In 2006, Caltech's Paul Rothemund (BS '94)—now research professor of bioengineering, computing and mathematical sciences, and computation and neural systems—developed a method to fold a long strand of DNA into a prescribed ...
General Physics
Dec 6, 2017
1
182
Taking a picture of an exoplanet—a planet in a solar system beyond our sun—is no easy task. The light of a planet's parent star far outshines the light from the planet itself, making the planet difficult to see. While ...
Astronomy
Dec 4, 2017
1
142
In another feat of bioengineering, Caltech's Frances Arnold, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, and her team have created bacteria that can, for the first time, make chemical ...
Materials Science
Nov 29, 2017
0
325
More than a century ago, American writer Mark Twain observed a curious phenomenon at Mono Lake, just to the east of Yosemite National Park: enormous numbers of small flies would crawl underwater to forage and lay eggs, but ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 20, 2017
0
336
For the first time, engineers at Caltech have created a stable ring of plasma in open air—essentially capturing lightning in a bottle, but without the bottle.
Plasma Physics
Nov 15, 2017
12
4742
Imagine a robot that could help you tidy your home: roving about, sorting stray socks into the laundry and dirty dishes into the dishwasher. While such a practical helper may still be the stuff of science fiction, Caltech ...
Nanophysics
Sep 14, 2017
0
496
We may be capable of finding microbes in space—but if we did, could we tell what they were, and that they were alive?
Astronomy
Jul 21, 2017
0
211
Since the mid-1990s, when the first planet around another sun-like star was discovered, astronomers have been amassing what is now a large collection of exoplanets—nearly 3,500 have been confirmed so far. In a new Caltech-led ...
Astronomy
Jun 19, 2017
5
609
A Caltech chemical engineer who normally develops new ways to fabricate microprocessors in computers has figured out how to explain a nagging mystery in space—why comets expel oxygen gas, the same gas we humans breathe.
Space Exploration
May 8, 2017
6
517
Physicists at the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at Caltech have discovered the first three-dimensional quantum liquid crystal—a new state of matter that may have applications in ultrafast quantum computers ...
Quantum Physics
Apr 20, 2017
0
1916
