Caltech Undergraduate Research Journal (CURJ) : Winter 2011-2012, vol. 12, no. 1

Table of Contents

Interview

Interview with Jacqueline Barton, Professor of Chemistry at California Institute of Technology

Research

Extracellular Sulfatase-2 Levels in Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension / by Zhaoying Xian, Marlene Rabinovitch, and Christopher Rhodes
Idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) is a rare and incurable disease. Endothelial dysfunction seems to be pivotal to the pathological changes associated w1th IPAH; thus to better understand the mechanisms of IPAH, this research focuses on studying changes in gene expression in cultured pulmonary artery endothelial cells.

Eclipsing Binary White Dwarfs in Archival Palomar Transient Factory Data / by Suhail Dhawan, Shrinivas Kulkarni, and Shriharsh Tendulkar
This research project focuses on locating binary systems of white dwarfs. When stars burn all of their nuclear energy they shed their outer layers and only leave behind hot cores, which we refer to as white dwarfs. These researchers are interested in 1dentifying pairs of white dwarfs where the two dwarfs eclipse each other.

Radar and Lidar Remote Sensing of Forests / by Diana Liskovich and Marc Simard
D1ana's research involves radar and lidar technology in order to improve the 3-D mapping of terrain, especially where forest canopies obscure the current mappings.

Self-Anchoring Drilling/Coring/Sampling System for in-situ Planetary Applications / by Jonathan P. King and Aaron J. Parness
Future NASA expedit1ons will be focused primarily on getting samples from different astronomical bod1es like Mars. In order to get these samples, King and his mentor in JPL is [sic] designing a drill that can effectively get samples from many different planetary/asteroid terrains.