APRIL 5, 2017 / 8 PM Permit #583 Permit Pasadena, CA Pasadena, Non-Profit Org. Non-Profit

IMAGING AND REMOTE SENSING OF PAID U.S. Postage Electronic Service Requested OTHER WORLDS Dimitri Mawet, Associate Professor of Astronomy THE EARNEST C. The discovery of thousands of exoplanets over the past 20 years has taught us that our solar system is just one example WATSON LECTURE SERIES among a mind-boggling variety of world architectures. Most of is named for its founder, the late Earnest C. Watson, who was a these planetary systems were professor of physics at Caltech from 1919 until his retirement in 1959. Spotlighting a small selection of the pioneering research our FEBRUARY 22, 2017 / 8 PM detected by indirect techniques, faculty is currently conducting, the Watson Lectures are geared which have ushered in the field toward a general audience, part of the Institute’s ongoing commit- USING FISH TO UNDERSTAND HOW of exoplanetology. Mawet will AND WHY WE SLEEP ment to benefiting the local community through education and consider the findings made outreach. Through a gift from the estate of Richard C. Biedebach, possible by direct, high-contrast David Prober, the Watson Lecture Series has expanded to nine lectures annually. Assistant Professor of Biology imaging and spectroscopy. People can reject food, abstain from sex, and control Beyond providing us with striking TIME & LOCATION All lectures are held on Wednesdays at their thirst, but they cannot keep from falling asleep. And pictures of other worlds, this 8 p.m. in Beckman Auditorium, which is located near Michigan yet, despite this irresistible drive, the fact that we spend technique has yielded the most Avenue, south of Del Mar Boulevard. a third of our lives asleep, and the prevalence of sleep detailed measurements made disorders, we know remarkably little about why we sleep to date by remote sensing of ADMISSION & SEATING A minimum of 700 seats are available or how sleep is regulated. Prober will discuss his lab’s exoplanet atmospheres. on a free, no-ticket-required, first-come, first-served basis, efforts to find new approaches to answer these questions beginning at 7:30 p.m. each lecture evening. and the discoveries they’ve made using the zebrafish as a simple animal model—discoveries that may have implications PARKING There are lots south of Del Mar Boulevard between for our understanding of sleep in humans as well. Wilson and Michigan Avenues as well as parking structures at 341 and 405 South Wilson Ave., and 370 South Holliston Ave. MAY 10, 2017 / 8 PM Parking is free, with no permit required, after 5 p.m. on weekdays and all day on weekends. APRIL 19, 2017 / 8 PM WHAT COLUMBUS DISCOVERED OUR COMMITMENT TO PATRONS WITH DISABILITIES HOW CLEAN IS THE CLOUD? Nicolas Wey-Gomez, Professor of History For information about our services, which include wheelchair For five centuries, the voyages of Christopher seating and large-print programs, please call us at 626-395-4652 Adam Wierman, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Columbus have inspired heated debate over or email [email protected]. Director, Information Science and Technology the true nature of his Indies enterprise. Did Computing “in the cloud” may seem like something ephemeral, Columbus believe he had reached Asia or a con- FRIENDS OF BECKMAN AUDITORIUM We invite you to 2 016 but the cloud actually has a physical presence in the form of data tinent unknown to his European contemporaries? join the Friends of Beckman Auditorium, a group that helps –2017 centers filled with thousands of servers. The power infrastructure And what did he intend to accomplish once he support Campus Programs’ educational outreach programs. One needed to run these servers is enormous. In fact, at this point in crossed the Atlantic? In this talk, Wey-Gomez will of the benefits of membership is priority seating for the Watson time, data centers lead to more carbon emissions than the airline explore some of the facts and fiction surrounding Lecture Series. For information, call the Friends Service Desk at industry, but it need not be this way, says Adam Wierman. Columbus’s geographical surveys of the Bahamas 626-395-6400 or visit events.caltech.edu and click on Support Us. Wierman will describe ongoing research at Caltech aimed at and Caribbean Basin. He will show how the building a sustainable computing infrastructure—one where data navigator’s discoveries revolutionized old ideas CALTECH TICKET OFFICE (101-51) centers are powered by renewable energy and even serve as about the globe, and how science, faith, and politics 101 Winnett Center, Pasadena, CA 91125-9200 virtual energy-storage facilities for more broadly integrating shaped the momentous encounter between 626-395-4652 [email protected] events.caltech.edu

renewable energy into the electrical grid. Europe and the Americas. Series Lecture Earnest C. Watson California Institute of Technology Campus Programs E. California Blvd. (15-6) 1200 91125-9200 CA Pasadena,

Planet Nine orbit (above): Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) [Diagram created using WorldWide Telescope]; fluorescence microscopy image of cooperating bacteria and archaea from deep-sea sediment (cover): Shawn McGlynn DECEMBER 7, 2016 / 8 PM PLANET NINE FROM OUTER SPACE

Konstantin Batygin, Assistant Professor of Planetary Science - Biedebach Memorial Lecture -

At the outskirts of the solar system, beyond the SINCE 1922, THE NOVEMBER 9, 2016 / 8 PM orbit of Neptune, lies an expansive field of icy debris known as the Kuiper belt. The orbits of CERES: AN ANCIENT OCEAN WORLD the individual asteroid-like bodies within the EARNEST C. WATSON FROM THE DAWN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM Kuiper belt trace out highly elongated elliptical paths and require hundreds to thousands of Carol Raymond, JPL Principal Scientist and Deputy Principal years to complete a single revolution around LECTURE SERIES Investigator of the Dawn Mission the sun. In this talk, Batygin will argue that the The main asteroid belt contains millions of objects but only observed clustering of Kuiper belt orbits can be a few date from the earliest stages of planet formation. The maintained by a distant, eccentric, Neptune-like HAS BROUGHT Dawn mission explored two such fossils: protoplanet Vesta planet, whose orbit lies in approximately the and dwarf planet Ceres, the latter of which the spacecraft same plane as those of the distant Kuiper began to explore in March 2015. Since then, the mission belt objects. CALTECH’S MOST has gathered evidence of geologic activity and clues confirming that Ceres had an ancient subsurface ocean, placing Ceres in the important class of objects with astrobiological potential. INNOVATIVE SCIENTIFIC Raymond will discuss the mission’s results in the context FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / 8 PM of conditions and physical processes at the dawn of our WHAT ARE GLASSES?: solar system. JANUARY 18, 2017 / 8 PM ATOMIC ORGANIZATION AND RESEARCH TO THE PRICE OF NONCONFORMITY MICROBIAL LIFE SUPPORT: OCTOBER 14, 2015 THE INVISIBLE LIVING NETWORKS William Johnson, Ruben F. and Donna Mettler

THE PUBLIC. THAT SHAPE OUR OCEANS Professor of Engineering and Applied Science OCTOBER 26, 2016 / 8 PM As a simple liquid like molten gold is cooled below its Victoria Orphan, DIAGNOSTICS FOR GLOBAL HEALTH James Irvine Professor of Environmental melting point, its atoms undergo an abrupt crystallization AND ANTIMICROBIAL STEWARDSHIP Science and Geobiology transition, freezing into a regular pattern so that the atoms While invisible to the naked eye, microorganisms and their inter- are grouped in identical local neighborhoods. If there are Rustem Ismagilov, Ethel Wilson Bowles & Robert Bowles actions with each other and their environment play fundamental nonconforming atoms in the liquid—for example, silicon Professor of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering roles in the cycling of elements critical to life on our planet. In atoms dissolved in the gold—they may prefer a different deep seafloor sediments, billions of microorganisms compete and type of “neighborhood.” Too many nonconformists, and Diagnostic devices capable of ultrasensitive biomarker cooperate via a complex network of metabolic interactions that are crystallization will become impeded. The liquid still solid- measurements are poised to revolutionize medicine—from still poorly understood but are important in the cycling of methane ifies on cooling, but instead of crystallizing, it vitrifies— providing critical point-of-care diagnoses to enabling real- and sequestration of carbon. Orphan will talk about the activities transforms into a glass. Such glasses differ from crystals time clinical monitoring and improving development of of marine microorganisms from the ocean surface to deep in the in profound and often surprising ways, and Johnson will therapeutics. In his talk, Ismagilov will discuss his group’s earth’s crust and consider the globally important geochemical describe these scientific and practical consequences innovative approach to diagnostics, including their progress processes they orchestrate through metabolic collaboration. based on his experience studying metallic glasses. developing a rapid test of antimicrobial susceptibility.

Map projected view of Ceres (above): NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA