Monday, February 6, 2017 | 12:28 pm
Mars scientists are wrestling with a problem. Ample evidence says ancient Mars was sometimes wet, with water flowing and pooling on the planet’s surface. Yet, the ancient sun was about one-third less warm and climate modelers struggle to produce scenarios that... More »
Sunday, February 5, 2017 | 1:29 am
Bats have long captured the imaginations of scientists and engineers with their unrivaled agility, but their complex wing motions pose significant technological challenges for those seeking to recreate their flight in a robot. The key flight mechanisms of bats... More »
Saturday, February 4, 2017 | 12:33 pm
For proteins, this would be the equivalent of the red-carpet treatment: each protein belonging to the complex machinery of ribosomes — components of the cell that produce proteins — has its own chaperone to guide it to the right place at the right time and pro... More »
Tuesday, January 31, 2017 | 5:08 pm
Harold Rosen (MS ’48, PhD ’51), the father of geostationary satellite communications, passed away on January 30, 2017. He was 90. Modern communications technology relies on a fleet of hundreds of satellites orbiting in fixed locations above the earth’s surface... More »
Tuesday, January 31, 2017 | 4:36 pm
Kaiser Permanente researchers in Pasadena say children exposed to complications before or during birth were more likely to develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than those who did not experience perinatal complications. In a study published Tuesday in the Ame... More »
Tuesday, January 31, 2017 | 10:56 am
The National Academy of Sciences has awarded Caltech’s Frances Arnold the 2017 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research for her work on directed evolution, a method used to “breed” biological enzymes useful to scientists and industry. Directed... More »
Monday, January 30, 2017 | 7:22 pm
Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, using computer models developed with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA space imagery and ground-sensor data from the California Department of Water Resources in Sacramento, have come up with an estimate of... More »
Monday, January 30, 2017 | 12:14 pm
A new device on the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii has delivered its first images, showing a ring of planet-forming dust around a star, and separately, a cool, star-like body, called a brown dwarf, lying near its companion star. The device, called a vortex co... More »
Monday, January 30, 2017 | 12:09 pm
A new instrument on the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii has delivered its first images, showing a ring of planet-forming dust around a star and, separately, a cool star-like body, called a brown dwarf, lying near to its companion star. The device, called the ... More »
Sunday, January 29, 2017 | 6:45 pm
Fruit flies are capable of impressive aerial maneuvers, as is grudgingly acknowledged by anyone who has unsuccessfully tried to swat away one of the familiar kitchen pests. Interestingly, the flies perform these nimble evasive movements using only 12 flight ... More »
Friday, January 27, 2017 | 6:21 pm
A simple chemistry method could vastly enhance how scientists search for signs of life on other planets, according to a new study by JPL researchers working in Pasadena. The test uses a liquid-based technique known as capillary electrophoresis to separate a mi... More »
Friday, January 27, 2017 | 3:43 pm
New Caltech faculty member Soon-Jo Chung splits his time between Caltech’s campus, where he is a Bren Scholar and an associate professor of aerospace in the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT), and NASA’s Jet Prop... More »