Caltech

Articles tagged with "interdisciplinary_research"

05/10/2013

Notes from the Back Row: "Quantum Entanglement and Quantum Computing"

Douglas Smith

John Preskill, the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, is hooked on quanta.

12/15/2011

Caltech Chemists Propose Explanation for Superconductivity at High Temperatures

Kimm Fesenmaier

It has been 25 years since scientists discovered the first high-temperature superconductors—copper oxides, or cuprates, that conduct electricity without a shred of resistance at temperatures much higher than other superconducting metals. Now, two Caltech chemists have developed a hypothesis to explain the strange behavior of these materials, while also pointing the way to a method for making even higher-temperature superconductors.

12/13/2011

High-Energy Physicists Set Record for Network Data Transfer

Marcus Woo

Researchers have set a new world record for data transfer, helping to usher in the next generation of high-speed network technology. The international team was able to transfer data in opposite directions at a combined rate of 186 gigabits per second (Gbps) in a wide-area network circuit. The rate is equivalent to moving two million gigabytes per day, fast enough to transfer nearly 100,000 full Blu-ray disks—each with a complete movie and all the extras—in a day.

12/01/2011

Cheating Nature for Secrets

Kimm Fesenmaier

André Hoelz, Caltech's newest assistant professor of chemistry, endeavors to fully characterize the nuclear pore complex, a cellular component made up of many copies of about 30 different proteins—perhaps 1,000 proteins in all and 10 million atoms—which forms a transport channel in the membrane of the nuclear envelope. Hoelz calls the complex "the gatekeeper of the nucleus."

10/26/2011

Caltech Professors Mark E. Davis and David A. Tirrell Elected to the Institute of Medicine

Kimm Fesenmaier

Mark E. Davis and David A. Tirrell of Caltech have been elected to the Institute of Medicine, an honor that is considered among the highest in the fields of health and medicine. Both Davis and Tirrell are already members of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, making them two of only 13 living individuals who have been elected to all three branches of the National Academies.

10/14/2011

Caltech Awarded $12.6 Million for New Institute for Quantum Information and Matter

Kimm Fesenmaier

Caltech has been awarded $12.6 million in funding over the next five years by the National Science Foundation to create a new Physics Frontiers Center. Dubbed the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter (IQIM), the center will bring physicists and computer scientists together to push theoretical and experimental boundaries in the study of exotic quantum states.

10/13/2011

$10 Million Gift Creates Partnership to Fuel Fundamental Research

Shayna Chabner McKinney

In a strategic move to strengthen fundamental science and technology and foster transformational advances in renewable energies, the Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) and Caltech have established a $10 million partnership.

10/12/2011

Wet and Mild: Caltech Researchers Take the Temperature of Mars's Past

Marcus Woo

Researchers at the Caltech have directly determined the surface temperature of early Mars for the first time, providing evidence that's consistent with a warmer and wetter Martian past.

10/10/2011

Caltech Neuroscientists Pinpoint Specific Social Difficulties in People with Autism

Lori Oliwenstein

Researchers from Caltech have isolated a very specific difference in how high-functioning people with autism think about other people, finding that—in actuality—they don’t tend to think about what others think of them at all.

10/05/2011

Caltech Team Uses Laser Light to Cool Object to Quantum Ground State

Kimm Fesenmaier

For the first time, researchers at Caltech, in collaboration with a team from the University of Vienna, have managed to cool a miniature mechanical object to its lowest possible energy state using laser light. The achievement paves the way for the development of exquisitely sensitive detectors as well as for quantum experiments that scientists have long dreamed of conducting.

09/26/2011

Caltech Neuroscientists Record Novel Responses to Faces from Single Neurons in Humans

Katie Neith

Responding to faces is a critical tool for social interactions between humans. Without the ability to read faces and their expressions, it would be hard to tell friends from strangers upon first glance, let alone a sad person from a happy one. Now, neuroscientists from Caltech, with the help of collaborators at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, have discovered a novel response to human faces by looking at recordings from brain cells in neurosurgical patients.