Collaborate Disseminate
White dwarf stars have mostly been thought to follow very specific “rules” – if they’re over a certain mass limit, they’ll explode in a supernova with a very predictable brightness and time. But now Caltech astronomers have found a strange tw… Continue reading Ancient white dwarf explosions seem to disobey long-established "rules"
It’s not unusual to find rust around saltwater, but now the pairing might actually be useful. Researchers at Caltech and Northwestern University have found that electricity can be produced when saltwater flows over the top of thin films of ru… Continue reading Salt water flowing over thin layers of rust generates electricity
Gravitational waves are usually detected as they sweep across Earth after whatever cataclysmic event created them, but now astronomers have found a likely source before the waves become detectable. Using Caltech’s Zwicky Transient Facility (Z… Continue reading Binary white dwarfs are waltzing fast enough to distort spacetime itself
Feeling thirsty is a natural bodily function to get you to drink some water – but why does the feeling go away so quickly after downing a glass? Shouldn’t it take a bit of time for the water to be absorbed? Strangely enough, the mechanisms behind thirst and satiation are somewhat of a mystery to science. So now researchers from Caltech have investigated and found two connections between body and brain that control the process.
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Continue Reading How the gut overrides the throat in telling the brain whether it’s thirsty
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Continue reading How the gut overrides the throat in telling the brain whether it's thirsty
Although oxygen is common throughout the cosmos, most of it isn’t in the form that we as humans need to breathe – molecular oxygen, or O2. Now, researchers at Caltech claim to have created a reactor that can turn carbon dioxide into molecular… Continue reading Caltech reactor could convert CO2 into breathable oxygen for space trips
More than 1.81 million tiny quakes hit the region in nearly ten years. Continue reading Southern California Gets Ten Times As Many Earthquakes As We Thought
Although it isn’t very real-world practical, researchers at Cal Tech have produced a DNA-based programmable computer. Spectrum reports that the system executes programs using a set of instructions written in DNA using six bits. Like any programmable computer, this one can execute many programs, but so far they run 21 …read more
It’s one of 19 asteroids that have been detected within Earth’s orbit. Continue reading Scientists Discover the Closest Known Asteroid to the Sun
If you pay attention to airplane news — or you watched the film Sully — you know planes have problems with birds. Sully was about US Airways flight 1549 which struck a flock of geese and ditched in the Hudson river. Engineers at Caltech say that was the inspiration for them to develop a control algorithm that enables a single drone scarecrow to herd flocks of birds away from airports.
Airports have tried a lot of things to discourage birds ranging from trained falcons to manually-piloted drones. Apparently, herding birds is harder than you would think. If you fly the …read more
Continue reading High Tech Drone Scarecrows Can Make Airports Safer
Over the last few months, the folks over at the SupplyFrame Design Lab, home to Hackaday meetups, the Hackaday Superconference, and far, far too many interesting tools, have been spending their time visiting workshops and hackerspaces to see how they tick. Staff Designer of the Design Lab, [Majenta Strongheart], recently took a trip down the road to Caltech to check out their hackerspace. Actually, it’s a rapid prototyping lab, but a rose by any other name…
The prototyping lab at Caltech exists for a few reasons. The first, and most important, are the graduate students. This is a research facility, …read more