science wire

Why Do People Choke When the Stakes Are High?
In sports, on a game show, or just on the job, what causes people to choke when the stakes are high? A new study by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggests that when there are high financial incentives to succeed, people can become so afraid of losing their potentially lucrative reward that their performance suffers.

Researchers Use Stalagmites to Study Past Climate Change
There is an old trick for remembering the difference between stalactites and stalagmites in a cave: Stalac tites hold tight to the ceiling while stalag mites might one day grow to reach the ceiling. Now, it seems, stalagmites might also fill a hole in our understanding of Earth's climate system and how that system is likely to respond to the rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since preindustrial times.

What Triggers a Mass Extinction?
The second-largest mass extinction in Earth's history coincided with a short but intense ice age during which enormous glaciers grew and sea levels dropped. Although it has long been agreed that the so-called Late Ordovician mass extinction—which occurred about 450 million years ago—was related to climate change, exactly how the climate change produced the extinction has not been known.

Liquid-like Materials May Pave Way for New Thermoelectric Devices
In the continual quest for better thermoelectric materials—which convert heat into electricity and vice versa—researchers have identified a liquid-like compound whose properties give it the potential to be even more efficient than traditional thermoelectrics. Thermoelectric materials have been used to power spacecraft ranging from Apollo to the Curiosity rover now headed for Mars.

Experiment Observes Elusive Neutrino Transformation
An international team of physicists—including several from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)—has detected and measured, for the first time, a transformation of one particular type of neutrino into another type. The finding, physicists say, may help solve some of the biggest mysteries about the universe, such as why the universe contains more matter than antimatter—a phenomenon that explains why stars, planets, and people exist at all.

Looking at the Man in the Moon
Many of us see a man in the moon—a human face smiling down at us from the lunar surface. The "face," of course, is just an illusion, shaped by the dark splotches of lunar maria (smooth plains formed from the lava of ancient volcanic eruptions).

Some Bacteria Attack Using Spring-loaded Poison Daggers
Bacteria have evolved different systems for secreting proteins into the fluid around them or into other cells.

Moore Foundation Gives Caltech $6 Million for Chemistry of Cellular Signaling Center
Chemists have become extremely adept at characterizing biology's molecules—at determining structures and investigating the roles of individual membrane proteins or cell receptors, for example.

Plasmas Torn Apart
January saw the biggest solar storm since 2005, generating some of the most dazzling northern lights in recent memory. The source of that storm—and others like it—was the sun's magnetic field, described by invisible field lines that protrude from and loop back into the burning ball of gas.

Researchers Develop Gene Therapy to Boost Brain Repair for Demyelinating Diseases
Our bodies are full of tiny superheroes—antibodies that fight foreign invaders, cells that regenerate, and structures that ensure our systems run smoothly.

Making Sense of Sensory Connections
A key feature of human and animal brains is that they are adaptive; they are able to change their structure and function based on input from the environment and on the potential associations, or consequences, of that input. For example, if a person puts his hand in a fire and gets burned, he learns to avoid flames; the simple sight of a flame has acquired a predictive value, which in this case, is repulsive.

Caltech Chemists Devise Chemical Reaction that Holds Promise for New Drug Development
A team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has devised a new method for making complex molecules.

Astronomers Release Unprecedented Data Set on Celestial Objects that Brighten and Dim
Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Arizona have released the largest data set ever collected that documents the brightening and dimming of stars and other celestial objects—two hundred million in total.

Caltech Chemists Propose Explanation for Superconductivity at High Temperatures
It has been 25 years since scientists discovered the first high-temperature superconductors—copper oxides, or cuprates, that conduct electricity without a shred of resistance at temperatures much higher than other superconducting metals. Yet no one has managed to explain why these cuprates are able to superconduct at all.

More Clues in the Hunt for the Higgs
Physicists have announced that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has produced yet more tantalizing hints for the existence of the Higgs boson.

Biologists Deliver Neutralizing Antibodies that Protect Against HIV Infection in Mice
Over the past year, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and around the world, have been studying a group of potent antibodies that have the ability to neutralize HIV in the lab; their hope is that they may learn how to create a vaccine that makes antibodies with similar properties.

Moore Foundation Awards $6 Million for Research Leading to Earthquake Early Warning System
Released by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation: PALO ALTO, Calif. —The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded $6 million to three West Coast universities to create a prototype earthquake early warning system for the Pacific Coast of the United States.