Interesting recent developments in academic computer science.
jaydub: I'm a part of the XMT project @ UMD http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~vishkin/XMT/index.shtmlAdmittedly, the concepts involved are dated since PRAM  theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Random_Access_Machine)  dates to the 70's. However, this project marks the first successful commitment of PRAM theory to silicon