Top Scientists Urge Quick
Halt to Greenhouse Gases

Collins

Earlier today, more than 200 top climate scientists worldwide, including Berkeley Lab earth scientist William Collins, issued a declaration at the United Nations climate change meeting in Bali, Indonesia, urging action to limit global warming to 2º Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Already adopted by the European Union and other countries, the limit requires cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent below 1990 levels, before 2050. Maintaining the limit means global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, the scientists say, "so there is no time to lose." Read the press release here and the full text of the 2007 Bali Climate Declaration here.

Cutting-Edge Detector
Uses Consumer Chip

Battaglia
Denes

Physicist Marco Battaglia, who designs detectors for the proposed International Linear Collider, and Peter Denes, Deputy for Engineering at the Advanced Light Source, share an interest in a technology originally developed for consumer products, called silicon-on-insulator (SOI) chips. When Japan's High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, KEK, and the electronics firm OKI Electric Industry Co. offered to make scientific chip test designs for free, Battaglia and Denes proposed a "monolithic pixel sensor" whose every pixel carries its own electronics. Successful tests at the ALS suggest the new chip design may see application in accelerators and light sources of the future. Full story.

Africa's Supercomputer
Gift Not a 'Silver Bullet'

Simon

In an effort to help Africa cross the digital divide, IBM will donate one of its BlueGene/P supercomputers to the Center for High Performance Computing in Cape Town, South Africa. Still, Horst Simon, Berkeley Lab’s associate director for computing sciences, points out that a single piece of hardware alone, no matter how powerful, isn't going to solve Africa's problems. "Hopefully this will spur future develop and raise the high-performance computing expertise in the continent," he says. "But a one-time investment is not going to be enough. A computer like this requires additional software development and training before scientists can actually use it. It's not a silver bullet." Full story.

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