IBM Supercomputer Discovers Oldest English Words
According to a release pushed out by IBM on the subject, it took "an average of six weeks to perform a computational task such as comparing two sets of words in different languages," and once its brawny machine stepped in, that time was cut down to "a few hours." Evolutionary language scientists at the institution long believed that they would be unable to track words back in time for more than 5,000 years, but with the help of a supercomputer, that range has now been extended back to around 30,000 years.

And to think, this is just a glimmer of what's possible when supercomputers are involved. Maybe we're selfish and / or obsessed, but can anyone say "LAN party server?"