As I listened to U.S. President Barack Obama’s second inaugural address in January, I was struck by the emphasis he placed on addressing global climate change and the need for clean energy. “The path toward sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult,” the…
Posted by Rob Knies You might have heard of Drew Purves before. As head of the Computational Ecology and Environmental Science Group at Microsoft Research Cambridge, he has gained attention for a number of his projects, from modeling forest dynamics to FetchClimate, that use big…
Plant biologists in Brazil are working to develop a better understanding of tropical ecosystems—how they work and how they impact climate change, not only in the region, but worldwide. These researchers are dedicated and disciplined. They’re in the field from dawn to dusk, working through…
First to explain… no, there is no time. Let me sum up: you are a scientist with complex geospatial data visualization challenges. We at Microsoft Research have a solution for you and we’re enhancing this through the release of a software library called Narwhal. (We…
Location sensing has become ubiquitous—it’s present every time you turn on your smartphone or engage your car’s navigation system. It’s also become critical to a variety of outdoors and remote research applications, such as wildlife tracking, participatory environmental sensing, and personal health and wellness monitoring.…
“Despite its size, Puget Sound is ecologically delicate; and while its symptoms of trouble are not easily visible, they are undeniable and getting worse.” —The Puget Sound Partnership We at Microsoft Research Connections have begun work on a cooperative research and development (R&D) project with…
The participants in the 2012 Microsoft Research Faculty Summit gained new appreciation for the changes facing the globe as David Breashears navigated the massive archive of photographic data that his team has gathered in many climbs through the Himalaya Mountains. We came away with a…
The weather is warm and balmy along Mexico’s renowned Riviera Maya, the venue for the 2012 Microsoft Research Latin American Faculty Summit. I’m sure my friends would tell me to get outside, walk along the beach, and think peaceful thoughts. Great suggestions, but I find…
On February 9, 2012, Russian astronomers of all levels—professional, amateur, student, and teacher—congregated at Moscow’s Sternberg Astronomical Institute for WorldWide Telescope Day. Russia’s foremost astronomy institution, the Sternberg Astronomical Institute, also known as GAISH, represents the top echelons of the country’s astronomical research and science…
Through my work with academics in Brazil, I have witnessed an increasing awareness of the importance of computing in advancing scientific research in such areas as bioenergy, biodiversity, climate change, and plant physiology. In order to advance these fields, scientists need to deal with increasingly…
Jonathan Fay and I recently visited the California Academy of Sciences, the world-class natural history museum and research center located in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Our goals were to connect in person with Academy researchers and to help prepare the Academy’s Morrison Planetarium for…
Astronomy is rapidly becoming exponentially data rich, with data management, data exploration, and knowledge discovering becoming central to the research enterprise. This has brought about great opportunity for growth and discovery in both astronomy and computational science. It has also created many technical and methodological…
