Dear Alumni,
 Something great is coming your way. Watch for Caltech Connect which will be in your mailboxes soon! Inside this inspiring new annual publication you'll find news from Caltech, highlights of alumni news and inventions, a snapshot of alumni around the world, and much more ... including information on our upcoming Seminar Day and Reunion Weekend, May 17-20. There will be house reunions for all undergraduate alumni, and if your graduation year ends in a "2" or a "7," this is your special year with additional events for graduates and undergraduates! And this year we're celebrating the 75th anniversary of Seminar Day itself as well. Look for your copy of Caltech Connect later this month; we'd love to hear your comments.
Next term, beginning on April 3rd, you can come back to class at Caltech ... without leaving your chair. In a first, an actual Caltech class will be broadcast live online and anyone can join. As Professor Yaser Abu-Mostafa teaches "Learning Systems"(CS/CNS/EE 156), viewers around the world will be able to tune in and follow along. (Fair warning: There are prerequisites and there is homework!) See the telecourse website for details.
Alumni in our Facebook and LinkedIn groups have had a lot to say lately on their memories of Caltech slang. Whether you were a cut-throat, a troll, or someone who enjoyed flicking, you probably have some favorite Caltech-only terms. Join the conversation!
Recently alums in Seattle got together for a screening of The PhD Movie, and in the Bay Area alumns got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Tesla factory. Upcoming alumni events include: monthly lunches in Silicon Valley on March 15, in the LA South Bay on March 22, and in Pasadena on April 6; a happy hour in the SF Bay area on March 29; the monthly pub night in Boston on April 4; a dinner/lecture on April 10 in Santa Barbara with Caltech's Don Anderson, Eleanor and John R. McMillan Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus, as speaker; and, of course, Seminar Day and Reunion Weekend in May.
Looking further ahead, we still have a few spaces left for our exciting "Cultural Walking Adventure" in Ireland in June, and be sure to save the date for this year's Alumni College, coming on Saturday, August 25.
Finally, I experienced my first ME72 competition last week! In "The Conquest of Millikan Islands", team Robotics Anonymous took top honors after a fierce competition in which land-based and "ocean-going" robots battled for ping pong balls. Amazing!
Cheers for Caltech,
 Alexx Tobeck Director, Alumni RelationsExecutive Director, Caltech Alumni Association |
In both animals and humans, vocal signals used for communication contain a wide array of different sounds that are determined by the vibrational frequencies of vocal cords. For example, the pitch of someone's voice, and how it changes as they are speaking, depends on a complex series of varying frequencies. more >
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Previously, some scientists have thought the fact that we see the man is just the result of a coincidence, a sort of lunar coin toss, says Oded Aharonson, professor of planetary science. But he and his colleagues have now found that is not the case. In the past, the moon spun around its axis faster than it does today, and their new analysis shows that the fact that the man now faces us may be a result of the rate at which the moon slowed down before becoming locked into its current orientation. more > |
The nano-weapon-which spans a distance no longer than about 80 atoms lined up end-to-end-is a tube that contracts very quickly, firing an inner dagger through the cell's membranes, into the surrounding medium and, possibly, into another cell. The tube then disassembles and can reassemble elsewhere in the cell, ready to fire another molecular dagger. more >
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Using high-speed cameras to look at jets of plasma in the lab, Paul Bellan, professor of applied physics, and graduate student Auna Moser have discovered a surprising phenomenon. more >
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The Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) has announced that it will fund a new student-led mini program, giving a handful of undergraduate students the opportunity to help develop instruments for an extreme-terrain rover called Axel, which could one day be used to explore the moon, Mars, or an asteroid. more >
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Theodor Agapie (PhD '07), assistant professor of chemistry at Caltech, has been named a 2012 Sloan Research Fellow. more >
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Paul Asimow (PhD '97) was awarded Caltech's Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching. more >
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Xie Jialin (MS '48) was presented with China's top science and technology award by Chinese President Hu Jintao. more >
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Michelle Meyer (PhD '06) has been named a 2012 Sloan Research Fellow. more >
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Andrea Prosperetti (MS '72, PhD '74) has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. more >
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