Circuit

Incoming House Speaker (D-Calif.) said the House Democrats’ Innovation Agenda would boost funding for basic research in the physical sciences across all agencies. She added that the Democrats’ agenda predates ’s American Competitiveness Initiative, and unlike the president’s plan, it would not shortchange some science and technology research programs. Pelosi said last week that Democrats and Republicans can find common ground and make significant progress by enacting legislation that would:“To meet the challenges of today, and to create the jobs and economic security of tomorrow, we must make these investments immediately,” Pelosi said. Researchers from the University of Mannheim in Germany, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville recently published their Top 500 list of the world’s fastest computers, a ranking the researchers update every six months. The IBM BlueGene/L system at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory retained its No. 1 spot. In a surprise move, Sandia National Laboratories’ Cray Red Storm supercomputer nabbed second place. The initial Red Storm system ranked No. 9 in June.The IBM BGW-eServer Blue Gene Solution system at IBM’s Thomas Watson Research Center slipped a notch, from the No. 2 position to No. 3. NEC’s Earth Simulator, which ranked first five times, fell out of the Top 10 to No. 14. The United States claims the lion’s share of the list’s high-performance computing systems with 306 of the 500. Europeans have 95 systems on the list. The dominant countries in Asia are Japan with 30 systems, up from a previous total of 29; and China with 18 systems, down from 28 on the last list.