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1sockchuck writes In a unique approach to data center design, the new high-performance computing center in Oregon is housed in a geodesic dome. The new facility at the Oregon Health and Science University requires no mechanical air conditioning, using outside air to racks of servers reaching densities of 25kW per cabinet. The design uses an aisle containment system to separate hot and cold air, and can recirculate server exhaust heat to adjust cold aisle temperatures in the winter. It's a very cool integration of many recent advances in data center design, combining elements of the Yahoo Chicken Coop and server silo in Quebec. The school has posted a virtual tour that provides a deep technical dive.

Oregon Health & Science University researchers have figured out how to turn a mouse into a factory for human liver cells that can be used to test how pharmaceuticals are metabolized. The technique, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, could soon become the gold standard not only for examining drug metabolism in the liver, which helps scientists determine a drug's toxicity, but also can be used as a platform for testing new therapies against infectious diseases that attack the liver, such as hepatitis C and malaria.

Phoebus0 writes "The Oregon Health and Science University's Department of Computer Science and Engineering has been developing what looks like a massive robot truck of the future - only on a slightly smaller scale. It appears to use some fairly cool stuff on a really small platform, literally. It's called the Timbot, and is supposed to be able to act and get around independently, with only high-level instructions. The robot is running embedded Linux with 802.11b ethernet, a micro pan/tilt camera, and a bunch of other sensors. It's partially funded by DARPA, and the current press release can be found here. I want one!" I hope they commericialize and sell this, looks much better than my old Tonka truck.