Latest News | Caltech

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.

03/07/2013

Francis Clauser

Douglas Smith

Francis H. Clauser (BS '34, MS '35, PhD '37), the Clark Blanchard Millikan Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, passed away on March 3, 2013, at age 99. Born in the decade following the Wright Brothers' first powered flight, he was a founder of modern aeronautics and helped usher in the Space Age.

03/11/2013

Creating Indestructible Self-Healing Circuits

Kimm Fesenmaier

Imagine that the chips in your smart phone or computer could repair and defend themselves on the fly, recovering in microseconds from problems ranging from less-than-ideal battery power to total transistor failure. It might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but a team of Caltech engineers, for the first time ever, has developed just such self-healing integrated chips.

03/05/2013

A Window Into Europa's Ocean Lies Right at the Surface

Kimm Fesenmaier

If you could lick the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, you would actually be sampling a bit of the ocean beneath. So says Mike Brown, an astronomer at Caltech. Brown and Kevin Hand from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have found the strongest evidence yet that water from the vast liquid ocean beneath Europa's frozen exterior actually makes its way to the surface.

02/28/2013

Planetary Astronomer Wins Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching

Marcus Woo

John A. Johnson, assistant professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has been awarded the Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

02/25/2013

Disease Diagnosis at the Touch of a Button

Michael Rogers

An inexpensive, portable, easy-to-use device, built by a team of Caltech engineers and biologists, promises to speed the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS and other diseases—and improve treatment—in even the most far-flung corners of the world.

02/11/2013

Under the Hood of the Earthquake Machine

Douglas Smith

What makes an earthquake go off? Why are earthquakes so difficult to forecast? Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics Nadia Lapusta gives us a close-up look at the moving parts, as it were, at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium. Admission is free.

02/10/2013

Murray and Ortiz Elected to the National Academy of Engineering

Kimm Fesenmaier

Richard M. Murray and Michael Ortiz of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, an honor considered among the highest professional distinctions that an engineer can receive. In total, the academy welcomed 69 new American members and 11 foreign associates this year.

02/08/2013

Visualizing Biological Networks in 4D

Katie Neith

Every great structure, from the Empire State Building to the Golden Gate Bridge, depends on specific mechanical properties to remain strong and reliable. Rigidity—a material's stiffness—is of particular importance for maintaining the robust functionality of everything from colossal edifices to the tiniest of nanoscale structures. In biological nanostructures, like DNA networks, it has been difficult to measure this stiffness, which is essential to their properties and functions. But scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have recently developed techniques for visualizing the behavior of biological nanostructures in both space and time, allowing them to directly measure stiffness and map its variation throughout the network.

02/07/2013

Creating New Quantum Building Blocks

Kimm Fesenmaier

Laying the groundwork for an on-chip optical quantum network, a team of researchers, including Andrei Faraon from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has shown that defects in diamond can be used as quantum building blocks that interact with one another via photons, the basic units of light.

02/05/2013

Viewing the Cosmos from the South Pole: An Interview with Jamie Bock

Marcus Woo

Almost immediately after the Big Bang—roughly after ten trillionths of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second—the universe suddenly grew. Very fast.