Articles tagged with "environment_and_sustainability"

04/25/2013 10:37:00
Fifty Years of Clearing the Skies
Douglas Smith
Ringed by mountains and capped by a temperature inversion that traps bad air, Los Angeles has had bouts of smog since the turn of the 20th century. An outbreak in 1903 rendered the skies so dark that many people mistook it for a solar eclipse. Angelenos might now be living in a state of perpetual midnight—assuming we could live here at all—were it not for the work of Caltech Professor of Bio-organic Chemistry Arie Jan Haagen-Smit. How he did it is told here largely in his own words, excerpted from Caltech's Engineering & Science magazine between 1950 and 1962. (See "Related Links" for the original articles.)
05/01/2011 07:00:00
Jorgensen Renovation Kicks into Gear
Lori Oliwenstein

Those fences you'll soon see sprouting up around Jorgensen Laboratory are among the less classic signs of spring—and yet, they are very much a symbol of growth and rebirth. Now that the interior demolition of the building has been completed, with some 90 percent of the materials removed being reused or recycled, Jorgensen Lab's much-anticipated renovation is about to begin in earnest.

 

04/22/2011 07:00:00
Working Toward a Greener Future
Katie Neith

Celebrate Earth Day with the Caltech community on April 22 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. along San Pasqual Walk in front of Chandler and the Red Door.

04/01/2011 07:00:00
Solar Decathlon Team Breaks Ground
Marcus Woo

The joint Solar Decathlon team of Caltech and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) will show off their state-of-the-art, energy-efficient house tomorrow in a groundbreaking ceremony at 2 p.m. at the SCI-Arc campus in Los Angeles. All are welcome and refreshments will be served.

03/30/2011 09:00:00
Warm Water Causes Extra-cold Winters in Northeastern North America and Northeastern Asia
Marcus Woo

Average winter temperatures in northern Europe are at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than similar latitudes on the northeastern coast of the United States and the eastern coast of Canada. The same phenomenon happens over the Pacific, where winters on the northeastern coast of Asia are colder than in the Pacific Northwest. Researchers at Caltech have now found a mechanism that helps explain these chillier winters—and the culprit is warm water off the eastern coasts of these continents.

03/03/2011 08:00:00
Solar Decathlon Back on the Mall
Marcus Woo

Thanks to a campaign led by a joint team of students from Caltech and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), the 2011 Solar Decathlon is back on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The announcement made last week reverses an earlier decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to relocate the event.

03/03/2011 08:00:00
Greening Caltech's Bottom Line
Lori Oliwenstein

Caltech's efforts to finance energy efficiency in ways that give back to the campus have been recognized by the Sustainable Endowments Institute in its recently-released report, Greening the Bottom Line: The Trend toward Green Revolving Funds on Campus.

 

02/25/2011 08:00:00
Sustaining the Next Generation of Energy Scientists
Lori Oliwenstein

Training the next generation of scientists is a critical component of the mission of Caltech's Resnick Institute. And although the institute is not yet two years old, it has already begun to fulfill that mission, thanks to the newly developed Resnick Fellowship program. The first two Resnick Fellows began their work in the fall of 2010; last week, the institute put out a call for applications for the next set of two-year awards.

01/27/2011 11:00:00
Caltech Geobiologists Uncover Links between Ancient Climate Change and Mass Extinction
Marcus Woo

About 450 million years ago, Earth suffered the second-largest mass extinction in its history—the Late Ordovician mass extinction, during which more than 75 percent of marine species died. Exactly what caused this tremendous loss in biodiversity remains a mystery, but now a team led by researchers at Caltech has discovered new details supporting the idea that the mass extinction was linked to a cooling climate.

01/26/2011 08:00:00
Obama Touts Caltech Research
Allison Benter

In last night's State of the Union Address, President Obama said, "We're issuing a challenge. We're telling America's scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we'll fund the Apollo projects of our time. At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars.

01/19/2011 00:00:00
New Reactor Paves the Way for Efficiently Producing Fuel from Sunlight
Kathy Svitil

Using a common metal most famously found in self-cleaning ovens, Sossina Haile hopes to change our energy future. The metal is cerium oxide—or ceria—and it is the centerpiece of a promising new technology developed by Haile and her colleagues that concentrates solar energy and uses it to efficiently convert carbon dioxide and water into fuels.

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