California Institute of Tethnotog), Pasadena, CaliforuIa 91125 Chaqe N e w 5 v 0 I u m e <4 2, N u m b • r I 200 8 I n T h 5 I 5 5 U e Brain Bytes Thirteen Questions Energy Imprints and The Price of Taste Cal fornia Institute of Technology .. N e w s , A Book for the Curious Brain 3 Sam Wang '86 wants us to know our own minds. Baker's Dozen with Anneila Sargent 6 Caltech's new vice president for student affairs talks about Scotland, stars, and serendipity, among other topics. 10 The Sun Also Catalyzes Could laser printers rewrite the book on solar energy? Also in this issue Caltech commencement speaker, new NAE fellows, groundbreakings galore, astronomical gifts, and cosmic technology (on the back-page poster). ON THE COVER Mind over matter? The cover image may Picture Credits: Cover, 2,4, 5, 9, 15-Robert Paz; 3, 10, II-Doug Cummings; 3-Blooms­ look like an experiment in levitation, but bury USA, Laura Straus; 4-Royce Carlton; 4, 5-Herb Shoebridge; 6-Cathy Hill; 8-1985 it's actually sophomore Stephanie Schulze Big T; 9-Ken Britten; lO-Heidi Aspaturian; 12-Bruce Parkinson; 13-Ted Jenkins; of the Caltech swimming and diving team 14-Mark Parisi and Mary Johnson; Back Cover-TMT Observatory. Cover design and practicing her forward somersault pike poster design by Mike Rogers and Doug Cummings in February at the Alumni Pool. While the . floating cloud and snow-capped mountains in the background are real, they were Issued four times a year and published by the California Institute of Technology and the levitated into the image thanks to the Alumni Association, 1200 East California Blvd ., Pasadena, California 91125. All rights wonders of Photoshop. For a look at the reserved. Third class postage paid at Pasadena, California. Postmaster: Send address genuine powers of the human mind, turn changes to: Caltech News, Caltech 1-71, Pasadena, CA 91125. to the facing page. Executive Editor - Heidi Asparurian Robert Kieckhefer '74 Writer - Barbara Ellis President of the Alumni Association Writer - Michael Rogers Robert 1. O'Rourke Graphics Production - Doug Cummings Vice President for Public Relations Contributors - Jill Perry, Jacqueline Scahill, Deborah Williams-Hedges Copy Editors - Allison Benter, Michael Farquhar, Elena Rudnev Visit Cal tech News on the Web at CirCtiIation Manager - Susan Lee http://pro caltech. edu/periodicals/CaltechNews/ around the world, and even sparked vigorous consumer debates over the Internet about wine pricing. Rangel says that following the report's Janu­ ary release, he was deluged with phone THE PRICE IS WRONG calls from reporters, a phenomenon that he had never experienced before. His After all the sniffing, swishing, reaction to the outpouring of public and swirling is done, if you've ever interest is restrained: "I don't have any­ wondered whether you could fool your thing interesting to say about this." dinner guests by filling an empty bottle It's not surprising that Rangel of a premium Cabernet Sauvignon with would be mum about the media on­ that $3.99 special at the supermarket, slaught, since he hasn't generally in­ here's the scientific skinny. In a study vestigated such intoxicating subjects. released earlier this year, a team of in­ Rangel, who grew up in Madrid and vestigators, including Cal tech associate Mexico City, came to Cal tech in 1989 professor of economics Antonio Rangel with an interest in physics. But dur­ '93, determined that the stated price of ing his sophomore year, he rook a class wine directly affects how much people with J ohn Ledyard, Davis Professor like it. When they drink cheap wine of Economics and Social Sciences, was that they're told is expensive, they Not much of a wine drinker himself, Antonio immediately inspired, and became an say they like it more than pricey wine search suggests that brains don't. To Rangel used wine in a study showing that economics major. that's masquerading as the cheap stuff. track changes in mental activity, Ran­ perception of value heavily influences taste. "I just fell in love with economics," Hundreds of past marketing stud­ gel measured changes in the blood Bow he says. ''The fact that you could think ies have compared price to preference. in the subjects' medial orbitofrontal better it must be, and this study shows analytically about real-world problems What's new about this experiment is cortex, a region of the brain believed that, in the case of wine, at least, they was exciting." that Rangel and his colleagues put to be involved in people's experience seem to like "expensive" stuff more, Rangel got his PhD in economics their subjects-20 Caltech under­ of pleasure. The study, Rangel says, regardless of its actual attributes. from Harvard in 1998 and then became g raduates, graduate students, and showed that "prices, by themselves, af­ Like oenophiles at the opening an assistant professor of economics at postdocs-in a functional MRI ma­ fect activity in an area of the brain that of the Pi not Noir season, the public Stanford. H e focused on theoretical chine that allowed them to observe is thought to encode the pleasure of an seemed to lap up Rangel's wine study, studies of public policy issues sllch as brain activity during the wine tastings. experience." Most people believe that which made headlines and news reports how to inspire people to take into While people might lie, the latest re- the more they pay for something, the C ontintted on pa g e 5 . 2 I California I nstitllte of Technology · VOLUME 42 No. I, 2 008 A B o o k f o r • t h e c u r I o u s • B r a I n By BARBARA ELLIS You know how it is-the person you meet at a party or on the plane starts up a conver­ sation, and inevitably the subject turns to "So, what do you do~" For some academ­ ics-mathematicians or theoretical chem­ ists, perhaps-the answer to that innocent question can be a conversation stopper. But for others, it can lead to a barrage of questions. This has always been the case for Sam Wang '86, associate professor of molecular biology in Princeton's Neuro­ science Institute, and not just on planes or at parties. Wang studies the brain, and taxi drivers, barbers, even scientists from other disciplines, ply him with questions once they find out his field. "Is it true that alcohol kills brain cells ?" "Does Sudoku improve my memory?" "Can blind people hear better than sighted people?" Wang to test what they already know, rightly or wrongly, about the brain. (We've included a heard so many variations on this theme that he finally decided "it would be fun to sampling of the questions on page 8.) Even Techers shouldn't be dismayed if they score write a popular book for nonscientists that would bust some popular myths and tell less than 100 percent. "Surprisingly, even neuroscientists don't do so well in that quiz," all those curious people some real facts-a kind of user's manual for the brain." Sam says. "The people who do best are physicians, because they learn the most mefttl That user's manual has now been published as Welcome to Your Brain by Blooms­ information about the brain during their medical training." bury USA (the same publisher whose British counterpart brought out an unassuming Naturally, Wang hopes the book will be a critical and popular success. But he was little series about a child-wizard named Harry Potter) and is subtitled Why You Lose motivated to write it because "I spend my time in the lab looking for fundamental Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life. Early facts on brain function, and had been wondering how an ivory tower person like reviews have been encouraging. "If all scientists could write like this," enthused myself could do something that's useful for people." He points out that over the last science writer Sandra Blakeslee, a frequent contributor to the New York Times, "pro­ 20 years, new techniques have greatly increased scientific understanding of how the fessional science writers would be out of a job." Wang wrote the book with Sandra brain functions. "We used to look at brain tissue in the dish, and now we're imaging Aamodt, the editor of Natttre Neuroscience, who had been thinking of writing a book brain function in the intact animal." The general public, however, hasn't had much along the same lines when a mutual acquaintance brought them together. opportunity to keep up with these advances, because many of them are published in journals that only neuroscientists tend to read. The information needs to be tweaked into something that's relevant to people. "When I read scientific papers," Sam says, "I'm always thinking in the back of my When the New York Times ran a {{teaser" from mind how I could make what I'm reading into something to interest a lay person. For example, mice cannot appreciate Diet Coke because the sugar receptors in their the book last fall on how to keep aging brains tongues can't bind to the sugar substitute aspartame. A neuroscientist may not think this is a particularly interesting fact, but perhaps a lay person would." Of course, he healthy, it became the most e-mailed article of the adds, "I use different criteria when designing laboratory experiments or thinking up newspaper for almost a month.