Oak Ridge Today

ORNL, Titan helping DOE supercomputers fight cancer

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Titan Supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its Titan supercomputer are helping the U.S. Department of Energy fight cancer. (Photo courtesy of ORNL)

 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its Titan supercomputer are helping the U.S. Department of Energy fight cancer through a national initiative called Cancer Moonshot.

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz wrote about the use of DOE supercomputers to fight cancer in an article posted on Medium.com on Friday.

“Cancer is a worldwide public health problem, and the second-leading cause of death in the United States,” Moniz said. “Although cancer mortality has declined in recent years, there is no one who hasn’t been touched by cancer personally. So when President Obama announced that Vice President Biden would lead the Cancer Moonshot during his State of the Union address and asked for all hands on deck, I was eager to join the Cancer Moonshot Task Force and lend the support of the Department of Energy and our 17 national laboratories.”

As part of the initiative, the U.S. Department of Energy is launching three pilot projects in partnership with the National Cancer Institute, ORNL spokesperson Morgan McCorkle said. The projects will bring together nearly 100 cancer researchers, care providers, computer scientists, and engineers to apply the nation’s most advanced supercomputing capabilities to analyze data from preclinical models in cancer, cancer surveillance data, and molecular interaction data for RAS genes, McCorkle said. (About one third of all human cancers, including a high percentage of pancreatic, lung, and colorectal cancers, are driven by mutations in RAS genes, according to the National Cancer Institute.) [Read more…]

Field work complete, cleanup projects used $751 million in Recovery Act funding

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Building K-33

Building K-33 at the East Tennessee Technology Park, also known as the former K-25 site, before demolition. (DOE photo)

 

Note: This story was updated at 5:30 p.m.

The field work is complete on 27 cleanup projects at three federal sites in Oak Ridge that used $751 million in Recovery Act funds.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, or EM, announced the end of the field work on Thursday.

“We’re done knocking down buildings and with all the work in the field,” said Mike Koentop, executive officer in Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. “We have paperwork left to do to close out projects.”

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Recovery Act or stimulus bill, was passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in February 2009. It was meant to help stimulate an economic recovery during the depths of the Great Recession, and it was intended to address long-neglected infrastructure projects and programs.

In Oak Ridge, the Recovery Act funding paid for several demolition projects such as the demolition of the 1.4-million-square-foot K-33 Building at the East Tennessee Technology Park and other projects ranging from mercury reduction at the Y-12 National Security Complex to transuranic waste processing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. [Read more…]

Corker welcomes ‘vigorous debate’ on military action in Syria

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U.S. Senator Bob Corker

Bob Corker

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker on Saturday said he was pleased by President Barack Obama’s decision to ask Congress for approval before launching a military strike on Syria, and the senator said he looks forward to a vigorous debate.

Although he opposes sending American troops to Syria, Corker has said he would support surgical air strikes against the Assad government, given the evidence of the regime’s continued use of chemical weapons. But he has urged the Obama administration to first seek congressional authorization. [Read more…]

UT releases policy brief on selling TVA

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KNOXVILLE—The Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville has released a policy brief summarizing factors the federal government should consider while making its decision of whether or not to privatize the Tennessee Valley Authority.

In his proposed fiscal year 2014 budget, President Barack Obama suggested the federal government consider selling TVA. There are several factors that may affect the federal government’s final decision on the matter, including TVA’s ability to be self-sufficient and the absence of federal money in its programs since 1999. Mary English, Baker Center Fellow for Energy and Environmental Policy, summarizes these factors in the brief, titled “Should the Federal Government Sell TVA?”

[Read more…]

House leader’s speech emphasizes research, mixes in politics

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Eric Cantor

Eric Cantor

Note: This story was updated at 12:35 p.m.

In his first visit to Oak Ridge, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor paid tribute to the national security and science work that has occurred here dating back to World War II, called for a continued emphasis on research and discovery, and touched on political topics including the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, unemployment, and the nation’s social safety net.

A Virginia Republican, Cantor said the U.S. House of Representatives last week passed the Northern Route Approval Act, allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to be completed. The bill declares that a presidential permit is not required to approve the section of the pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska, which crosses a national border. [Read more…]

NNSA: President’s budget request includes $326M for UPF at Y-12

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Uranium Processing Facility

The proposed Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex is pictured above. (Submitted image)

President Barack Obama’s budget request for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 includes $326 million for the Uranium Processing Facility project at the Y-12 National Security Complex, federal officials said this week.

The president’s proposed budget, which still has to be considered by Congress, was released last week. The National Nuclear Security Administration released details on Monday.

The NNSA has also posted highlights of the president’s budget request. [Read more…]

President Obama nominates MIT scientist for energy secretary

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President Barack Obama has nominated a physicist and director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to serve as his next energy secretary.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Ernest J. Moniz would replace Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, as secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. Chu announced Feb. 1 that he would not serve a second four-year term in the Obama administration.

[Read more…]

Celebrating Obama’s inauguration, King’s birthday

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John Hamilton Sings with Collizjion

John Hamilton, center, sings with Knoxville band Collizjion at a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at the Midtown Community Center in Oak Ridge on Monday. Also pictured, from left, are Xzavian Wrushen, Taylor Warren, Mackcell Rodgers, and Brandon Anderson.

As millions of people across the country watched the inaugural ceremony for President Barack Obama, many others celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.

Ceremonies in the past week to honor the slain civil rights leader included a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration on Monday at the Midtown Community Center.

It was sponsored by Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge, and it included music, a brief presentation on King’s life and work, and remarks by Connie Martin, MMC vice president and chief support officer.

[Read more…]

House also passes ‘fiscal cliff’ deal, but Tennessee representatives oppose it

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U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann

Chuck Fleischmann

Less than 24 hours after the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved it, the U.S. House passed legislation late Tuesday night to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” but seven Tennessee Republicans and one Democrat opposed it.

The bill, which now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature, averts income tax increases for most Americans and temporarily delays large across-the-board spending cuts to defense and domestic programs.

However, the Associated Press reported most Americans will still end up paying more federal taxes in 2013 because the legislation did not renew a temporary 2 percent cut in the payroll tax. That reduction was worth about $1,000 to a worker making $50,000 a year.

U.S. senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, both Tennessee Republicans, voted for the bill in the Senate, where it passed 89-8 early Tuesday morning. Alexander and Corker said the legislation, reached after weeks of negotiations between the White House and Congress, “rescues” 99 percent of Americans from a tax rate increase.

But all seven Tennessee Republicans in the U.S. House, including Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, voted against it. The vote in the House was 257-167.

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Corker, Alexander propose dollar-for-dollar spending, debt limit plan

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Tennessee senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander have introduced a plan to reduce the growth in federal entitlement spending by almost $1 trillion in exchange for increasing the nation’s debt limit by $1 trillion, possibly this spring.

The Dollar for Dollar Act of 2012 would reduce the growth in spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, according to a statement posted on Corker’s website. Most of the spending reductions—$689 billion—would come from Medicare reform.

Corker and Alexander seemed confident that Congress and the White House would reach a deal in the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations, a high-stakes debate that has dragged on for weeks over how to avoid automatic spending cuts and tax increases starting Jan. 1.

“When the dust settles, federal income taxes will not increase for almost all Americans next year,” Corker and Alexander said.

The two Republicans said their dollar-for-dollar plan “focused on helping Americans avoid falling off the fiscal cliff no one wants to talk about, the looming bankruptcy of Medicare.”

[Read more…]

With ‘fiscal cliff’ looming, ORNL says it’s as well-prepared as it can be

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As President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner continue their high-stakes negotiations over tax revenues and spending cuts, officials at Oak Ridge National Laboratory say they have prepared as best they can for automatic spending cuts that could go into effect in January.

“We have been preparing for increased budget pressures for several years now and have taken a number of steps to reduce our costs, including workforce restructuring, benefits changes, reduction in energy consumption, and other operational costs,” ORNL Director Thom Mason said in a statement Monday. “Since we don’t know exactly how any cuts would be allocated by the various governments agencies that fund ORNL, we can’t really say with certainty what the impacts would be, other than to say we are as well-prepared for uncertainty as we can be.”

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Tuesday presidential forum features Obama, Romney supporters

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Syd Ball

Syd Ball

Two local supporters of President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will represent the candidates during a Tuesday afternoon presidential forum in Oak Ridge.

Syd Ball will offer the views of Obama, a Democrat seeking a second term as president in the Nov. 6 election. Ball is serving on the local Obama For America “Pen Points” (letters to the editor) committee, a press release said.

Joe Bailey, chairman of the East Tennessee campaign for Romney, will present the views of Romney, the Republican opposing Obama. The press release said Bailey was a delegate to the Republican Convention this summer.

The Democratic and Republican representatives will deliver opening statements and answer questions about the candidate they are representing, the press release said. The audience is encouraged to take part by submitting questions to the speakers.

[Read more…]