Future computers: Smaller but 'greener'
ZURICH, Switzerland, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Future supercomputers will be smaller, but more importantly, a Swiss researcher says, they will be "greener," consuming less energy as they work.
Bruno Michel of IBM's Zurich labs say future computers will have many processors stacked together and cooled by water flowing between them.
The aim, he says, is to reduce computers' energy use rather than just to shrink them.
"In the past, computers were dominated by hardware costs -- 50 years ago you could hold one transistor and it cost a dollar, or a franc," Michel told BBC News.
The cost of building the next generation of supercomputers is not the problem, he says, it's the cost of running the machines.
"In the future, computers will be dominated by energy costs -- to run a data center will cost more than to build it," Michel says.
Building and running computer equipment consumes about 2 percent of the world's total energy, researchers say.
Michel and his team have built a prototype using the water-cooling principle. Called Aquasar, it occupies a rack the size of a refrigerator.
IBM estimates Aquasar is almost 50 percent more energy efficient than the world's leading supercomputers.
Leaking seal may have scrubbed shuttle
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Nov. 12 (UPI) -- A misaligned seal may have caused a hydrogen gas leak that canceled space shuttle Discovery's launch attempt Nov. 5, officials said.
Technicians conducting repairs removed a metal plate and assembly that connect a gas vent line to the shuttle's external tank.
The vent line routes excess hydrogen to a flare stack to be burned off a safe distance from the vehicle, Florida Today reported.
A flight seal that remains on the tank after liftoff was found to be misaligned, the newspaper said.
During fueling in advance of last week's intended launch, a "significant" and potentially dangerous leak of gaseous hydrogen was detected where the vent line attaches to the tank.
Replacement of the seal, a quick-disconnect device and the vent line attachment plates was expected to be completed Friday.
Discovery's new seven-day launch window for what will be its final mission will begin Nov. 30, NASA said.
Search for the 'God particle' closer
GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The Large Hadron Collider has produced a pair of Z bosons, a step in the search for the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle, European scientists say.
The achievement is based on data released by the Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration, designed to detect a wide range of particles and phenomena produced in the LHC's high-energy proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions, RIA Novosti reported.
"Seeing this first pair is an important step in the giant collider's hunt for the Higgs boson because the generation and analysis of many more such events could provide one of the key signatures of the elusive Higgs," physicsworld.com said.
The Higgs boson, nicknamed the "God particle," was hypothesized in the 1960s to explain how particles acquire mass.
Discovering the particle could explain how matter appeared in the split-second after the Big Bang.
More than 2,000 physicists from hundreds of universities and laboratories in 34 countries have taken part in the $5.6 billion LHC project since 1984, RIA Novosti said.
Mass immunization set for central Africa
BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of the Congo, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- International aid agencies say they plan to immunize 3 million people in central Africa after a polio outbreak killed more than 100 people.
The disease broke out in Brazzaville but has also affected parts of neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, the BBC reported.
The Congo-Brazzaville government said the vast majority of deaths had occurred in the city of Pointe-Noire.
The vaccination plan is being conducted by several aid agencies, including UNICEF and the World Health Organization.
"The first round of a mass vaccination campaign targeting 3 million people will begin Friday, in response to a polio epidemic which has unusually claimed a majority of adult victims," a joint statement from the agencies involved said.
Polio normally strikes young children, officials said.
The immunization plan will start in Pointe-Noire, the epicenter of the outbreak, and expand into surrounding areas.
"Every man, every woman, every child will be immunized irrespective of their past immunization status," Dr. Luis G. Sambo, WHO's regional director for Africa, said.
Congo's director general of health, Alexis Elira Dokekias, said the adult victims had either not been sufficiently immunized or not immunized at all.
