Adelaide boost

Adelaide University is to open a new physics facility with what is thought to be the largest supercomputing cluster in the southern hemisphere.

The A$3.6 million (Pounds 2.38 million) facility - the National Computing Facility for Lattice Gauge Theory - will equip the university with a system capable of 144 billion calculations per second. Sun Microsystems will partner the university in the project. It will enable Adelaide-based scientists to develop international research into lattice gauge theory, an advanced supercomputing technique that aims to improve understanding of the fundamental forces of nature.

The new facility complements the Special Research Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter established at the university three years ago.

Details: www.adelaide.edu.au