Caltech

The CHIME telescope has picked up 13 unexplained radio signals coming from beyond the Milky Way. These fast radio bursts are part of one of the strangest mysteries of modern astronomy, but the new detections could help unlock their source, thanks to a rare one that seems to be repeating.

DNA is the building material of life, but recent work shows it can also be used to make art or even store data. Now, a team at Caltech has used DNA to make the world’s smallest game of tic-tac-toe, and the technique could have applications in designing reconfigurable nanomachines.

A new study shows how fluoride might be put to work in better batteries. Researchers at Caltech, JPL, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the Honda Research Institute have developed fluoride-based batteries that could potentially last much longer than existing lithium-ion-based devices.

The world’s fastest camera, developed by researchers at Caltech and INRS, captures the world at a mind-boggling 10 trillion frames per second – fast enough to probe the nanoscale interactions between light and matter.

​According to a new study, the humble, and arguably disgusting fruit fly shares a surprising characteristic with early human explorers – the ability to navigate vast swathes of land using the Sun as a landmark.

Caltech researchers have developed a three-part technique for activating neurons that’s far less invasive than surgery, combining ultrasound waves, gene therapy and drugs that has been able to affect memory formation in mice.

Engineers at Caltech and ETH Zurich have created a swimming robot that’s powered by material deformation. That means that it’s made using materials that change shape in response to temperature swings, and that deformation pushes the device through water.

The transparent sections of the glasswing butterfly's wings barely reflect any light, which is why we've previously heard about them inspiring glare-free device screens. Now, their antireflective quality has led to an improvement in a glaucoma-monitoring eye implant.

​In the more advanced stages of diabetes, the patient has a real risk of going blind. While there are treatments to help keep this from happening, they're invasive and often painful. There may be new hope, though, in the form of glowing contact lenses.

Researchers at Caltech have induced a range of sensations in the arm of a paralyzed man. Electrodes implanted in the brain stimulated the neurons to produce different feelings. The research could eventually lead to prosthetic limbs that allow users to feel realistic sensations through them.

To find out where a submarine is, you send out a sonar signal which that sub reflects back. It may some day be similarly possible to locate therapeutic bacteria within a patient's body, as scientists have created the first bacterial cells that are capable of reflecting sound waves.

A Caltech team has bred bacteria that can make boron-carbon bonds, which were previously only possible in the lab. That ability opens up the range of chemical compounds that bacteria could create, paving the way for easier and more environmentally-friendly production of drugs and other chemicals.