The California Institute of Technology (or Caltech)[5] is a research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphasis on science and engineering. Its 124-acre (50 ha) primary campus is located approximately 11 mi (18 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Although founded as a preparatory and vocational school by Amos G. Throop in 1891, the college attracted influential scientists such as George Ellery Hale, Arthur Amos Noyes, and Robert Andrews Millikan in the early 20th century. The vocational and preparatory schools were disbanded and spun off in 1910, and the college assumed its present name in 1921. In 1934, Caltech was elected to the Association of American Universities, and the antecedents of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech continues to manage and operate, were established between 1936 and 1943 under Theodore von Kármán. The university is one among a small group of Institutes of Technology in the United States which tends to be primarily devoted to the instruction of technical arts and applied sciences.
Despite its small size, 33 Caltech alumni and faculty have won a total of 34 Nobel Prizes (Linus Pauling being the only individual in history to win two unshared prizes) and 71 have won the United States National Medal of Science or Technology. There are 112 faculty members who have been elected to the National Academies. In addition, numerous faculty members are associated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as NASA.
Working with underwater robots, scientists show how deep sea mountains and fast currents between Antarctica and South America play a crucial role in stabilizing the climate.
Antarctica’s ice shelves have helped insulate it from dangerous levels of ice loss. But this is changing.
The U.S. BRAIN Initiative seeks to elucidate the connection between brain structure and function.
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From figuring out where memories are stored to how sensory information translates to behavior, new technologies are helping neuroscientists better understand how the brain works.
The compact olfactory system provides a more accessible way to study the brain as a whole.
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Understanding how the brain translates smells into behavior change can help advance search and rescue technology and treatments for neurological conditions.
Bagdad en 2021, lors d’un épisode caniculaire. La combinaison de la chaleur et de l'humidité n’est plus viable au-delà d’un certain seuil. Golfe Persique ou Asie du Sud sont en première ligne de telles vagues de chaleur humide mortelles.
Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP
Réchauffement planétaire et humidité vont de pair. De quoi contrer notre meilleure défense, la transpiration, et nous faire entrer dans une période physiologiquement inédite… et dangereuse.
Lightweight, flexible materials can be used to make health-monitoring wearable devices, but powering the devices is a challenge. Using fuel cells instead of batteries could make the difference.
Do you have a magnetic compass in your head?
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Your brain’s sensory talents go way beyond those traditional five senses. A team of geoscientists and neurobiologists explored how the human brain monitors and responds to magnetic fields.
The bubbly cloud, called Puppis A, is an irregular shock wave, generated by a supernova that would have been witnessed on Earth 3,700 years ago.
NASA
A massive star, with a radius 500 times that of our sun, exploded. But the supernova fizzled – it was weak and dim. Figuring out what went wrong led to insights about how rare binary star systems form.
The northeast edge of the Venable Ice Shelf, near Antarctica’s Allison Peninsula.
NASA/John Sonntag
Last summer one of Antarctica’s floating ice shelves calved an iceberg the size of Delaware – but scientists say other less dramatic changes reveal more about how and why Antarctica is changing.
Women should have access to high-level policy positions so that their input and voices are heard.
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Some shares have new owners every second. Today much of the buying and selling is done by computers, but some still rely on human intuition – the gut feeling of the experienced trader. “Nobody can predict…
Even though a blue whale is much heavier than a tuna, the mammal consumes less energy per unit weight than the fish when they travel the same distance. For years, these sort of comparisons have dominated…
Head of Education and Human Resources Programs at American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Trustee, California Institute of Technology