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The article provides information on the research of neuroscientist Gilles Laurent of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, using locust as a model in experimenting the neural mechanisms of insects use to learn odors. He chose the locust as a model of his study in which he first began studying insect olfaction because it was a good way of tracing circuit function and neural computation in the brain. Meanwhile, the article also discusses the detailed experimental design and the results of the study.

The article reports on art documents received by the Archives of American Art in Southern California. It mentions that the Archives received papers on Double X, an organization endorsing a feminist art movement. The documents provide information on the organization's art activities and political views. Papers were also received on the Baxter Art Gallery at the California Institute of Technology. The records describe the art program of the institute and its numerous exhibitions. Documents by Betty Freeman provide information on several artists including Sam Francis and Clyfford Still. An overview of the documents received is provided.

Pays tribute to civil engineer and hydraulics professor Vito A. Vanoni of the California Institute of Technology, who died on December 27, 1999. Family and educational background; Research and work experiences in the field of hydraulic research; Achievements and honors received.

Assesses the way Caltech handled two apparently unrelated cases of alleged scientific research fraud in the lab of biologist Leroy Hood. Comparisons to how the so-called Baltimore scientific fraud case was handled; Apparently falsified research paper figure of two research postdocs, Vipin Kumar and James Urban; Kumar's defense of his actions; Hood's decision to notify various agencies and universities involved with Kumar; Lingering concerns about Caltech's handling of cases.

The article presents a speech by doctor Richard P. Feynman, delivered at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society held at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California on December 29, 1959, in which he discussed the method in decreasing the size of things based on the laws of physics, information on a small scale and electron microscopes.

In the area of power storage for aerospace applications, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, has developed an all solid-state rechargeable micro-scale lithium ion battery cell (micro-battery) rated at 4.25 V, with nano-Ampere–hour capacity. One of the advantages of this development is the ability to fabricate approximately 20 000 individual micro-battery cells adjacent to each other on the same four-inch silicon wafer. To take advantage of a pre/post-fabricated series, parallel or series/parallel connection of the cells, a power management system has been developed and sub-system circuits designed using a combination of device and circuit techniques meeting high voltage switching requirements in silicon on insulator (SOI) technology to reconfigure and control the charge/discharge operation of the cells for practical application. This study will present a detailed analysis of the power management system and its sub-circuit components. The circuit components have been simulated using 3.3 V SOI SPICE models and have been fabricated in a 0.35 µm Microwave SOI process. A description of the system and the results will also be discussed and analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Landscapes and Labscapes Robert Kohler emphasized the separation between laboratory and field cultures and the creation of new “hybrid” or mixed practices as field sciences matured in the early twentieth century. This article explores related changes in laboratory practices, especially novel designs for the analysis of organism–environment relations in the mid-twentieth century. American ecologist Victor Shelford argued in 1929 that technological improvements and indoor climate control should be applied to ecological laboratories, but his recommendations were too ambitious for the time. In the postwar period Frits W. Went, plant physiologist at the California Institute of Technology, created a new high-tech laboratory, dubbed a “phytotron”, in the hope that it would transform plant sciences by allowing for unprecedented control of environmental variables. Went’s aspirations, the research conducted in his laboratory, and its impact in initiating an international movement, are considered. Went’s laboratory can be seen as a “hybrid culture” evolving in the laboratory, complementing and intersecting with some of the field practices that Kohler describes. It was also a countercultural movement against the reductionist trends of molecular biology in the 1950s and 1960s. By considering the history of the laboratory in relation to field sciences, we can explore how new funding sources and cross-disciplinary relations affected the development of field sciences, especially in the postwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reveals that two researchers in the lab of Caltech biologist Leroy Hood are under investigation for two apparently unrelated instances of possible research fraud. Two recent papers have had to be retracted from journals.

Presents updates related to environmental issues in the United States as of November 11, 1975. Fire incident at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Brown's Ferry nuclear power plant in Tennessee; Passage of a law which prohibited the shipment of plutonium by air; Sponsorship of Ford Motor Co. for the study of an automobile design by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology in California.

Presents the author's reminiscences about Richard Feynman during the author's postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology. Culture shock experienced by the author as an Oxford graduate in California; Introduction of the author to Feynman; Sheer excitement of working with Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann; Drawbacks to being in the same group as Feynman and Gell-Mann.

The article presents news articles related to simulation. They include accounts of the involvement of Doctor John Richardson of the University of Washington, D.C. and contributor Hans F. Meissinger in modeling and simulation. A 53 million U.S. dollar grant was awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to four research institutions to build and deploy a Distributed Terascale Facility (DTF). The institutions include the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), Argonne and Caltech.

The article relates a study on neurobiology, which investigates correlated brain activity in the efficiency and fairness of decision making. It mentions that Steven Quartz and colleagues of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, found that more efficient decisions correlated with more activity in a brain region called the putamen, whereas decisions that emphasized fairness correlated with more activity in the insula, which is involved with emotional processing.

Carl Baum, mentor to many, took his last breath peacefully on December 2, 2010, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Carl was born in Binghamton, New York, on February 6, 1940. He received his BS (with honors), MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, in 1962, 1963, and 1969, respectively. Following his BS, he received his commission in the Air Force, and was stationed at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He served from 1963 until 1971 as an officer, and then accepted a civilian position. He retired as a Senior Scientist in 2005. Since his retirement from USAF, he was a Distinguished Professor in the Department of ECE at the University of New Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on the study conducted by David Chenoweth and Peter Dervan of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California on the effect of cyclic polyamide binding in the DNA structure. The researchers have found out that polyamide can cause the compression of the major groove which will lead to the distortion of the structure of DNA. In addition, polyamide can cause helix to bend towards the major groove for more than 18%.