This photomicrograph shows an adult, asexual Volvox carteri consisting of ~2,000 small cells (each with two flagella) at its surface and ~16 juveniles in the interior. Each juvenile contains ~2,000 tiny somatic cells at the surface, and ~16 large reproductive cells inside. Up to 99 percent of the volume of an adult Volvox spheroid is Extracellular Matrix. Image by: Armin Hallmann, University of Bielefield (Germany)

Walnut Creek, CA (Scicasts) - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is pursuing a diversified approach towards carbon-neutral source of transportation fuels, which involves exploring a range of potential new fuel sources in nature. One of such sources is Volvox carteri, a multicellular alga that captures light energy through photosynthesis and has attracted a major interest from researchers who explored 138 million nucleotide genome of the alga.

3D rendered image showing a heated nanoscale silicon tip, borrowed from atomic force microscopy that is chiselling away material from a substrate to create a nanoscale 3D map of the world. As reported in the scientific journal Advanced Materials, IBM Researchers used this new nanopatterning technique to create the smallest map of the world in 3D, measuring only 22 by 11 micrometers was 'written' – on a polymer - at this size 1000 world maps could fit on a grain of salt. In the relief, one thousand meters of altitude correspond to roughly eight nanometers (nm). It is composed of 500,000 pixels, each measuring 20 nm2 and was created in only 2 minutes and 23 seconds. (Image courtesy of Advanced Materials).

Zurich & San Jose, CA - scientists at IBM have developed a 3D map of the earth, so small that 1,000 of them could fit on one grain of salt, the company claims. This interesting development was accomplished through a new, breakthrough technique that uses a tiny, silicon tip with a sharp apex -- 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil -- to build patterns and structures as small as 15 nanometers at greatly reduced cost and complexity. According to IBM, this patterning technique opens new prospects for developing nanosized objects in such fields as medicine, life sciences, electronics, future chip technology and optoelectronics. [See Video Below]

Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System

Maxiwill.com -- Cisco today announced the Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System (CRS), a major advancement in Internet networking designed to serve as the foundation of the next-generation Internet and set the pace for the astonishing growth of video transmission, mobile devices and new online servicesfor the coming decades.

With over 12 times the traffic capacity of the nearest competing system, the company says that Cisco CRS-3 is designed to transform the broadband communication and entertainment industry by accelerating the delivery of compelling new experiences for consumers, new revenue opportunities for service providers, and new ways to collaborate in the workplace.

Sunnyvale, CA (Scicasts) - Symyx Technologies has announced it's successful transition to a pure-play scientific software company with the completion of the planned divestiture of its High Productivity Research (HPR) business unit assets, previously announced on February 11, 2010. The divested assets will be owned and operated by FreeSlate (formerly HPR Global) in HPR's current location in Sunnyvale, California.

Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini and Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo attending the Intel-Nokia Press Conference at Mobile World Congress 2010.

Maxiwill.com -- Earlier this month, Intel and Nokia merged their popular Moblin and Maemo software platforms, creating a unified Linux-based platform called MeeGo. According to their announcement, MeeGo will run on multiple hardware platforms across a wide range of computing devices, including pocketable mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems. Intel says that this open software platform will accelerate industry innovation and time-to-market for a wealth of new Internet-based applications and services and exciting user experiences. MeeGo-based devices from Nokia and other manufacturers are expected to be launched later this year.

Fremont, CA (Scicasts) - SGI, a provider of HPC and data centre solutions, has announced the immediate availability of Cyclone, a large-scale, on-demand cloud computing service specifically dedicated to technical applications.

Maxiwill.com - Apple have announced today the release of what the company describes as the revolutionary device for browsing the web, the iPad. In addition to its advanced web browsing capabilities, the iPad was also designed for sending emails, browsing through photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading e-books and more.

The New iPad from Apple

“iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad creates and defines an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

Fremont, CA and Reading, UK (Scicasts) - SGI, a global provider of HPC and data centre solutions, has announced that Imperial College London has selected the SGI Altix ICE 8200 EX, a Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) solution, to add to its central high performance computing (HPC) service.

Portland, Oregon (Scicasts) - Convey Computer Corporation, a hybrid-core computing company, has announced that three prominent scientific organizations – the Stanford Center of Computational Earth and Environmental Science (CEES), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) – have selected the company’s Convey HC-1 computers to power a fresh wave of scientific discovery.

Portland, Oregon (Scicasts) - According to a report from the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), officials from the Institute and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) Supercomputing Center have signed a collaboration agreement in Portland, Ore., on Monday night at SC09, the international conference of high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis. The agreement is designed to enhance the offerings of both organizations' industrial outreach programs, OSC's Blue Collar Computing and KISTI's Small and Medium Business Supercomputing.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY (Scicasts) - As global temperatures and energy costs continue to soar, renewable sources of energy will be key to a sustainable future. An attractive replacement for gasoline is biofuel, and in two studies published online in Genome ResearchAC, scientists have analyzed the genome structures of bioethanol-producing microorganisms, uncovering genetic clues that will be critical in developing new technologies needed to implement production on a global scale.

DENVER (Scicasts) – NewsGator today announced the release of TapLynx, the downloadable framework that saves organizations the high cost of custom iPhone development and significantly increase the productivity of professional app developers.

SEATTLE (Scicasts) – Two of America's leading renewable biochemical companies, Blue Marble Energy and Bionavitas, today announced a partnership at the 3rd Annual Algal Biomass Summit in San Diego, in which Blue Marble Energy will produce high-margin biochemicals from microalgae supplied by Bionavitas.

ROSWELL, GA (Scicasts) – A new global communications campaign is being launched today by Kimberly-Clark Professional, the company behind such global brands as Kleenex, Scott, Kimcare, WypAll, KleenGuard, and Kimtech, called "Reduce Today, Respect Tomorrow."

Munich (Scicasts) – The Swedish firm TCO Development sets international standards for the certification of monitors’ environmental compatibility and ergonomics. Now the firm has drawn up a similar catalogue of criteria for projectors and developed including a new measurement called “TCO Image Size”. This measurement facilitates the choice of the right projector for the customer. According to the press report, NEC Display Solutions is the world’s first manufacturer to receive a TCO certificate for projectors, mainly for its NEC NP215 and NP410 models.

Toronto, CA (Scicasts) - Platform Computing, a provider of workload and resource management software for clusters, grids and clouds, has announced an agreement whereby Platform has acquired HP-MPI (Message Passing Interface) from HP.