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. To learn more about such neural adaptability, researchers at Caltech have explored the brains of insects and identified a mechanism by which the connections in their brain change to form new and specific memories of smells.
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Roy John Britten, a pioneering molecular biologist who studied the organization of the animal genome, and Caltech's Distinguished Carnegie Senior Research Associate, Emeritus, passed away on January 21. He was 92.
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NASA's NuSTAR spacecraft, which will detect X rays from objects ranging from the sun to black holes, has shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbara, where it will be joined to its rocket. The principle investigator for NuSTAR, which stands for the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, is Fiona Harrison, professor of physics and astronomy at Caltech.
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Alexander Varshavsky, Caltech's Howard and Gwen Laurie Smits Professor of Cell Biology, has been awarded the 2012 King Faisal International Prize (KFIP) for Science. The winners of the prize, which also includes awards for medicine, Arabic language and literature, Islamic studies, and service to Islam, were announced in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on January 16.
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The Linde + Robinson Laboratory for Global Environmental Science was officially dedicated with a research symposium and ceremony on January 24. The research symposium featured talks by Caltech professors John H. Seinfeld and Jess Adkins, who both have laboratories in the new Linde + Robinson Laboratory. Speakers at the dedication ceremony included Caltech president Jean-Lou Chameau, GPS division chair Ken Farley, Caltech and Rocky Mountain Institute trustee Sue Woolsey, and trustee and donor Ronald Linde.
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