| Scientists create simulation of the universe, reenact 14 billion years in a few months (video) Aug 17th 2012, 11:09  Are animations of Curiosity's Mars landing not enough to feed your space exploration appetite? Try this on for size: a group of scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies have generated what's billed as a full-fledged simulation of the universe. Arepo, the software behind the sim, took the observed afterglow of the big bang as its only input and sped things up by 14 billion years. The result was a model of the cosmos peppered with realistically depicted galaxies that look like our own and those around us. Previous programs created unseemly blobs of stars instead of the spiral galaxies that were hoped for because they divided space into cubes of fixed size and shape. Arepo's secret to producing accurate visualizations is its geometry; a grid that moves and flexes to mirror the motions of dark energy, dark matter, gasses and stars. Video playback of the celestial recreation clocks in at just over a minute, but it took Harvard's 1,024-core Odyssey super computer months to churn out. Next on the group's docket is tackling larger portions of the universe at a higher resolution. Head past the jump for the video and full press release, or hit the source links below for the nitty-gritty details in the team's trio of scholarly papers. Continue reading Scientists create simulation of the universe, reenact 14 billion years in a few months (video) Filed under: Science Scientists create simulation of the universe, reenact 14 billion years in a few months (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 07:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  PhysOrg |  Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cornell University Library (1), (2), (3) | Email this | Comments | | GetGlue for iPad hits version 3.0: adds personalized guides, show recommendations and alerts Aug 17th 2012, 10:32  GetGlue's been giving social TV watchers a hub they can count on within Cupertino's tablet for a good while now. Today, however, the application's reached version three-dot-oh, which means there's a slew of new goodies in tow. Among some of the fresh features is an all-new guide for television shows, movies and sports that's solely based on personal preferences, while recommendations, clips and related articles have also been added in this new version. That's not it, though, GetGlue now lets folks set alerts for upcoming events, as well as earn "stickers" for watching their favorite content -- think badges on FourSquare. Best of all, the iPad app's still free of charge, so anyone interested in v3.0 can give the App Store link below a quick tap to get on with the gratis download. Filed under: Home Entertainment, Tablet PCs, Software GetGlue for iPad hits version 3.0: adds personalized guides, show recommendations and alerts originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 06:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | App Store | Email this | Comments | |
