The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. TACC science writer Jorge Salazar hosts the podcast.

A planet about 950 light years from Earth could be the Looney Tunes’ Yosemite Sam equivalent of planets, blowing its atmospheric ‘top’ in spectacular fashion. 

The planet called HAT-P-32b is losing so much of its atmospheric helium that the trailing gas tails are among the largest structures yet known of an exoplanet, a planet outside our solar system, according to observations by astronomers. 

Three-dimensional simulations on the Stampede2 supercomputer of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) helped model the flow of the planet’s atmosphere, based on data from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope of The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory. The scientists hope to widen their planet-observing net and survey 20 additional star systems to find more planets losing their atmosphere and learn about their evolution.

On the podcast to talk more about his research and study on HAT-P-32b is Zhoujian Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California Santa Cruz.

Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/

Story link: https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2023/09/05/hot-jupiter-blows-its-top/

Hot Jupiter Blows Its Top

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. TACC science writer Jorge Salazar hosts the podcast.

Optical tweezers manipulate tiny things like cells and nanoparticles using lasers. While they might sound like tractor beams from science fiction, the fact is their development garnered scientists a Nobel Prize in 2018. 

Scientists have now used TACC’s Stampede2 and Lonestar5 supercomputers to make optical tweezers safer to use on living cells with applications to cancer therapy, environmental monitoring, and more.

On the podcast is Pavana Kollipara, a recent UT Austin graduate who co-authored a study on optical tweezers published August 2023 in Nature Communications, written just before he completed his PhD in mechanical engineering under fellow study co-author Yuebing Zheng of UT Austin, the corresponding author of the paper.

Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/

Story link: https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2023/10/31/new-twist-on-optical-tweezers/

New Twist on Optical Tweezers

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. TACC science writer Jorge Salazar hosts the podcast.

Like a celestial beacon, distant quasars make the brightest light in the universe. They emit more light than our entire Milky Way galaxy. The light comes from matter ripped apart as it is swallowed by a supermassive black hole. Quasar light reveals clues about the large-scale structure of the universe as it shines through enormous clouds of neutral hydrogen gas formed shortly after the Big Bang on the scale of 20 million light years across or more. 

Using quasar light data, the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Frontera supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) helped astronomers develop PRIYA, the largest suite of hydrodynamic simulations yet made for simulating large-scale structure in the universe.

On the podcast to talk about PRIYA is one of the developers, Simeon Bird, an assistant professor in astronomy at the University of California, Riverside. 

Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/

Story link:https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2023/12/20/cosmic-lights-in-the-forest/

Cosmic Lights in the Forest

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. TACC science writer Jorge Salazar hosts the podcast.

Scientists have created the world’s first working nanoscale electromotor, according to research published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The science team designed a turbine engineered from DNA that is powered by hydrodynamic flow inside a nanopore, a nanometer-sized hole in a membrane of solid-state silicon nitride.

The tiny motor could help spark research into future applications such as building molecular factories for useful chemicals or medical probes of molecules inside the bloodstream to detect diseases such as cancer.

On the podcast today is study co-author Aleksei Aksimentiev, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Aksimentiev used TACC’s Frontera supercomputer to perform all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of the rotation of the DNA turbine.

Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/ 

Story link: https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2024/01/19/dna-origami-folded-into-tiny-motor/

DNA Origami Folded Into Tiny Motor

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. TACC science writer Jorge Salazar hosts the podcast.

Chemists have determined for the first time the crystal structure and unlocked the mechanism of activity of a family of enzymes that produce monensin, widely used as a cattle antibiotic.

The University of Texas Research Cyberinfrastructure (UTRC) initiative awarded the monensin researchers supercomputer allocations on the Lonestar6 system at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to meet the challenges of modeling the binding sites of monensin. UTRC provides advanced computing capabilities to researchers across all 14 UT System institutions.

On the podcast is Lela Vukovic, an associate professor at The University of Texas, at El Paso. She performed the computational studies on the monensin research, published October 2023 in Nature Communications.

Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/

Story link: https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2024/02/12/supercomputing-the-secrets-inside-cattle-antibiotics/

Supercomputing the Secrets Inside Cattle Antibiotics

Something big is coming for science—the largest by far academic supercomputer in the U.S., called Horizon, as part of the U.S. National Science Foundation Leadership-Class Computing Facility (NSF LCCF), a project awarded to the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

In July 2024, the NSF announced that TACC will begin construction of the NSF LCCF, which will be a distributed facility with six partners providing unique computational and data analytics capabilities, as well as critical software and services, for the nation’s science and engineering research community to enable discoveries that would not be possible otherwise.

TACC will build and operate the Horizon supercomputer as part of the NSF LCCF. When it comes online in 2026, the supercomputer will be 10 times as powerful as the current leading academic supercomputer in the U.S.—Frontera—also operated by TACC.

On the podcast to discuss the NSF LCCF and Horizon supercomputer is Dan Stanzione, executive director of TACC and principal investigator of the NSF LCCF. 

Highlights from the podcast include:

•	The NSF has elevated the LCCF, a computing facility with sustained, large-scale funding, to be on par with other large, strategic scientific initiatives such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.
•	The LCCF will have partners distributed throughout the country, including Atlanta University Center (AUC) Data Science Initiative at the AUC Consortium, a collaboration of four historically Black colleges and universities: Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College and Morehouse School of Medicine; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, a joint center of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh; San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California San Diego; Cornell University; and Ohio State University.
•	The Horizon supercomputer will be a key universal instrument for a wide range of scientific domains, helping scientists investigate nature in time steps from the picoseconds of atoms to the gigayears cosmological galaxy clusters.
•	TACC is currently constructing Horizon with Sabey Data Centers in Round Rock, Texas, scheduled to come online in early 2026.
•	Horizon will support traditional 64-bit HPC computation as well as have a large supply of lower precision graphics processing units (GPU) tailored especially for artificial intelligence.
•	Horizon is expected to achieve 400 petaflops of HPC performance, about 10 times that of the NSF Frontera system, and the AI component will deliver 100x of Frontera performance.
•	The AI GPUs will offer tremendous power savings compared to the traditional HPC central processing unit (CPU) architecture.
•	The LCCF will offer workforce training opportunities with partners such as Moorehouse College, as well as other education and outreach services serving K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students through camps, internships, fellowships, and more.
•	Horizon will be used by academic researchers awarded allocations through a process similar to NSF Frontera awards.
•	Supercomputers bridging the gap at TACC between Frontera and Horizon include Stampede3 and Vista, which launched in 2024, as well as Lonestar6, launched in 2022.

New Heights: The U.S. NSF Leadership-Class Computing Facility and Horizon

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) of the University of Texas at Austin. Supersized Science is hosted by Jorge Salazar, a science writer at TACC.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season left a trail of destruction in its wake, causing hundreds of fatalities and more than $200 billion dollars in damages. Despite the heavy toll, supercomputer simulations were an important tool for U.S. state and federal agencies in protecting life and property. 

Supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center—Vista, Frontera, Stampede3, and Lonestar6—are used for urgent computing to meet the needs of emergency responders with rapid and frequently updated simulations of storm surge, the often deadly rise in sea level and coastal flooding from big storms and hurricanes.

On the podcast today to talk about TACC’s role in storm surge simulations is TACC staff scientist Carlos Del Castillo Negrete, a research associate in the High Performance Computing group.

Supersized Science is part of the Texas Podcast Network – the conversations changing the world – brought to you by The University of Texas at Austin.  The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin.

Story Link: https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2025/01/23/hurricane-simulations-in-high-gear/

Music Credit: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/

Hurricane Simulations in High Gear

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin.

Electric transformers convert high voltage to lower voltage that’s useful for households to plug into. In the U.S., transformers are aging and approaching an average of being 30 to 40 years old. And they face more stress than ever before brought on by factors such as renewable energy demands and by extreme weather events such as hurricanes, heat waves, and winter storms.  

University of Texas at Austin researchers have taken a look inside grid transformers to see if they could make them better. Inside grid transformers you’ll find copper windings, other metallic components, and cellulose-based electrical insulation like kraft paper. The cellulose insulation is a great electrical insulator essential in the process of ‘stepping down’ voltage, but it also traps heat, which can lead to overheating.

Podcast host and TACC science writer Jorge Salazar is joined on the podcast by Vaibhav Bahadur, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering, UT Austin. Bahadur is the corresponding author of a study that modeled the impact of nanotechnology-based high thermal conductivity paper on the performance and life of grid transformers published March 2024 in Cell Press journal Heliyon. This is the first study that predicts the extent to which tuning the thermal conductivity of paper can enhance transformer life.

Simulations TACC’s Stampede2 supercomputer helped Bahadur and his collaborators engineer solutions to overheating of grid transformers — a critical component of the electric grid.

Supersized Science is part of the Texas Podcast Network – the conversations changing the world – brought to you by The University of Texas at Austin.  The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. 

TACC link: https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2024/04/16/cooler-transformers-could-help-the-electric-grid/

Music Credits: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/

Cooler Transformers Could Help the Electric Grid

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin.

Diamond is the hardest material found in nature — diamond also has the highest thermal conductivity, allowing the most heat to flow through it rapidly.

An international team of scientists used TACC’s Frontera  supercomputer for simulations that found that by flexing diamond, its thermal conductivity can be drastically tuned up or down. 

Scientists worldwide are interested in studying elastic strain engineering to discover the properties that materials exhibit when they are under large tensile or shear stresses. Findings like this could open the door for developing new microelectronic and optoelectronic devices such as computer chips, quantum sensors, communication devices, and more.

Podcast host Jorge Salazar, a science writer at TACC, is joined on the podcast by Frank Shi, a former researcher in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Shi is now a technical lead at Apple.

Shi co-authored a study revealing diamond’s tunable thermal conductivity published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February 2024.

Supersized Science is part of the Texas Podcast Network – the conversations changing the world – brought to you by The University of Texas at Austin.  The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. 

TACC link: https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2024/05/29/diamond-heat/

Music Credits: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/

Diamond Heat

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin.

Materials called metal-halide perovskites have quickly advanced in the last decade since their discovery as a semiconductor that outshines silicon in its conversion of light into electric current. 

Simulations on TACC's Frontera and Lonestar6 supercomputers have revealed surprising vortex structures in quasiparticles of electrons and atoms, called polarons, which contribute to generating electricity from sunlight.

This new discovery can help scientists develop new solar cells and LED lighting. This type of lighting is hailed as eco-friendly, sustainable technology that can reshape the future of illumination.

Podcast host Jorge Salazar, a science writer at TACC, is joined by Feliciano Giustino, professor of Physics and the W. A. ‘Tex’ Moncrief, Jr. Chair of Quantum Materials Engineering at the College of Natural Sciences and core faculty at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at UT Austin.  

Giustino co-authored research that discovered polarons in halide perovskites, which was published March 2024 in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.

Supersized Science is part of the Texas Podcast Network – the conversations changing the world – brought to you by The University of Texas at Austin.  The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts, and not of The University of Texas at Austin.

TACC link: https://tacc.utexas.edu/news/latest-news/2024/06/25/surprising-vortex-behind-new-solar-cell-and-lighting-materials/

Music Credits: Raro Bueno, Chuzausen freemusicarchive.org/music/Chuzausen/

Surprising Vortex Behind New Solar Cell and Lighting Materials

The Supersized Science podcast highlights research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. TACC science writer Jorge Salazar hosts Supersized Science.

Supersized Science is part of the Texas Podcast Network, brought to you by The University of Texas at Austin. Podcasts are produced by faculty members and staffers at UT Austin who work with University Communications to craft content that adheres to journalistic best practices. The University of Texas at Austin offers these podcasts at no charge. Podcasts appearing on the network and this webpage represent the views of the hosts, not of The University of Texas at Austin.

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