In most technology companies, only about 15 percent of computer science graduates and technical workers are women. The industry has been under pressure to recruit more. The difficult question, though, is how to encourage more women. Some colleges have made significant strides. Their methods offer lessons for other colleges and companies hoping to increase the number of women in fields where they remain underrepresented. Behind the scenes of many of these colleges’ efforts is an organization called the National Center for Women & Information Technology. It provides consultants to college faculties on how to change their programs to recruit and retain women.

If you’ve ever wondered how much DNA data there is on earth, you’re not alone. But a trio of UK researchers did more than wonder. They set to calculating the total information content in the biosphere and published their results and methodology in a recent issue of PLOS Biology. In this first ever accounting of its kind, the total amount of DNA in the biosphere comes out to roughly 50 × 1030 megabase pairs (that’s fifty trillion trillion trillion base pairs). Weighing in at 50 billion metric tons, the total volume of this genetic material would fill one billion shipping containers.

Presently, computer science is not a widely-taught subject in the San Francisco Unified School District. In the Spring 2014 semester, only a few hundred students took the AP computer science exam. The school district wants to increase these numbers, and expand computer science across all grade levels, because the subject is receiving high demand from the global tech industry. Recently, the San Francisco Board of Education unanimously voted to expand computer science education to all grade levels.

If you want to be a rocket scientist or a space engineer, NASA’s latest announcement may help you on your way. The second annual release of their official Software Catalog makes even more of the codes and programs that NASA scientists use available to the general public, completely free. It sounds subversive, but the original catalog was actually released in response to a 2011 White House initiative to increase the efficiency and output of all US Federal agencies. The Software Catalog is just one small part of NASA’s five-year plan to accelerate their technology transfer, which makes funded research available and adaptable for private businesses.

Robotics are going to be a critical part of how we solve the big problems of the future. Unfortunately, it’s still an immature industry, hampered by a lack of standards, a focus on proprietary hardware and software, and no institutionalized mechanism for sharing knowledge among engineers. As a result, young engineers are entering the workforce with little practical experience, and employers can’t count on getting a standardized, well-defined skill set from new hires. However, several companies are now working to bridge that gap, with NewBotic Corporation, led by Craig Doherty, heading up the movement.

If you haven't already heard about Raspberry Pi, it's a computer that can fit on your credit card, literally. It uses the most basic setup possible: a few ports for power and peripherals, an operating system on an SD card and a frame that could fit in your pocket. The entire setup could be bought for roughly $40, meaning that just about anyone could purchase one. The CHIP is similar to the Raspberry Pi: it's a small, Linux-based computer that runs on absolutely bare-bones architecture. It's designed for programmers and hackers to mess around with, which sounds exactly like the Raspberry Pi . . . until you get to the price tag. Is $40 just too much to spend? Well, you can get the CHIP for a grand total of $9.

The National Science Foundation has awarded the National Institute for Computational Sciences $3 million to continue to provide advanced computing resources for researchers in science and engineering across the country through July 2016. This extension brings the total award for the Kraken project to more than $84.5 million since its inception in 2007. “We are very happy to be able to provide our resources and, most important, expertise to the national NSF community,” said Tony Mezzacappa, director of the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences (JICS), of which NICS is a part.

Hani Naguib, a professor of mechanical and materials engineering, is attempting to make an artificial muscle using his interest in smart and adaptive materials. “A smart material senses and responds to the environment,” he explains. “For example, if it senses heat, it could respond by cooling the environment. Or by sensing something in its environment, it might change its own shape.” Take the muscle. While previous generations of artificial muscles were made with motors, Naguib’s uses very fine, lightweight fibres that contain “memory material.” He can train his material to “remember” certain shapes.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory broke ground on a modular and sustainable supercomputing facility that will provide a flexible infrastructure able to accommodate the Laboratory’s growing demand for high performance computing (HPC). The $9.875 million building, located on the Laboratory’s east side, will ensure computer room space to support the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program’s unclassified HPC systems. ASC is the high-performance simulation effort of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) stockpile stewardship program to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear deterrent without testing.

IBM and Woodside announced they will use IBM Watson as part of the oil and gas company’s next steps in data science. The cognitive computing system will be trained by Woodside engineers, enabling users to surface evidence-weighted insights from large volumes of unstructured and historical data contained in project reports in seconds. Watson is part of Woodside’s strategy to use predictive data science to leverage more than 30 years of collective knowledge and experience as a leading liquefied natural gas operator, to maintain a strong competitive advantage. Allowing a broad population of employees to leverage this knowledge will enhance Woodside’s collective expertise in designing, fabricating and constructing major oil and gas facilities as well as managing major turnarounds.

Though language learning comes naturally to a child, encoding this complex process into a computer system is difficult; it lacks the physical and emotional connections to sounds and objects that are vital to the process of interpreting, conceptualizing, and understanding language. Today’s computer systems lack neurons and empathy, two ingredients vital for human language learning. But Onyeama Osuagwu, a Ph.D. student in electrical and computer engineering, is working to build a system that can think and learn, and hopefully one day comprehend, through his research in three areas: how systems compute, how systems become intelligent, and brain-machine interfaces with these systems.

When the next generation of high performance computing comes to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, UT’s physicists will be working on the first projects that put its power to work. Summit, the third in the evolution of ORNL’s supercomputers, is set to come online in 2017. Descended from Jaguar and most recently Titan, it will ramp up the current performance level by at least a factor of five. Late in 2014 the Center for Acceleration Application Readiness (CAAR) program at the national lab invited research teams to submit proposals to make the most effective use of this new system. Plans had to include a three-year readiness phase for coding and porting and culminate in a scientific grand-challenge project when Summit becomes available to users in 2018.

University of Washington (UW) researchers have developed Trace, an app that turns a digital sketch the user draws on a smartphone screen, such as a boat or a leaf, into a walking route that can be sent to another user. The recipient tells the app how far they want to walk and the app produces step-by-step directions that eventually reveal the hidden shape on a map. The sender also can include audio recordings, images, or other messages that appear at specified locations along the route. The app was designed to explore how geographical-information system mapping technology shapes how people experience the act of walking.

Phonons—the elemental particles that transmit both heat and sound—have magnetic properties, according to a landmark study supported by Ohio Supercomputer Center and recently published by a researcher group from Ohio State University. In a recent issue of the journal Nature Materials, the researchers describe how a magnetic field, roughly the size of a medical MRI, reduced the amount of heat flowing through a semiconductor by 12 percent. Simulations performed at OSC then identified the reason for it—the magnetic field induces a diamagnetic response in vibrating atoms known as phonons, which changes how they transport heat.

Several universities are experimenting with wearable technologies as a way to improve classroom instruction. Last year, University of California - Berkeley researchers and Intel launched the Make It Wearable Challenge, a competition to encourage entrepreneurs to develop wearable devices. The challenge involved instructors from Berkeley's Lester Center guiding the startup teams through an accelerator program. The competition's winning project was a wrist-mounted camera drone called Nixie. A low-cost robotic hand took second prize, while a production tools called Proglove, which helps industrial workers track data and information on the job, came in third.

Summer camps across the U.S. will focus on technology and computing this year as part of an expanding program called GenCyber funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Security Agency (NSA). The agencies want to teach children about threats that can be found online, defense basics and not misusing the information they collect. "In order to be really cyber-aware . . . a student, high school, college or new grad entering the workforce really needs to be fundamentally strong in those principles and programming," says Dakota State University professor Josh Pauli. He will oversee a summer camp involving 200 students who will learn about programming.

Getting women interested in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects in their early years and sustaining that interest through college is key to addressing an endemic gender imbalance in the technology sector. Programs such as Qualcomm's Qcamp coding camp, which offers instruction in coding, app design and robotics, seek to nurture STEM interest in young girls. Girls Who Code reports 74 percent of middle school girls say they are interested in STEM, yet only 0.3 percent of high school girls elect computer science as a college major. Experts say intimidation by a classroom where males are a majority is one factor discouraging girls' pursuit of STEM degrees.

In an effort to diversify Silicon Valley's technology sector, Google is placing engineers at a handful of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), where they teach, mentor and advise on curriculum. Although 35 percent of African Americans receiving computer science degrees currently come from those schools, they do not end up at Silicon Valley's top technology companies, as only about 1 percent of those firms' technical staffers are black. In response to this shortage, Google sent a handful of software engineers to teach at Howard University, Hampton University, Fisk University, Spelman College and Morehouse College.

Big data researchers, network engineers, CIOs, and technology leaders are set to discuss ways to collaborate to advance research capabilities in IT infrastructure and applications this week at the Internet2 Global Summit, which takes place in Washington, DC. Clemson University professor Alex Feltus will showcase how his research team is leveraging the Internet2 infrastructure, including its Advanced Layer 2 Service high-speed connections and perfSONAR network monitoring, to accelerate genomic big data transfers and transform collaboration. Feltus says the way data is stored and transferred will need to change as DNA datasets get bigger and research increases. He notes bigger boxes are needed as well as faster ways to put content into them.

The essence of Larry Smarr is captured by a series of numbers. For nearly 15 years, the University of California at San Diego professor has been obsessed with what he describes as the most complicated subject he has ever experimented on: his own body. Smarr keeps track of more than 150 parameters. Smarr is the unlikely hero of a global movement among ordinary people to “quantify” themselves using wearable fitness gadgets, medical equipment, headcams, traditional lab tests and homemade contraptions, all with the goal of finding ways to optimize their bodies and minds to live longer, healthier lives — and perhaps to discover some important truth about themselves and their purpose in life.

Researchers at the Technical University of Madrid have turned to network operating technologies to locate and send alerts to elderly people with mild cognitive impairment during episodes of disorientation. The researchers developed a location-awareness service using smartphones that examines such information as seniors' proximity to their homes or places of interest, whether that person is with a relative or using public transport and certain time intervals. When a disorientation episode occurs, the service puts the person in touch with their nearest contact to verify if they require help.

Meet Tinker the Robot. UC San Diego mechanical engineering alumnus Kay Yang created him to teach and inspire children (ages 8-14) to play with robots. As a little girl, Kay loved taking things apart and learning how they worked – except electronics. She couldn’t understand how an electronic circuit could bring an object to life. It wasn’t until she came to UC San Diego and enrolled in mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Nate Delson’s Introduction to Engineering Graphics and Design (MAE3) course – where students design and produce robots from scratch for a competition – that she began to understand how electronics and code work together.

We often approach life as if it were a chess match, assuming every piece is visible. But that’s seldom true. As Tuomas Sandholm of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science sees it, life is more like a hand of poker. Other players have cards we can’t see, and they often try to trick us. Could our decisions be better if we leveraged artificial intelligence? That’s the question Sandholm and graduate students Noam Brown and Sam Ganzfried set out to answer. Using the Blacklight system at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, they built Claudico, an AI poker player. “We really didn’t write a program called ‘Claudico,’” Sandholm is quick to point out. “Claudico emerged from general-purpose algorithms we developed for solving incomplete information games.”

Preschoolers engaged, teachers enthusiastic about moving math and science to the head of the class The 4-year-olds at All Souls School in Englewood, Colo., are learning their shapes and numbers within a science lesson about sea creatures. It's a new approach to early childhood education that focuses more attention on science and math while incorporating important literacy connections along the way. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), University of Denver education professors Julie Sarama and Douglas Clements are part of the team that developed the research-based Connect4Learning (C4L), which blends academics, social and emotional development, and play for the pre-K set, with high expectations for learning for teachers and kids alike.

Since the time the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) first swept into America’s social consciousness in 1982, HIV has been misunderstood. But research conducted with the support of supercomputer allocations from the eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) and grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) reveals a potential breakthrough in the way scientists pursue treatment—it’s all about the nanoparticles. A nanoparticle is microscopic and so small it exhibits size-related qualities.