Caltech researchers studying the nervous control of nematode mating behavior have produced video footage of a male worm preparing to mate with a hermaphrodite. Allyson Whittaker, a senior research fellow in biology, and Paul Sternberg, the Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology, investigated the role of the excitatory neurotransmitter acetylcholine in regulating tail muscles to achieve an exploratory embrace. The video shows an intimate moment between two nematodes of the species Caenorhabditis elegans. More...

At the quantum level, the atoms that make up matter and the photons that make up light behave in a number of seemingly bizarre ways. Particles can exist in "superposition," in more than one state at the same time, a situation that permitted Schrödinger's famed cat to be simultaneously alive and dead; matter can be "entangled"—Albert Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance"—such that one thing influences another thing, regardless of how far apart the two are. Previously, scientists have successfully measured entanglement and superposition in photons and in small collections of just a few atoms. But they've have long wondered if larger collections of atoms—those that form objects with sizes closer to what we are familiar with in our day-to-day life—also exhibit quantum effects. Now Physicists at Caltech have developed a new tool that can be used to search for quantum effects in such ordinary objects. More...

The twirling seeds of maple trees spin like miniature helicopters as they fall to the ground. Because the seeds descend slowly as they swirl, they're carried aloft by the wind and dispersed over great distances. Just how the seeds manage to fall so slowly, however, has mystified scientists. In research published in the June 12 Science, researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and Caltech describe the aerodynamic secret of the enchanting swirling seeds. More...