over the past decade, becoming a $100-million global industry. Understanding the DNA of the abalone is key to improving and...
Synergistic Voyage
Synergistic Voyage ECSS Collaboration Speeds, Expands Microrobotic Simulations Since the science fiction novel Fantastic Voyage—and before—people have been fascinated with the idea of shrinking our tools so that we could carry out miniature tasks with...
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Dollars?
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Dollars? CMU B School Researchers Use Bridges to Unpack How Photos Help Sell Property It’s not hard to believe that when you advertise a property, a good picture will help you sell or rent it. What isn’t so clear is what factors make for...
From the Director-Fall17
FROM THE DIRECTOR Welcome to the second issue of PSC Science Highlights. I’m honored to follow in the footsteps of Michael Levine and Ralph Roskies, whose vision created PSC and then sustained it for more than three decades. Through their leadership and with the...
Choice Works
Choice Works PSC Models Show Value of Vaccine Choice in Fighting Flu Less than half of children and adults under age 65 get vaccinated for influenza. Researchers at PSC, the University of Pittsburgh and Soongsil University in the Republic of Korea used PSC...
The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?
The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Zebrafish Study Reveals First Fine Structure of a Complete Vertebrate Brain. Despite decades of stunning advances in imaging the brain and measuring its activity, we still don’t understand how even a simple vertebrate brain...
Video: Cancer DNA Changes
Identifying Cancer DNA Changes with XSEDE/PSC Resources The scientific field of bioinformatics has for the past five years relied on increasingly larger data sets for new and innovative research. With few in the field trained in computer science, many groups, like the...
From the Directors
From the Directors Welcome to the new PSC Science Highlights! This first issue of our new format highlights a number of success stories in our ongoing mission to enable and support computationally dependent research in traditional and emerging fields, including...
GUT CHECK
GUT CHECK While diabetes poses many life- and limb-threatening problems, it also causes serious changes and problems in the digestive tract. A study using PSC’s Bridges system sifted through the DNA of thousands of microbe species in healthy and diabetic intestines to...
No Telling
Artificial intelligence (AI) has reached a new level, with an AI poker program beating four of the top specialists in “heads-up, no-limit Texas hold’em” poker. “Libratus,” powered by PSC’s Bridges supercomputer, is a first step in AIs that can handle “imperfect...