Helping To Point Out The Obvious Advantages Of The Mac In The Most Bias Way

Below you will find a list of links that have been culled from around the Net relating Macs and their use in the sciences. Like our other 'Hub' pages , this one is intended as a one stop launching point. New news links will be added to the top of each area. If you have a news item relating to the use of Macs in Science, mail it to us and we will add it.

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Mike Thomas: Breaking into Bioinformatics at ISU - when we explored alternatives,” Thomas counters, “and saw the Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics, we immediately knew that we could put a cluster together very quickly and concentrate on biology rather than computer science.”

Apple's Tiger builds on HPC support - "With Tiger, we've expanded our 64-bit support," says Ken Bereskin, senior director Mac OS X product marketing. "Panther broke through the 4 GigaByte (GB) memory barrier (common in 32-bit systems)." But the processes remained largely 32-bit. Tiger offers native 64-bit support in both its server and client versions. "For scientific computing applications in bio-IT, the practical benefit of 64-bit support is that very large data sets can be supported," says Bereskin

Bioinformatics and Comparative Genomics - The complete DNA sequence of the Human Genome is a remarkable achievement for molecular biology and represents the work of many people in a number of large sequencing centers. Far from resting on their laurels, those centers have gone on to sequence the genomes of the mouse, rat, pufferfish, zebrafish, chicken, chimpanzee ... you name it they're sequencing it

The Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics Award Program - Through an open call for applications, Apple has found five of the most important, innovative and visionary scientific research projects in the U.S. and is awarding them the powerful computational tools they need to expand the horizons of their exciting research.

Apple names Cluster for Bioinformatics Award winners - This year's winners include Dr. Deborah Dean, Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute; Dr. Edward DeLong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. Christopher Lee, University of California, Los Angeles; Dr. Simon Lin, Duke University; and Dr. Michael Newton, Dr. Douglas Bates, Dr. Sunduz Keles, Dr. Christina Kendziorski and Dr. Bret Larget, University of Wisconsin, Madison. More details about the researchers and the work they're doing has been posted to the Web site

OS X: Key to Increasing Apple's SciTech Market - Dr. Anthony DiRienzo, executive vice president at COLSA Corporation, told MacNewsWorld that the scramjet data the U.S. Army needs analyzed is three-dimensional, and in the past, processing just a few milliseconds of it would take months. With the MACH5, Army researchers will be able to process upwards of 16 equations on 8 million cells of data overnight

The Science of This Year's WWDC - Aberdeen analyst Peter Kastner told MacNewsWorld that Xgrid has found a solid foothold at universities. He noted that, as companies begin serious contemplation of grid computing, the Xgrid will be worth watching in the marketplace

Craig Benham: New Detective in Bioinformatics - On this new biological frontier, Craig Benham, a mathematical biologist and founding associate director of the UC Davis Genome Center, is working to uncover one of the secrets — using a 38-node cluster of Apple Xserve G5 systems and Mac OS X in a single virtual computing resource

Apple hopes to 'stimulate thought' with award program - Apple Computer Inc. recently introduced the Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics Award Program, which the company hopes will stimulate thought and raise awareness for their hardware and software solutions. Apple says the award program is a way for them to continue the momentum they've seen recently for its workgroup cluster and keep in touch with the scientific community

Apple Computer and BioTeam Present Bioinformatics Cluster Today at ClusterWorld Conference & Expo - The turnkey system "Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics," being presented today at ClusterWorld Conference and Expo in the San Jose Convention Center, is an all-inclusive system with everything a non-technical bench scientist needs to set up, operate, and maintain a small, computational cluster with little or no support required from IT departments

Macs discover new life in sciences - Although the Apple Mac platform was long ago counted out by a lot of corporate IT managers, it has morphed and continues to find adherents -- the graphic arts in particular have persisted as a major stronghold. And the Mac platform may even be thriving again in the science sector where it once held some dominance on the desktop

Workgroup Cluster only the start of Apple's scitech push - Bud Tribble, Apple's Vice President of Software Technology, outlined in broad strokes why the Mac appeals to life scientists. Tribble referenced a survey from The Scientist magazine that said 30 percent of Life Sciences users have Macs -- considerably higher than the numbers attributed to Apple's share of the general PC market. Tribble suggested that Apple's adoption in the science space is an increasing trend, if anecdotal evidence suggested by the proliferation of PowerBooks at biotech conferences is any indication

Apple wins Best of Show at Bio-IT World - Apple Computer Inc. on Wednesday won a Best of Show award at Bio-IT World Conference + Expo, taking place this week in Boston, Mass. Apple won the award for its recently announced Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics

Make Your Next Discovery. On a Mac. - The Mac platform has never been better for science. Apple hardware and software work together seamlessly to bring you the performance, ease of use and interoperability you need to advance your research. A rock-solid UNIX-based operating system with cutting-edge graphics provides the foundation for your computational work. 64-bit desktop workstations and servers offer the throughput and speed to deliver results more quickly.

Apple to showcase solutions to Bio-IT World attendees - IDG World Expo's Bio-IT World Conference + Expo returns to Boston, Mass. later this month. The event will feature key players in the Life Sciences and IT markets including Apple, who will be featured in several presentations -

Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts - "For our [Mars] landing site work, we always get the highest-end desktop Mac we can find, so we just got one of the G5s with dual 2-GHz processors and 8 GB of RAM," Matt Golombek, a planetary geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the E-Commerce Times

Apple to attend Boston Expo - Apple will exhibit at US life sciences show BioIT World in Boston next month. The event aims to show how technology is transforming life sciences throughout all discovery and development processes. It helps life-science professionals evaluate solutions that generate, collect and analyze the flood of information being produced by the industry

A New Museum Take's Flight - It’s not easy to fit an airplane into a photo studio, so the Smithsonian set aside space at the new museum to shoot the VR movies, hiring Light Speed Media photographers Dennis Biela and David Palermo, experts in QuickTime VR photography, to work the cameras.

TMO Interview - Why Does A Rocket Scientist Use A Mac? - A stereotype exists among many Windows users that Macs are frivolous computers, used primarily by kindergartners, creative dilettantes, and fashion victims. How to explain then, the PowerBooks sitting on the desks of JPL scientists as they cheered the landing of the first Mars Exploration Rover? Or how about the cluster of Xserves being used to map out the cow genome at Texas A&M?

System X: Building the Virginia Tech Supercomputer - System X was conceived in March 2003, designed in July 2003 and by October it had achieved a sustained performance of 10.28 Teraflops, making it the third fastest supercomputer in the world today. System X has several novel features. First, it is based on an Apple G5 platform with the new IBM PowerPC 970 64-bit CPUs. Secondly, it uses a high performance switched communications fabric called Infiniband. Finally, System X is cooled by a hybrid liquid-air cooling system. In this talk, we present the motivation for System X, its architecture, and the challenges faced in building, deploying and maintaining a large-scale supercomputer

NASA and Apple Computer Provide Resources to Help Educators - The "Teaching & Learning" section of ALI includes lessons, media-rich exhibits and events appropriate for classroom use. With the help of Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., several NASA educational technology products that have already become popular among educators and students will now be available to a wider audience

Customers Eye Virginia Tech's Supercomputer Upgrade - Virginia Tech's decision to replace its "Big Mac" supercomputer processors with Apple Computer Xserve G5 servers will make the installation more attractive to the federal agencies and organizations negotiating with the university for its novel supercomputer technology

Maestro: Keep up with vehicle traffic on Mars - If you're fascinated by the Mars landers (Spirit and Opportunity), then you'll want to take a look at Maestro. Maestro is a "lite" version the software that NASA uses to work with the two rovers. Written in Java, it's relatively easy to get working

Muscling up apple power - With the distributed computing power of computational clusters, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory is able to crunch intensive genetic data. Therefore, researchers can focus on the scientific aspects of their work The researchers at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) are making use of Apple's Xserve to do its number crunching. One of the key goals of TTL is to undertake research in molecular biology and genetics in the fields of life sciences, including plant sciences

Apple Sees Increased Usage In The Field Of Genetics - A couple of years ago, we heard of an Australian geneticist using his iPod to carry around the entire human genome. According to an article at Forbes, Apple's presence in the realm of genetic research is by no means limited to genetic information being carted around on MP3 players. For example, Princeton's Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics is head-to-toe Apple

Apple's Supercomputing Scientists - When noted biologist David Botstein was lured from Stanford University to head the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton, he had his choice of computing systems. But Botstein says he outfitted the center almost soup to nuts with Apple computers and servers, which are used for everything from desktop applications to comparing lengths of genetic code. By eschewing the more expensive workstations that high-tech biologists have come to rely on, he says he has also cut down on the cost of maintaining his number-crunching machines

Ecology To Go - Dr. Drew Talley’s work is not for the faint of heart. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Florida and an associate ecologist at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), Talley spends much of his time in Baja California, Mexico. There, Talley’s scientific explorations take him through mudflats, deserts, salt marshes, and tidal pools, on and off innumerable small boats, and into temperatures that often top 110 degrees Fahrenheit. This harsh environment, combined with Talley’s demanding academic research, requires him to take only the strongest, most rugged tools along for the ride. That’s why he’s never without his iBook laptop and his iPod

A traveling exhibit brings a taste of outer space to your community library - The exhibit consists of two stands: One houses six new flat-screen iMac computers for visitors to play with. The computers, supplied by Apple Computer, run an interactive, multimedia presentation featuring animated cartoon characters, which was specially designed for the exhibit

SPSS 11 Dazzling Mac Version of Statistics-Industry Standard - In 2001, SPSS brought its eponymous statistical-analysis software package back to the Mac after a five-year absence, with SPSS 10. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait another five years for the follow-up: SPSS 11 is a truly impressive OS X version, and it has been redesigned right down to an attractive new set of icons. This represents a level of commitment to the Mac well beyond that of other statistics-package developers.

BLAST on Xserve - It’s official. By the end of 2004, science — already holding genomic blueprints for man, mouse and rat — intends to have a cow. Or, more accurately, a bovine genome, approximately 3 billion base pairs worth of genetic information that might lead to quantum improvements in dairy and meat products, including potentially the meat staring back at you in the mirror.

Thanks to a new data reduction application written with Cocoa on a Power Mac G4 running Mac OS X, the time taken to analyze and interpret the data from Gemini has been shortened dramatically. Astronomers are using this new capability in an ambitious project whose aim is to determine just when the various galaxies in the universe were formed

Software : Medicine On The Mac - If you’re in the medical field and find yourself using your Macintosh only during off work hours because of the limited amount of medical software available for the platform you may be able to breakout your Mac 24/7365 because a leading piece of medical reference software was just released for our system of choice

Xserve in the Lab - Now that scientists have decoded the human genome, they’re taking the next and much more challenging step in understanding the molecular foundations of life. The new science of proteomics catalogs and analyzes each protein that a gene produces. Far more varied and complex than DNA, proteins carry out every chemical reaction essential to life. They are the beams and rafters of cells, the hormones, enzymes, circuits and even the glue that binds the body together.
One of the scientists who pursues proteomics — with the help of Macs and a cluster of Xserve servers — is biologist Dr. Michael Giddings at the University of North Carolina

Apple To Participate In Bio-ITWorld This March, In Boston - Unlike mammoth shows like Macworld, this sort of event doesn't require the same kind of resources for Apple to participate. At the same time, the audience is so targeted that it makes it much easier for a company like Apple to get a good return on the resources that it does commit

Apple to exhibit at Bio-ITworld Conference & Expo - Produced by IDG World Expo , the Bio-ITWorld Conference & Expo attracts pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, government and life science professionals who come to learn how technology tools for the life sciences can drive efficiencies, create opportunities and increase profitability within their organizations

MIT Researcher and Engineer - Electronic Circuit Board CAD for OS X - Yael Maguire wrote in saying: I am a researcher and engineer at MIT. A colleague got an email regarding a very good EDA program for creating electronic circuits available for Linux and Windows called EagleCad. Bellow is an email - I'm hoping you can use your column or other means to get Mac users to give Eagle the message there is sufficient interest in this product and market for OS X."

Apple's Life Science Efforts on Verge of Bearing Fruit - For years, Apple's desktop systems have been widely embraced by the scientific community for their ease of use, high performance, and affordable price. Yet most serious life science computation today is done on computers from other vendors. Apple is trying to change that with a one-two punch: the Mac OS X software announced last year (and recently upgraded), and its Xserve hardware systems

Apple and Genentech have just released a new version of the gene-sequencing program used by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The program, called BLAST, is used to calculate the homologies in the human genome, proteins and nucleotides

Mathematica Broadens Appeal - It's been said that anyone who doesn't already know about Mathematica may safely ignore news about its updates, since "nearly anyone who'd have a use for it would have heard of it" (in the words of MacAddict reviewer Ian Sammis). There's a grain of truth in that comment, but still we beg to differ. This spring's 4.2 update of Wolf- ram Research Inc.'s marquee product will appeal to a much broader audience than the researchers and the rocket-scientist types who have long been the company's core market

Scientists Switch to Mac OS X - Adam Q Salter writes "A Boston Globe article quotes many scientists and engineers who have switched to Apple workstations or have immediate plans to do so. Craig Hunter, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, said 'OS X, I think, is the best Unix I've seen come along, ever.' Scott Sneddon, a senior scientific fellow at Genzyme, is quoted as saying 'OS X is a better Unix development environment than Linux or Silicon Graphics Irix.'"

Book Review: "Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills" - I wrote last time about bioinformatics, gave a quick introduction to the field and outlined why Apple should be interested. My research, as well as many others in the bioscience arena is going to rely more and more on information management in the very near future and the tools being developed under the broad umbrella of bioinformatics. Therefore, the need exists to learn what tools are available and how to take advantage of them. Given that bioinformatics is a relatively new field, there are very few general introductory texts available. However, O'Reilly press, a fascinating company who really deserves more....ahem....press, has recently become interested in the bioscience arena

Astronomy, Macs, and Windows PCs - I salute the NOAO instructors and astronomers for maintaining a professional, even keel throughout the workshop and attempting to help everyone with whatever they had to work with. They want to ensure you'll go home and use the software and do the activities; therefore they didn't force everyone to use a Mac but tried to provide a cross-platform experience without prejudice. It is unfortunate that they have to test their software on half a dozen flavors of Windows to make sure it is truly compatible, whereas they can test the Mac version on just two

Mathematica: The Mathematical Revolution - During his keynote speech, Steve was joined by the likes of George Lucas (via video) of Lucas Film, Todd Bradley of Palm, Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, Theodore Gray of Wolfram Research, and several other notables. You may not recognize all of the names on that list, but you most likely recognize all of the companies. That is, perhaps, save one: Wolfram Research

Apple and Bioinformatics - Steve Jobs, during the introduction of the Xserve, specifically mentioned the bioscience market as one of the areas Apple is now focusing on. Despite the current economic downturn in the biotech market, many folks are talking up bioscience as the next big growth market for the coming decade, and the payoffs could be absolutely astounding with some short term estimates of the market reaching $2 billion within the next couple of years and long-term payoffs are expected to be astronomical. I expect that the big money will occur most likely in agribusiness first, but science related to the human condition will certainly get most of the press. So, how does Apple Computer fit into bioscience outside of investment portfolios? The answer is bioinformatics

OS X biz system, 'protein folding' spotlighted - At the Sci & Tech site, an article tells how you can join the Apple SciTech Folding@home Team in a public distributed computing effort by lending your processor power for protein folding, now running on the Mac OS X Aqua interface

Macs take underwater science to the extreme - the research vessel Atlantis set sail from Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Its 17-day mission was to explore one of the hottest, most demanding environments on earth Ñ hydrothermal vents nearly two miles deep on the Pacific Ocean floor. On board the ship was an international team of marine biologists, geologists, and graduate students who wanted to study the vents and the organisms that inhabit them. Also on board was an assortment of Power Mac G4 and PowerBook G4 computers, and other Apple products, all used to relay ground-breaking scientific data from ship to shore

Digital Imaging in Medicine - It should be noted that many of the technologies we use in digital imaging in science and engineering owe quite a bit to Apple and other companies such as Xerox, Texas Instruments, Kodak and Adobe. Indeed, much of the technology that writers and graphic artists rely upon has been pioneered by two of these companies, Apple and Adobe. In fact, Photoshop is one of the most complex digital imaging environments ever developed

From artists and teachers to aerospace engineers, everyone agrees: you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use a Mac. But in the case of independent research scientist Andrew Santangelo, it doesn't hurt.

Java on the Macintosh - Java remained a mystery to me until late 1997 when I picked up a copy of ÒThe Java Annotated Libraries.Ó The experience was similar to first opening that copy of ÒInside Macintosh.Ó I discovered a rich and well thought-out collection of APIs. More importantly, I had discovered a way to continue to develop applications on the Macintosh, yet deploy these applications to a wider audience

Four Apps for Your Science Class - Here are four free (not shareware) programs you might find handy when teaching math, physical science, astronomy, or biology. Everything works under OSÊX either natively or in Classic except as noted

Macintosh is the Brain for NASA ISP Plane - A new plane from NASA has been developed as a continuously-flying broadband pipeline. The brain of the plane is a Mac. No word as to which model was chosen, but we are betting on a PowerBook.

Forward Migration Kit: Biotechnical software, part II - This is the second part of our three-part series on biogtechnical software for the Mac platform. The products mentioned were found at Apple's Macintosh Products Guide.

Forward Migration Kit: Eyecare software for the Mac OS - Accommodata, an Apple-based solution developer, has created a patented high-tech solution for ophthalmologists that provides interactive environment for patient care and testing.

Macs in Chemistry - This site is intended to provide a resource for chemists using Apple Macintosh computers.

Can Macs in Space Reboot the Satellite Biz? - Researcher Dennis Wingo says there's a cheaper, simpler way to set up a network of wireless-data satellites: Girdle the globe with Apple's Cubes.

For everything from creating award-winning webcasts to enabling visitors to interact with museum exhibits, the Exploratorium has no need to experiment — its computer of choice is the Mac.