To our mind, the first Grand Challenge should be coming up with a new name for Grand Challenges. We’ve been slinging this term around for at least two decades now.

The British Computer Society disagrees, apparently. According to InfoWorld:

A group of British computer scientists have proposed a number of “grand challenges” for IT that they hope will drive forward research, similar to the way the human genome project drove life sciences research through the 1990s. Ambitious goals include harnessing the power of quantum physics, building systems that can’t go wrong, and simulating living creatures in every detail.

The lowdown (as a .pdf) is available from the BCS themselves.

Big Blue devotes the current issue of IBM Systems Journal to grid computing. It includes a paper on IBM’s intraGrid, which is based on Globus. It also predicts (get ready for it) the rapid adoption of grids by industry and analyzes the evolution of grid standards and principles.

The hits keep on coming with pieces on security, information infrastructure, and the National Library of Medicine MYMED database system, among other things. And the cover art–ooo laa laa!

Check out the full table of contents.

Arzberger, P., Farazdel, A., Konagaya, A., Ang, L., Shimojo, S., Stevens, R. “Life Sciences and Cyberinfrastructure: Dual and Interacting Revolutions that will Drive Future Science”, New Generation Computing (2004), Vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 97.

ABSTRACT: Over the past quarter century, two revolutions, one in bio-medicine, the other in computing and information technology leading to cyberinfrastructure, have made the largest advances and the most significant impacts on science, technology, and society. The interface between these areas is rich with opportunity for major advances. The Life Sciences Grid Research Group (LSG-RG) of the Global Grid Forum recognized the opportunities and needs to bring the communities together to ensure the cyberinfrastructure will be constructed for the benefit of science. This article gives an overview of the area, the activities of the LSG-RG, and the minisymposium organized by LSG-RG, and introduces the papers in this Special Issue of New Generation Computing.