Media Advisory 07-005
National Science Foundation Sponsors AAAS Annual Conference Workshops
Workshops focus on advances in wireless and grid computing for research applications
The image shows earthquake modeling beneath Southern California, part of NSF's TeraGrid project.
February 15, 2007
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The National Science Foundation, a co-sponsor of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, held this year in San Francisco from Feb. 15-19, 2007, is sponsoring workshops on advances in wireless and grid computing for research applications. Workshops include experts from the massive, linked research infrastructure known as TeraGrid and innovators in wireless data collection and analysis. With these incredible tools, hardly any research project is too big or too remote.
And, in a special conversation, an internationally recognized science author discusses the challenges of communicating science and technology progress and implications amid the changing media landscape.
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Chew on This: A Trillion Bytes for All Science and Engineering
A $150 million network distributed "grid" of information technologies at eight major supercomputing centers and universities, NSF's TeraGrid is the most powerful open computing facility in the world. It offers the unique advantage of tightly coupled but distributed computing resources for scientific discovery not possible even within the most-advanced single-computer center. Using the TeraGrid, researchers from all fields of science and engineering are applying the power of high-performance computing to their studies.
Who:
Jose Munoz, National Science Foundation
Charlie Catlett, University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, TeraGrid Overview
Donna Cox, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Outreach: Extending the Message
Phil Maechling, What the TeraGrid Can Do for You
When: Friday, Feb. 16, 2007, 12:30-2:00 p.m.
Where: Union Square 15-16, Hilton San Francisco and Towers
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Wireless Networks: The Hip Bone is No Longer Connected to the Web Bone
Despite rampant growth in wireless access to the Internet, most WiFi networks are still located in homes or businesses, and high-speed wireless data communication can be achieved only from a small subset of wireless "islands." So, scientists and engineers are taking a new look at the foundations of the wireless Internet. Using an architecture known as transit access points or TAPs, researchers are aiming to achieve wireless Internet communications at the rate of 100 megabytes per second to 100 million households and small businesses. Such an infrastructure will provide a platform that enables radically new content, applications, and services to emerge over the next decades.
Who:
Jose Munoz, National Science Foundation
Edward Knightly, Rice University
Suman Banerjee, University of Wisconsin
Samir Das, SUNY at Stonybrook
When: Friday, Feb.16, 2007, 4:00-5:30 p.m.
Where: Union Square 23-24, Hilton San Francisco and Towers
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Communicating Science: Who is Science Writing For?
In the face of plummeting math and science test scores and growing public misunderstanding, science writer Margaret Wertheim proposes some "radical changes" in our strategies for communicating science. Looking at readers of popular science magazines, she notes that the majority of their 17 million monthly readers are well-educated, well-off, white men. Meanwhile, some 70 million people read the most popular women's magazines each month. To Wertheim, if we are serious about improving the public understanding of science, we must go where the public is--in short, if the people will not come to science, then we must go out to the people.
Who:
Leslie Fink, National Science Foundation
Margaret Wertheim, The Institute for Figuring
When: Saturday, Feb.17, 2007, 12:30-2:00 p.m.
Where: Union Square 23-24, Hilton San Francisco and Towers
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Leslie Fink, National Science Foundation, (703) 292-8070, email: lfink@nsf.gov
Dana Topousis, National Science Foundation, (703) 292-7750, email: dtopousi@nsf.gov
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