Engineering & Science Magazine Caltech

Caltech scientists have shown that noise can play a key role in gene expression, demonstrating that almost identical genes under almost identical conditions will sometimes produce significantly different proteins, thanks entirely to random, noisy fluctuations in their signaling. And noise—or at least the sound waves of which it is made—can be used therapeutically to diagnose and explore and even potentially to heal the human body.

In this issue of E&S, we are telling our origin stories, looking at some of the things—the ideas, the inventions--that got their start at or can trace their roots to Caltech. We also take a look back to Caltech's own origins, telling the story of how Pasadena Hall became Throop Hall, which became Throop Memorial Garden—and how, today, we can still find traces (Literally) of those early days right here on campus.

In this issue, we consider how Caltech's tradition of leadership in the building and operation of the world's most advanced telescopes has influenced the development of—and technology behind--the Thirty Meter Telescope. We look at how Caltech-bred technologies have led to the smartphones that are nearly ubiquitous in today's society. We also eavesdrop a bit on the workshops created by the Keck Institute for Space Studies to find out how their innovative technologies are leading scientists and engineers from across the globe to think differently about how space science is done.

In this issue, we consider just how Caltech's humanists and social scientists work to deepen our knowledge and understanding of our world. They do this using the same kind of intellectual rigor that is one of Caltech's signature characteristics, applying innovative and precise methodologies to imaginative and bold questions.

In this issue, we consider the findings of the BICEP2 telescope which was born and bred right here at Caltech, and whose team made remarkable findings about what happened to the universe at the time of the Big Bang. We also look at the myriad ways in which Caltech 's scientists use mirrors as an integral part of the research that ranges from looking at the ways in which cells interact with objects in their environment to the search for gravitational waves. Finally, we've included a short Q&A with incoming president, Thomas F. Rosenbaum.

We've devoted this issue of E&S to telling a few of the stories about how life and science and engineering intersect at Caltech—in labs devoted to understanding aging at the cellular level, to getting to know how the microbes in our guts impact our health, to creating robotic jellyfish from silicone and muscle tissues, to taking basic findings in the life sciences and turning them into technologies and applications that really make a difference.