A new Google tool that tracks user searches for "flu symptoms" has given rise to a new early warning system for fast-spreading flu outbreaks that test indicate may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The US Army Research Office and the National Security Agency (NSA) are together looking for some answers to their quantum physics questions on quantum computing and cryptography.

David Anderson, founder of the popular distributed computing network BOINC (which runs SETI@Home and several other projects) discusses how disributed computing efforts could achieve the current goal of high-performance computing: an exaFLOP (floating point operations per second) or 1,000 times the current standard of a PetaFLOP.

Saudi Arabia is building a supercomputer that could rank among the 10 most powerful systems in the world. And the country isn't stopping there. It has plans to turn this marquee system for the Middle East into a petascale system in two years, and, beyond that, an exascale system.

Although Web 2.0, with its emphasis on user-generated content, has been derided as a commercial cul-de-sac, it may prove to be a path to speedier scientific advancement. According to Adam Bly, Seed’s founder, internet-aided interdisciplinarity and globalisation, coupled with a generational shift, portend a great revolution. His optimism stems in large part from the fact that the new technologies are no mere newfangled gimmicks, but spring from a desire for timely peer review.

Google is considering deploying the supercomputers necessary to operate its Internet search engines on barges anchored up to seven miles offshore. The "water-based data centers" would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing Google's costs. Their offshore status would also mean the company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centers, which are sited across the world.

Advanced extraterrestrial civilisations may be sending signals through space by "tickling" stars, new research suggests. The signalling would be the galactic equivalent of the internet.

The PC industry's two largest graphics companies released new top-of-the-line models this week. The new graphics processors will bring not just better videogame performance, but will also turn ordinary desktop PCs into the equivalent of supercomputers -- if programmers can figure out how to take advantage of the chips' massively parallel architectures.

Players of a new online game called Foldit will help design three-dimensional protein structures for HIV vaccines, and enzymes for repairing DNA in diseased tissues.

David Baker, a leading protein scientist at the University of Washington, teamed up with computer scientists to create the game.

The world's climate modellers are drawing up plans for a global supercomputing center with computing power of 100 petaflops that would provide detailed local forecasts of future climate change, with the intent of generating useful forecasts of water supply, droughts, health, and future food supply.