Alumna Lauren Edgar (PhD '13) has been selected by NASA as one of 10 new astronaut candidates following a competitive selection process involving more than 8,000 applicants from across the United States. Edgar and her colleagues will now complete nearly two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments supporting future science and exploration […]

Since 1990, the United Nations (UN) has used the Human Development Index (HDI) to assess the development of a country using indicators of well-being and quality of life gathered via census data. HDI scores are then used by government agencies and nonprofits to help allocate resources. But the index rankings do not reflect information at […]

When the densest objects in the universe collide and merge, the violence sets off gravitational waves that reverberate across space and time over hundreds of millions and even billions of years. By the time they pass through Earth, such cosmic ripples are barely discernible.Thanks to a global network of gravitational-wave observatories—the US-based National Science Foundation-funded […]

Caltech scientists have developed a method that detects tiny, imperceptible movements at the surface of objects to reveal details about what lies beneath. By analyzing the physics of waves traveling across the surface of an object—whether that be a manufactured product or the human body—the new technique can determine both the stiffness and thickness of […]

There are many open questions about how our planet formed 4.55 billion years ago: When did plate tectonics start? When did the earth's mantle begin to vigorously circulate in a process called convection? What was Earth like early in its lifetime? Because no rock records from the earliest years of the earth remain, researchers turn […]

A Caltech-led team of biochemists has homed in on an underexplored small transporter called MurJ that is a vital part of the pathway bacteria use to build their chain-mail-like cell wall. An essential component of the cell wall, called peptidoglycan, provides the strength that allows bacteria to resist pressure. Using advanced tools, the scientists have […]

Antibiotics are medical marvels that have transformed once deadly bacterial infections into manageable conditions. But with a rise in antibiotic resistance that renders existing treatments ineffective, new agents are urgently needed. Scientists at Caltech and Princeton University have now shed fresh light on why antibiotics that work well in laboratory tests often fail against real […]

Caltech is filled with inventors, people who create everything from scientific instruments to medical devices, from powerful new algorithms to heretofore unknown materials at the quantum scale. But nearly every advancement that is made today has a scientific lineage that dates back decades or even centuries.Cristiano Zanetti, who was named the inaugural Eleanor Searle Postdoctoral […]

Carl Grillmair, an astronomer at Caltech's IPAC science and data center for astronomy and planetary science, passed away suddenly on February 16, 2026. He was 67 years old.Grillmair's science interests spanned many topics, such as exoplanets and stellar streams, which are remnants from ancient collisions between our Milky Way and other galaxies. He discovered dozens […]

Wealth inequality has bedeviled society for centuries, and in many places around the globe, the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to grow. To help shed light on some of the forces at work in this challenging issue, the latest book by Caltech's Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (PhD '88), the Rea A. and Lela G. Axline […]