Important Innovations

Red Fan Skies Over Japan Source:  Space Space Mystery Dating Back to 620 AD More than 1400 years ago, a dazzling red fan spread out across the skies over Japan, according to historical records.  The phenomenon has been documented by modern day astronomers and has baffled them ever since. For the inhabitants of Japan in the year 620, the red skies were frightening.  They called it a "strange red sign" in the sky.  Astronomers and space weather experts, working at the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan, have just determined that the red skies were an ethereal sky phenomenon. Pheasant Tail heasant Tail The scarlet fan-like light over Japan happened on December 30, 620.  Those in Japan who saw it said it looked like a pheasant tail and many considered it a bad omen.  For years, modern astronomers have considered it to have been a comet or an aurora.  But, neither seemed to fit until now. Space Weather Japanese astronomers h

World's Fastest Supercomputer Source:  Argonne National Laboratory US Energy Dept.'s Aurora Exascale Computer at Argonne National Laboratory The US Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory along with Intel and Cray are developing a $500 million supercomputer that will be the fastest in the US. It's the nation's first exascale computer, capable of doing one quintillion operations in a second, or 1 billion-billion operations per second.  The potential uses of this computer, designed for the next generation of artificial intelligence, are many including solving some of the world's most complex and important scientific challenges.  For a great news blog, go to Important Innovations Collection: World's Fastest Super Computer : US Department of Energy's Aurora Source:  Argonne National Lab  One Billion-Billion Operations Per Second At the US Department o...