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PDF (Volume 84:1, Spring 2021) Contents Spring 2021 Features Departments Online 2 Letters Frances Arnold (p. 6) Video: Acceptance Speech for 4 SoCaltech President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology 15 In the Community: Millikan and Other Eugenicists’ Names to be Removed from Campus Buildings, Assets, and Honors 39 In Memoriam 40 Endnotes: We have been living with the impact and challenges of the coronavirus pandemic for a The Earthquake Experts (back cover) year now. How have you changed Website: Caltech Science Exchange and what have you learned? Left: This illustration by Kristen Uroda depicts the serotonin molecule, whose role in sleep is explored in Neural Networking (p. 36) the most recent issue of The Caltech Website: The Caltech Effect Effect. See article on page 36. 16 22 26 32 36 Worlds Together Story of a Lonely Planet Crossing Paths A Global Treasure Hunt Neural Networking The Caltech Center for Przemyslaw Mroz, a postdoc- The two most recent Nobel How a term paper on With the opening of the Comparative Planetary toral scholar at Caltech, and Prize-winning Caltech alumni, Newton’s Principia led to Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Evolution unites astronomers, his colleagues have discovered Charles Rice (PhD ’81) and a decade-long search for Neuroscience Research geologists, and planetary the smallest known “rogue Andrea Ghez (PhD ’92), talk first-edition copies around Building, Caltech scientists scientists on a shared planet,” a free-floating world with a fellow alum about the world. have a vital new hub for mission to understand what without a star. their work, their campus interdisciplinary brain different planets can tell us experiences, and life after research. about the evolution of the Caltech. Visit magazine.caltech.edu cosmos and the rise of life. Spring 2021 Volume LXXXIV, Number 1 from the Caltech Associates EDITOR IN CHIEF Celebrating 95 Years Lori Oliwenstein Letters Founded March 9, 1926, the Caltech Associates is a vibrant SENIOR EDITOR 36 (middle illustration), 38 (middle); Max Gerber for membership organization devoted to lifelong learning and supporting Judy Hill Caltech: 3 (top), 17 (top right); Lockheed Martin Space: the groundbreaking research and education at Caltech. Through 3 (bottom); Sandy Rodriguez: 4-5; Brian C. Moss: 6 (bottom); Jenny K. Somerville/Caltech: 7 (top), 9 unique programming and travel opportunities, the 2,000-member ART DIRECTOR AND DESIGNER What if human beings simply possess insufficient “Joining the Caltech Associates is like Jenny K. Somerville (bottom right); courtesy Silvia Zhang/Caltech: 8 (left); Associates community learns together about the big ideas and Caltech Archives: 8 (right), 32, 39 (middle right); Paul intelligence to understand the fundamental nature opening a window to the world. This is a Calvert/Los Angeles Times: 9 (top); courtesy Ralph world-changing discoveries that their membership helps support. MANAGING EDITOR AND Leighton: 9 (middle right); courtesy Chuck Steidel: 9 of the universe? SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR challenging time, and it’s important that (middle left); Andy Gaston: 11 (right); Shutterstock. Ponder this question. Pass it on. Discuss it Sharon Kaplan com/eamesBot: 11 (left); NASA-JPL/Caltech: 12, 20, people get to know more about science.” 21 (bottom, artistically altered); Marc Lazar: 13; Bob with others. Consider implications and additional Join us BUSINESS MANAGER Paz/Caltech: 15; Shutterstock.com/bluehand: 16 questions generated by this question. The deeper Loba Ojo (paint set); Shutterstock.com/Alexanfru Nika: 16 (paint Bethany Ehlmann — Betty Huang brushes); Roman DiBiase: 17 (middle); Shutterstock. you explore, the more fun you will have! Caltech Associates Board President, ONLINE EDITOR com/optimarc: 17 and 18 (staples); Shutterstock.com/ on the Lunar Trailblazer mission Jon Nalick Aleksandr Bryliaev: 18 and 21 (tape); Brandon Hook/ Bill Miller (BS ’67) pictured above with Shang-Li (SL) Huang (PhD ’76) Caltech: 18 (bottom right); Shutterstock.com/Arctic ice: 18, 21 (picture frames); Shutterstock.com/Det-anon: 19 STAFF WRITER April 27, 2021 and 20 (Post-its); Shutterstock.com/Picsfive: 21 (paper- About 30 years ago, I was one of about six Lori Dajose clip); Shutterstock.com/Photo Win1: 21 (pen); courtesy 5 p.m. PT (on Zoom) Charles Rice: 26 (upper left); courtesy Lori Dajose: 26 students in the Cal State Los Angeles Geology CONTRIBUTING WRITERS (top); courtesy Andrea Ghez: 26 (bottom); The Nobel program. A classmate of mine, Altair Maine, who Whitney Clavin, Judy Hill, Andrew Foundation: 27; Rockefeller University: 29; Annette All are invited to attend this family friendly Associates event to hear went on to pursue graduate work at Caltech, Moseman, Ker Than Buhl/UCLA: 30; Babson College’s Grace K. Babson about the detection of water on the Moon’s sunlit surface, one of Collection of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton/The mentioned to me that the Geology Club and the PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY Huntington Library, San Marino, California: 33; Shut- the most surprising discoveries of the last decade. Bethany geology (open) seminar meetings at Caltech were Lance Hayashida, Peter Holderness, terstock.com/pingebat: 34-35; John Livzey: 36 (large); Ehlmann, professor of planetary science, will discuss the Smartypants: 37 (bottom left), 38 (top); Greg Dunn: 36 Brandon Hook, Jenny K. Somerville available to anyone. Amazing! I began attending (middle illustration), 38 (bottom left); Beckman Founda- Caltech-led Lunar Trailblazer mission (of which she is co-principal tion: 39 (May); courtesy McKoy family: 39 (McKoy); Van in earnest while still attending Cal State, but after COPY EDITORS investigator) to map water on the Moon and help determine its Urfalian: 39 (Border); courtesy Dilip Khatri: 40 (bottom); being hired full time it became too difficult. Some Sharon Kaplan, Carolyn Waldron Shutterstock.com/photocreo Michal Bednarek: 40 (top); value to future human explorers. To register, please visit years later, I got interested in dancing. Caltech Shutterstock.com/Suzanne Tucker: 41 (top); courtesy associates.caltech.edu/0427. PRODUCED BY CALTECH’S OFFICE OF Dennis Pocekay: 41 (bottom); Peter Holderness/ had an amazing array of high caliber dance clubs, STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS Caltech: back page. All other images, Caltech performances, and venues. Unbelievable! Shayna Chabner, Chief Printed by Lithographix, Inc., Hawthorne, CA. For more information about becoming a member of the Caltech Communications Officer Dana Cole Associates community, please contact Catherine Reeves, executive Read Caltech magazine on the go at director, at [email protected]. magazine.caltech.edu Contact Caltech magazine at [email protected] Caltech magazine ISSN 2475-9570 (print)/ ISSN 2475-9589 (online) is published at Caltech, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material contained herein forbidden without authori- zation. ©2021, California Institute of Technol- ogy. Published by Caltech. Image credits: Lance Hayashida/Caltech: In a NASA tweet posted cover, 3 (middle), 5 (top), 8 (bottom), 16-21 after the JPL-built (illustrations and handwriting), 18 (lower Perseverance rover left), 21 (upper right), 22-25; Kristen Uroda: TOC (large image), 36 (top illustration), 37 touched down on Mars (bottom right); Biden-Harris Transition: TOC on February 18, NASA (top right), 7 (bottom); Agata Nowicka: (TOC astronaut and former middle right); Allison Bol: TOC (bottom right), Caltech postdoc Jessica Watkins explains one way Earth dwellers can FSC label experience the rover’s Martian adventure. For more on the mission, go to page 12. 2 Spring 2021 Caltech magazine magazine.caltech.edu 3 Borderlands No. 2: They almost got me (Pajarita Wilderness), 2019. Hand-processed watercolor on amate paper SoCaltech Frances Arnold, White House advisor Where the biggest instruments were built A warm farewell to Ernie Meet Caltech’s accessibility specialist Earth Tones Six years ago, on a trip to Oaxaca, Los Angeles-based artist Sandy Rodriguez walked into a tiny bookstore and picked up a jar of powdered cochineal, the intensely red dye derived from insects. Her painting life has not been the same since. “It was that carmine red, the most stunning red you’ve ever seen,” says Rodriguez, whose work focuses on the intersec- tions of history, social memory, contemporary politics, and cultural production. “I came back to my studio and made oil paint from it. That was the moment when I understood that this particular historic material could support the content of the work in a powerful way.” Following that artistic epiphany, Rodriguez began taking weeklong field-study trips off-grid in the California deserts to learn about native plants and continued to explore centuries-old methods and materials of painting in the Americas, with a focus on the minerals, plants, insects, and organic materials that go into making paint. This winter, Rodriguez joined Caltech as artist-in-residence in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences’ Caltech-Huntington Program in Visual Culture. Established in 2018 with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the visual culture program is administered jointly by Caltech and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Rodriguez’s current painting series, Codex Rodriguez- Mondragón, is inspired by manuscripts of the Mexican colonial era and takes the form of large-scale map paintings on amate, a traditional Mexican paper handmade from the bark of fig, jonote, and mulberry trees. Painted with hand-processed
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