One of the most elusive questions in science has finally been answered: How do bees fly? The physics of bee flight has perplexed scientists for more than 70 years. But now, Michael H. Dickinson, the Esther M. and Abe M. Zarem Professor of Bioengineering, and his postdoctoral student Douglas L. Altshuler and their colleagues at Caltech and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, have figured out honeybee flight using a combination of high-speed digital photography, to snap freeze-frame images of bees in motion, and a giant robotic mock-up of a bee wing. The secret of honeybee flight is the unconventional combination of short, choppy wing strokes, a rapid rotation of the wing as it flops over and reverses direction, and a very fast wing-beat frequency.

Athanassios Siapas, assistant professor of computation and neural systems, has received a McKnight Scholar Award to support his work in "Cortico-Hippocampal Interactions and Memory Formation." This award is given for innovative research in neuroscience as it pertains to memory and, ultimately, to a clearer understanding and treatment of diseases affecting memory.

Michael Elowitz Introduces the Repressilator

Engineering a DNA World explored the possibility of engineering sophisticated molecular systems in which all major functional roles are played by nucleic acids.

Bernard Yurke and Erik Winfree are Filling the Nano Toolbox

Caltech Bioinformatics Experts Develop New Literature Search Engine for Biologists