Years after its detection, astronomers have learned that a planet called KOI-5Ab orbits in a triple-star system with a skewed configuration. Shortly after NASA’s Kepler mission began operations back in 2009, it identified what was thought to be a planet about the size of Neptune. Called KOI-5Ab, the planet, which was the second new planet candidate to be found by the mission, was ultimately forgo... More »
Artificial intelligence has been the inspiration for countless books and movies, as well as the aspiration of countless scientists and engineers. Researchers at Caltech have now taken a major step toward creating artificial intelligence—not in a robot or a silicon chip, but in a test tube. The researchers are the first to have made an artificial neural network out of DNA, creating a circuit of i... More »
Octavia E. Butler Magnet has been named a Nationally Certified Demonstration School by Magnet Schools of America (MSA), one of only 33 in the country and the only California school selected this year. OEB also received the Merit School of Excellence Award at the MSA conference in New York last week. The Pasadena Unified School District is now home to two of only three nationally certified demonst... More »
Beam Wave Guide antennas at Goldstone, known as the “Beam Waveguide Cluster.” Each antenna is 111.5-feet (34-m) in diameter. They’re located in an area at Goldstone called “Apollo Valley.” This photograph was taken on Jan. 11, 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech JPL’s Deep Space Network, the world’s largest and most powerful communications system for “talking to” spacecraft, will reach a milestone on ... More »
The artist concept depicts “multiple-transiting planet systems,” which are stars with more than one planet. Photo credit: NASA JPL’s Kepler mission announced Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets. These newly verified worlds orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system. Nearly 95 percent of these planets are smaller than Neptune, which is almost four t... More »
“King Richard,” “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “The Harder They Fall” will be among the competitors for top film honors Saturday evening at the 53rd NAACP Image Awards held in the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, with Jennifer Hudson, Denzel Washington and Will Smith up for top acting honors. The awards celebrate “outstanding achievements and performances of people of color” in categories including f... More »
Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have detected what they believe is an alien world just two-thirds the size of Earth – one of the smallest on record. The exoplanet candidate, known as UCF-1.01, orbits a star called GJ 436, which is located a mere 33 light-years away. UCF-1.01 might be the nearest world to our solar system that is smaller than our home planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Calte... More »
Did you know that February is Magnet Schools Month nationwide? That’s okay. That’s why we’re here. Pasadena Unified School District actually has six magnet schools, each of which has a concentrated curriculum based upon various fields of study, from the arts to science to languages to engineering. As part of Magnet Schools Month, PUSD magnet school teams met with aides from four California congre... More »
Pasadena attorney Xochitl Flores, The Heart Link Network® Pasadena Chapter Leader [Photo: The Heart Links Network] The Heart Link Network® aims to benefit women in Pasadena and surrounding areas by launching a women’s networking chapter that was created specifically for women in business. The Heart Link Network®, which launched in 2008, already has over 200 women’s networking chapters in the ... More »
When Plato set out to define what made a human a human, he settled on two primary characteristics: We do not have feathers, and we are bipedal (walking upright on two legs). Plato’s characterization may not encompass all of what identifies a human, but his reduction of an object to its fundamental characteristics provides an example of a technique known as principal component analysis. Now, Caltec... More »
