Wasn't super clear from the article but is this new use? A bit surprising if so. I understand BLAS, LAPACK, and other fundamental libraries have a ton of fortran code. But at this point performance isn't really a reason not to use modern C++ for example. And most of the aforementioned libraries have excellent C++ APIs.
Try to use Modern Fortran for a week for anything numerically related and you will understand. The language is pretty easy to use for scientists, fast and can be learned in a reasonable amount of time. (Fortran is not so good if you want to do text processing or web development.)
Now, take someone that does not know C++ and ask it to implement some complex numerical algorithm in C++ ... and I say this as someone that likes C++ and uses C++ at work.
