When offered spinach or a cookie, how do you decide which to eat? Do you go for the healthy choice or the tasty one? To study the science of decision making, researchers in the lab of Caltech neuroeconomist Antonio Rangel analyze what happens inside people's brains as they choose between various kinds of food. The researchers typically use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the changes in oxygen flow through the brain; these changes serve as proxies for spikes or dips in brain activity. Recently, however, investigators have started using a new technique that may better tease out how you choose between the spinach or the cookie—a decision that's often made in a fraction of a second.

At midnight on Halloween, several dozen pumpkins ride the Millikan Gravitational Accelerator—a fancy way of saying they are tossed off the roof of the nine-story Millikan Memorial Library.

Despite the best efforts of a group of students, Taylor Swift will not be performing at Caltech. The upside? The Institute's music program will soon receive a $10,000 boost.