Last week, Intel released the names of the finalists for the 2012 Science Talent Search.

Out of the 40 finalists chosen, 11 were from the tri-state area. Furthermore, out of the nine finalists who represent New York, three of them reside in New York City! The local finalists are Danielle Goldman of Bronx High School of Science, and Huihui Fan and Mimi Yen of Stuyvesant High School.

In March, they will head down to Washington D.C. for a final round of judging that will determine the recipient of the $100,000 grand prize. Congratulations to our area’s budding scientists! We hope you all do well in March!

If you want to see the complete list of finalists and their projects, click here.

The Intel STS Web site explains the application process:

Over eight decades, more than 130,000 students from U.S. high schools in all 50 states and territories have completed independent science research projects and submitted entries. Each completed entry consists of a written description of the student's independent research, plus an entry form that elicits evidence of the student's excellence and accomplishments.

For any problem there's always a solution. How does one go about solving the problem of a deaf man who has had his fingers amputated after a car accident? (If a deaf man loses his fingers, he has a hard time communicating using sign language.) Dan Didrick solved this problem by inventing the X-Finger.

The X-Finger is an important innovation in the field of prosthetics. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight, 10 years of work went in to this product before it was officially launched.

So what's so special about this invention? According to Didrick Medical, it is the first artificial finger that is designed for partial finger amputees. The best benefit of the X-Finger is that it is powered by the body so there is no need for any power supplies. Not only is it easy to use, but it is also lightweight -- and it actually resembles realistic fingers due to the thermoplastic cosmetic skin that is placed over the actual mechanical finger.

You can see the X-finger in action in this video:

Video posted by BusinessWire

A story on the invention posted at ASME.org explains why Didrick thinks there's a big market for his device:

What’s little realized, he said, is how many children lose fingers. The largest group of people who lose fingers outside the workplace are children under five, who undergo finger amputation due to accidents like slamming them in a car door.

He also has learned that one out of 200 people will lose one or more fingers within their lifetime. That statistic takes into account people living all over the world.

Sometimes, even though we try our best, we just don’t have control over some situations. Amputations usually result from these kinds of situations. Inventions like the X-finger keep changing the world and give people hope.

Read more about the X-Finger at:
Everyday Prosthetic Fingers
Didrick Medical

Mitochondria

By Mariel Emrich, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson have identified cancer cell mitochondria as the energy provider of tumor growth. This will allow room for new therapeutic targets in breast cancer.

In the online December 1^st issue of Cell Cycle, Michael P. Lisanti, professor and chair of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, and colleagues reported the first evidence that breast cancer cells perform enhanced mitochondrial oxidative phyosphyorylation (OXPHOS) to produce high amounts of energy. This could be extremely advantageous in the development of new cancer protocols because the treatments for breast cancer may change due to the discovery of the specific energy source used in the reproduction of cancer cells.

Over the past 85 years, it has been debated whether the energy cancer cells require to grow comes from mitochondria or whether it comes exclusively from glycolysis  (known as the 'Warburg Effect'.) However, the researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson have shown that glycolysis (a relatively inefficient method of producing energy) takes place in the surrounding stromal cells, rather then in epithelial cancer cells.

The researchers, including co-author and collaborator Federica Sotgia, assistant professor in the Department of Cancer Biology, looked at mitochondrial function using COX activity staining in human breast cancer samples to study mitochondria’s role directly. Researchers found that human breast cancer epithelial cells showed high levels of mitochondrial activity. The stromal tissues showed little or no mitochondrial oxidative capacity. These findings were backed up using a computer-based informatics approach with gene profiles from over 2,000 breast cancer samples.

In a normal cell, mitochondria give the cell the power it needs to function and divide. However, this study demonstrated that in a cancer cell, mitochondria provide five times as much energy, fueling growth and metastasis of the cancer cells.

Dr. Lisanti said to Cell Cycle:

“Metabolically, the drug Metformin prevents cancer cells from using their mitochondria, induces glycolysis and lactate production, and shifts cancer cells toward the conventional ‘Warburg Effect’. This effectively starves the cancer cells to death.”

Mitochondrial activity could now be used to distinguish cancer cells from normal cells, and establish negative margins during cancer surgery.

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Telomeres

Have you ever wondered how long you are going to live? Then this may be the test for you!

Humans are comprised of trillions of cells. In the nucleus of each cell, DNA is packaged into structures called chromosomes. Each chromosome is made up of DNA, which is tightly coiled around proteins called histones. Every human cell contains 46 chromosomes (23 pairs), except the sex cells. Telomeres are sections of genetic material at the end of each chromosome. Their purpose is to prevent “fraying” when a cell replicates. As humans get older, the telomeres become shorter. At a certain point, telomeres will become too short to allow cell replication. Therefore, the cell stops dividing and the person will eventually die.

Maria Blasco of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid invented a telomere test that measures the length of the telomeres in the patient’s body. The Patient’s Telomere Score is calculated based on the telomere length on white blood cells. The higher the telomere score, the younger the cells. Scientists believe that telomere length is one of the most accurate ways of distinguish how long a person will live. It is possible to tell whether a person’s biological age is close to the same as their chronological age. It is about $653 to get tested. Testing should be done once a year to evaluate the rate of aging and make adjustments in nutrition, vitamins, weight management, and exercise.

Researchers believe that this test will become widespread in the next 5 to 10 years. It raises concern with scientists how the patient will react when they find out their biological age. Also, scientists are worried that companies that sell anti-aging products may gain control of these tests and tell patients false information just to encourage sales of their anti-aging products. However, there are many scientists that say that this test could provide extremely important insight into the risk of dying prematurely from a range of age-related disorders including cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. It has been proven that people who are born with shorter telomeres have a shorter lifespan. However, it is not proven that if you are born with longer telomeres you will live longer.

This telomere test can detect small differences in telomere length and it is a very simple and fast technique. Many samples can be analyzed at the same time. It also can detect dangerous telomeres -- those that are very short. The test cannot tell exactly how many days or months a person has to live, but it can tell generally.

A diet that increases stress will shorten telomeres faster. This includes refined carbohydrates, fast food, processed food, sodas, artificial sweeteners, and trans fats. A diet with a large amount of antioxidants will slow telomere shortening. This includes fresh and relatively uncooked fruits and vegetables, fiber, monounsaturated fats, and omega-3 fatty acids. There are treatments to help slow telomere aging including, Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI), Angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB), and Renin Inhibitors. Fasting for 12 hours each night at least 4 days per week is recommended. Also, decreasing visceral fat is very important. Regular aerobic and resistance exercise for at least 1 hour a day, sleeping for at least 8 hours a day, and stress reduction are essential.

For more information:

DNA Breakthrough: A New Test that Tells You How Long You Will Live!
What is a Chromosome?
Telomere Testing

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

ESO/M. Kornmesser

Every year, scientists from all over the world congregate at the American Astronomical Society’s semi-annual meetings to discuss and share their findings from the past several months. January's meeting was no exception, as scientists unveiled a plethora of fascinating discoveries that add to humanity’s constantly-expanding knowledge of the universe.

Researchers from the University of Rochester announced that they had discovered the first ringed body outside of our solar system. This extraterrestrial mass, which resides 420 light years away, has at least four rings, the outermost ring stretching hundreds, maybe even thousands or millions times longer in diameter than the outermost ring of Saturn! Researchers discovered the mass after they observed unusual light interference occurring near the star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6. Due to the body’s extremely vast size, further research is needed to determine if it is a star, brown dwarf, or a planet.

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Vanderbilt University announced that they had discovered three of the smallest exoplanets on record. Exoplanets are planets that reside outside the solar system. These exoplanets were of particular interest to the team of researchers because they were rocky planets; out of the hundreds of exoplanets discovered in the Milky Way, very few bodies have been confirmed to have solid surfaces. Rocky planets are of special interest to astronomers because these planets are most likely to have the conditions needed to sustain life. Although these three planets are too close to the star that they orbit for life to be viable on their surfaces, the discovery of these planets suggests that there are a considerable amount of rocky planets waiting to be discovered.

Speaking of the Milky Way, scientists also revealed at the conference some exciting new information about our star system. One study revealed at the meeting estimated that there may be at least 100 billion planets in our galaxy! Using data gathered from other observatories, personnel from the European Southern Observatory used a technique called microlensing (read about it here) to determine how many planets were orbiting around each star. This research contributes even more evidence to the possibility that there are many more Earth-like planets waiting to be discovered! Another study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh revealed the color of our galaxy from an outside point of view to be, coincidentally, white. Researchers were able to estimate the color of the Milky Way by utilizing data of other galaxies and comparing it to the data of our galaxy.

Hopefully next year yields even more amazing information about the universe! If you want to find out about more of the announcements that were made at the AAS meeting, this link shares some of the other major stories coming from the conference.
For more about the American Astronomical Society meeting, listen to the Science Friday interview with freelance writer Ron Cowen, who reported on the meeting for Nature:

Kepler Telescope Spots Tiniest Exoplanets Yet

Salt

By Mariel Emrich, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Six-month-old infants who have been introduced to starchy table foods, that often contain salt, have a greater preference for salty foods than do infants not yet eating these foods, according to a recent study by researchers from the Monell Center and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Lead author Leslie J. Stein, a physiological psychologist, and senior author Gary Beauchamp, a behavioral biologist, found that infants exposed to salt consumed 55% more salt during a preference test than infants who were not exposed to salty foods.

At a preschool age, the infants who were exposed to salty, starchy foods were more likely to eat plain salt, showing the significant influence of the early dietary exposure. The foods we eat the first months of our lives shape our flavor preferences. Doctors are trying to keep young infants away from salty foods, so they won’t depend on them in later years, reducing their chance of getting a heart disease.

It has been estimated that reducing sodium intakes could prevent more than 100,000 deaths yearly. Additionally, it could save billions of dollars in medical costs in the United States alone. In 1969, the United State’s government started issuing statements calling for a reduction in sodium intake. Even in 2011, these statements have not been successful, partly due to the fact that humans love the taste of salt. Nearly 90% of Americans consume more sodium per day than is recommended, according to an October report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gary Beauchamp believes that many people eat too much salt because it is very hard to change an adult’s diet preferences. Beauchamp wondered if it would be possible to change an adult’s preferences  by changing their experiences with salty food earlier in life. If so, this may lead to the development of public health initiatives that could help people reduce their salt intake.

In this study,  salt preference was tested on a group of 61 infants, which included infants at two-months of age and six-months of age. At each age, the infant was allowed to drink from three bottles for two minutes each. One bottle contained water, another contained a medium concentration of salt (1%-- about the amount of salt in a commercial soup), and a third that contained a high concentration of salt (2%--which tastes extremely salty to adults). If the infant drank more of the 1% salt solution than water, it was considered to have a preference for the 1% solution.

The two-month-old infants generally didn’t like the 1% solution and rejected the 2% solution. The 26 six-month old infants who had already been exposed to starchy foods, drank more of the 1% and 2% solutions than the water. However, the 35 six-month old infants who hadn’t ever been exposed to starchy foods remained indifferent to or rejected the salt solutions.

To explore whether the early effect extended into childhood, 26 of the children returned at preschool age. Their mothers answered surveys about their child’s eating habits.  This revealed that the 12 children who were introduced to starchy foods before six months of age were more likely to lick salt from foods and also were likely to eat plain salt voluntarily. These findings show that early dietary habits influence a child’s preference in their later years.

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Aplysia Californica

Sea Snails -- specifically Aplysia californica -- are helping scientists enhance the memories of people with learning impairments.

Because Applysia's brain has much in common with the human brain, the snails are useful in helping scientists understand how the brain learns as well as how memory storage works. At the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UT Health), neuroscientists, including John H. Byrne, senior author and chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the UT Health Medical School, used this sea snail species to test a new learning strategy, which is designed to help improve memory. They are confident that it will potentially benefit patients who have memory impairments due to aging, strokes, or traumatic brain injuries. This study was published in an issue of Nature Neuroscience online.

The Neuroscientists’ strategy was to identify times when the brain was ready to learn. The learning process is expedited when the brain is primed. When the brain is not mentally ready to learn, the information will not stick with the learner for as long it would if the brain had been ready to absorb new information. Therefore, if people are taught when their brain is prepared to learn, their memory will increase.

In previous studies, researchers have discovered proteins that link to memory. Therefore, investigators at UT Health are working to create a mathematical model that tells them when protein activity is aligned for the best learning experience. For now, the schedule of learning is based on trial and error to see what times work, and which don’t. If this model is proven to be effective, it could potentially be used to identify specific periods when learning potential is the highest.

Byrne said in a statement:

When you give a training session, you are starting several different chemical reactions. If you give another session, you get additional effects. The idea is to get the sessions in sync. We have developed a way to adjust the training sessions so they are tuned to the dynamics of the biochemical processes.

The neuroscientist tested two groups of snails. Each snail received five different learning sessions. One group received learning sessions in regular 20-minute intervals, while the other group received learning sessions at irregular times according to the mathematical model. Five days after the learning sessions were completed, the snails that were scheduled to learn at irregular times had a significant increase in their memory. There was no increase in the memory of the snails who were taught at regular intervals.

Researchers at UT Health analyzed nerve cells in the snail's brains and found greater activity in the snails on the irregular interval schedule. This suggests that if humans are taught at irregular intervals, when their brain is ready to learn, they could experience an increase in memory.

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

DNA Deletion

By Mariel Emrich, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Bipolar disorder is a condition in which people have mood swings. They have periods of happiness and periods of depression.  Doctors are unsure what causes bipolar disorder. However, it is clear that bipolar disorder is carried down genetically, since the disorder runs in families.

New research in 2011  suggests that rare copy number variants (CNVs) where sections of DNA are either duplicated or missing seem to play a major role in the risk for early onset bipolar disorder. This study was conducted by University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and published online in the journal Neuron.

CNVs are a type of mutation or alteration in the genome where cells end up with an abnormal number of copies of sections of DNA code. This may mean too few copies, due to deletion, or too many, due to duplication. CNVs can be inherited, or de novo -- spontaneously occuring either in the sperm or unfertilized egg, or even in the egg after it has been fertilized.

Past studies have shown that rare CNVs add to the risk for some neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism. However, it has not been clear if rare CNVs play a role in bipolar disorder.  Previous studies have focused on inherited variants as opposed to finding the key genes that cause this disorder.

In this study, researchers performed a genome-wide analysis of de novo CNVs in parents and offspring. 185 of the offspring were diagnosed with bipolar disorder, 177 with schizophrenia, and 426 were healthy controls. The analysis showed that de novo CNVs occurred at a much higher frequency in participants with bipolar disorder than in the control group. There was a significantly higher number of de novo CNVs in patients younger than 18 years old.

The researchers found that de novo CNVs' contributed to significant genetic risk in about 5% of the cases of early onset bipolar disorder.

In an article in Medical News Today, Jonathan Sebat, assistant professor of psychiatry and cellular and molecular medicine at UCSD’s Institute of Genomic Medicine, and Dheeraj Malhotra, an assistant project scientist in Sebat’s lab, explained that this study proves that having a de novo mutation increases the chance of having an earlier onset of the disease. However, this is not enough to point to a specific gene or region of the genome that is related to bipolar disorder. Malhorta pointed out that you would have to sequence whole genomes from a large number of families with bipolar disorder before you could identify all the de novo CNVs that might be involved.

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Two CSG students by a pile of discarded nets and rope that was brought in by local fisherman for disposal. These efforts help keep fishing gear that is no longer useable out of the ocean where marine mammals can become entangled.

Heather told us how in her quest to devise strategies to prevent whale entanglements she visits different harbors in Maine and talks to lobstermen about their gear and where they fish for lobster. Researchers recorded five North Atlantic Right Whale deaths last year, and two of those deaths were caused by entanglement. Heather showed us the effects of the rope and fishing gear on the whales, how the rope rubbed against them and cut into their skin and their blubber. Some of the whales have huge scars from the rope, and are even identified by researchers from their rope scars.

Two CSG students stack old lobster traps for recycling. Underwater a few of these traps would be attached to each other by ropes, which put right whales at risk of entanglement. By changing the kinds of ropes lobstermen use, these entanglement incidents are becoming less frequent, but there is still room for improvement.

Another factor affecting entanglement is derelict fishing gear, gear that has been left behind by previous lobstermen. Various things such as derelict fishing gear, illegally used float rope, and other factors contribute to the number of entanglements. Consequently, the whales are being hurt and killed by the rope and other gear. Entanglements have been happening more and more frequently, but steps lobstermen are taking are helping slow this trend. Since the change of the float rope to the sinking rope, people are taking action to try to save the North Atlantic Right Whale from entanglement and extinction.

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Coastal Studies for Girls is the country’s only residential science and leadership semester school for 10th grade girls. CSG is dedicated to girls who have a love for learning and discovery, an adventurous spirit, and a desire to challenge themselves.

The ocean’s water looks blue to our eyes because the water absorbs the red, orange and yellow light that comes from the sun, leaving the blue light for us to see.

by Sage and Loraine, Coastal Studies for Girls

Recently, the girls here at Coastal Studies for Girls had the pleasure to hear a guest lecture by Dr. Collin Roesler. She is the chair of the Earth and Oceanographic Science Department at Bowdoin College. She joined us for dinner and delighted us with stories of phytoplankton and the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Her presentation focused on phytoplankton blooms, which occur when species of microscopic algae in the sea flourish at certain times of the year. She explained how there are some toxic phytoplankton blooms, called red tides, composed of certain species of dinoflagellates. These can be potentially hazardous to the animals in the bloom area. Phytoplankton blooms can poison shellfish, bivalves such as clams or mussels which get their food by filter feeding. When the shellfish eat the toxic phytoplankton they become contaminated with the dinoflagellates. Although red tides do not necessarily hurt the shellfish themselves, when the shellfish are caught and humans eat them, the dinoflagellate poison can make people sick. This can hurt the shellfish industries because when there are toxic phytoplankton blooms the state will shut down the area to fishing, or to digging of clams. Then clammers and other fisherman will suddenly be out of business because of a toxic algal bloom.

Some phytoplankton that we observed in our lab when we did a plankton tow off the shore near Coastal Studies for Girls.

She also talked about optics and light. She explained to us how researchers are able to "see" phytoplankton from space. She can detect blooms using optics and light and the detection abilities of satellites and therefore prevent the harvesting of poisoned shellfish.

Our group asked many questions about color, and why certain phytoplankton blooms turn the colors that they do. We talked about why certain things absorb certain wavelengths and why others absorb other wavelengths. We talked about phytoplankton’s pigments and how they interact with light giving rise to different colors we see. We talked about how phytoplankton are like plants because they photosynthesize. They absorb light, which they use in photosynthesis, releasing oxygen in the process.

Collin taught us about the electromagnetic spectrum and how sunlight gives everything colors. She explained why we see flowers, trees, and snow as different colors. She also told us -- to our amazement -- why the ocean is blue. It reflects blue light and absorbs red, orange, and yellow light, thus appears blue. She explained how, if you went deep enough into the ocean, it would look black. This is because the light can’t penetrate that deep. That makes it so that water cannot absorb and reflect any light and cannot have a color.

She also explained how phytoplankton absorb and reflect certain light wavelengths. That’s why if you look from space you can see big patches of green, teal, and sometimes red. Those big patches are different phytoplankton species' blooms. During a “red tide” or plankton bloom the dinoflagellate species will absorb different colors and then they will reflect particular colors that satellites can detect from space. They will reflect colors such as red, purple, blue, or sickly green.

Overall, Dr. Roesler’s presentation was exceedingly helpful. We had just been introduced to the electromagnetic spectrum in class and it was nice to have this reinforced with a presentation on color. We all enjoyed listening to her enthusiastic lesson.

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Coastal Studies for Girls is the country’s only residential science and leadership semester school for 10th grade girls. CSG is dedicated to girls who have a love for learning and discovery, an adventurous spirit, and a desire to challenge themselves.

The deadly (but beautiful) cone shell.

First of all, it's important to distinguish between "venomous" and "poisonous." A venomous organism is an organism that secrets or injects venom from glands or tissues, creating a wound. However, poisonous creatures do not actively inject other animals - they are simply harmful when ingested. In other words, they have poison within them, but they have to be eaten for it to do any damage. For example, a jellyfish is venomous because it can actively sting its prey, but a monarch butterfly is poisonous because it can only harm a predator if it is ingested.

That being said, here are a few of the creatures I'll be watching out for:

Jellyfish: The most venomous marine animal on Earth, the box jellyfish, is native to Australia's northeastern coast. Fortunately, I'm too far south (currently) to run into them, but their venom is among the most potent of any creature in the world. Also called the Sea Wasp, the box jellyfish

The deadly Box Jellyfish (C. Fleckeri)

On the other hand, the jellyfish we do have to worry about here are Bluebottles, commonly known in the States as the Portuguese Man o' War. The Bluebottle actually isn't a true jellyfish; instead, it is actually a colony of minute individuals. Approximately 10,000 Bluebottle stings are reported annually in Australia, including a few that have already happened on this trip (I have yet to run into any of these though -- fingers crossed). Their stings are painful, but fortunately not fatal.

Mollusks: Believe it or not, octopi and squids are actually mollusks, and Australia is home to one of the deadliest - the Blue-Ringed Octopus, known by the distinctive blue rings that appear on its skin when it is startled or frightened. Although it is only slightly larger than a golf ball, the Blue-Ringed Octopus contains tetrodoxin, a neurotoxic venom that is 10,000 times more lethal than cyanide, and can cause immediate difficulty swallowing, blurred vision, numbness, and eventual respiratory arrest. Usually victims have trouble signaling for help because paralysis sets in, but CPR can often help keep a person alive until medical help arrives. These octopi are found at our current island, so I'll have to be extraordinarily careful while snorkeling.

In addition, the phylum Mollusca also includes the"seashell" I mentioned in my title -- it's actually a predatory snail called the Coneshell. These snails live mainly in mudflats and shallow reef waters, and contain teeth that can pierce skin like small harpoons. Their shells are often colorful, which entices people to pick them up. Unfortunately, their "teeth" actually contain a paralytic neurotoxin, which can cause either spastic or flaccid paralysis. A bite from a Coneshell should be treated immediately with a pressure bandage and emergency medical care. Since I really don't want my parents to have to tell people their daughter was killed by a poisonous seashell (that, and I'd rather not die...), I'm being especially careful not to pick up any strange shells while I'm here.

Fish: The Reef Stonefish is a carnivorous fish that disguises itself as a rock so that it can live on reef bottoms. Like several other Australian creatures, they are extremely venomous -- in fact, their venom makes them the most toxic fish in the world. They have thirteen spines along their back, which contain myotoxins capable of causing intense pain and affecting skeletal and cardiac muscle. Stonefish also aren't aggressive; rather, most people are affected by stonefish venom after accidentally stepping on one.

Snakes: Australia is home to six of the top ten deadliest snakes in the world, including the deadly inland taipan, which has the most toxic venom out of any species in the world. However, the taipan causes significantly fewer deaths than other Australian snakes. The main snake we've been told to watch out for is actually the brown snake, the second most venomous land snake that can also be aggressive when provoked. Its venom can cause dizziness, nausea, and even paralysis and cardiac arrest. Fortunately, their initial defense tends to be non-fatal bites, so the mortality rate from bites is relatively low.

We're almost done our research here on North Stradbroke Island, and pretty soon we'll be in Lamington Plateau, so I'll do my best to update when I can. Happy January!

A few of us watching the sunset the other night. Photo credit: Ned Heckman, Carleton College '13.

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Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

I'm here!

The city of Brisbane at night

The city of Brisbane from afar.

At the sanctuary, we could feed and pet several kangaroos, including this Eastern Grey Kangaroo. Larger species of kangaroos can jump as fast as 44 mph!

Australia’s climate is pretty different from ours -- it’s a lot more unpredictable, for starters. The vast majority of Australia cycles through periodic droughts and rainstorms, depending on the El Niño and La Niña phenomena. As a result, many of the plants and creatures that inhabit the continent are adapted to these conditions.

My friend Jeff and I were lucky enough to pet an emu, Australia's largest native bird.

I was lucky enough to hold a male koala while I was at Lone Pine. This young guy is called Wisely.

A few days after landing we visited Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, near Brisbane. Lone Pine is the world's first -- and largest -- koala sanctuary in the world. Containing over 130 koalas, the sanctuary also contains other Australian wildlife, including several types of macropods (the group that includes kangaroos and wallabies), tasmanian devils, lorikeets, and emu. I was fortunate enough to be able to both pet a kangaroo and hold a koala, two experiences that were pretty awesome. Speaking of koalas, I learned a few interesting facts about them while I was there:

1. Although many people call them "koala bears," koalas are not in fact related to bears because they are marsupials.

A baby koala born at Lone Pine.

3. Baby koalas are called joeys, just like kangaroos.

I've got to run -- we have a field lecture soon -- but I'll be back soon with some more information on Australian animals, plants, and more! In the meantime, enjoy some photos from the beautiful land down under.

Mosquito

By Mariel Emrich, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Mosquitoes are as adept at flying in rainstorms as under clear skies. But how is that possible? Wouldn’t rain crush a mosquito to the ground since mosquitoes weigh 50 times less than raindrops?

David Hu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his graduate research assistant Andrew Dickerson have found that while mosquitoes do get hit by raindrops, they don’t get crushed by them.

Hu discussed their research in a talk at November's APS Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting that was entitled “How Mosquitoes Fly in the Rain”.

The researchers measured the impact forces of raindrops on both regular mosquitoes and custom-built mosquito mimics. The mimics were made from small Styrofoam spheres of mosquito-like size and mass. They used high-speed video to capture images of the mosquitoes getting hit with raindrops.

Since the bugs fly so slowly (a maximum of 1 meter per second) compared to the drops (which fall between 5 to 9 meters per second), the mosquitoes cannot react quickly enough for avoidance, and most likely cannot sense the imminent collision.

“Under low-wind conditions, the insects fly slowly enough that frontal impacts are infrequent, similar to us running in the rain. Instead, transverse impacts on the body and wings dominate,” explained Dickerson in a a statement.

Picture a giant boulder falling on a human who was also falling through space. Unless the human gets hit straight on, the boulder will probably push us over to the side -- just like raindrops do to mosquitoes. The mosquitoes will not get crushed by rain, but instead may get rotated

The mosquitoes low mass, speed, and inertia mean that they are not damaged by collisions with raindrops. The drops don’t splash on the bugs, instead they may push the mosquitoes to the side. Additionally, depending on the way that the raindrop hits the mosquito, the drop may bounce off.

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Over the past few weeks in science class, the 15 of us have been working on developing, planning, and implementing our semester research projects, which we will present to the Coastal Studies for Girls community, parents, and friends at the end of the semester. We are in five groups of three people each. Every research group has chosen a rich, interesting, and exciting topic. These include studying barnacle feeding patterns, and finding out whether knotted wrack’s age varies due to tidal height.

My group is analyzing the density of Soft-shell clams along the local shoreline in three different places. We have found out since starting the project that the Harraseeket River has an abundance of clams at low tide. This is interesting, because a local clammer told my group and I that a few years ago, it used to be the exact opposite: there used to be no clams at the Harraseeket River and an abundance in the other locations we researched.

Soft-shell clams are extraordinary creatures, for they are filter feeders and get nutrients by sticking their two siphons outside of their shell and extracting food from the water. One siphon sucks in water and filters out plankton, and the other siphon excretes the filtered water. Clams can also fast for up to eight hours in the mud before the tide comes in and they feed. The Soft-shell clam also has extreme senses; when it feels something (such as vibrations as people walk on the mudflats), it recedes into its shell and burrows deeper into the mud.

My group is interested in two other areas: the mudflats at the Recompense Campground (near Wolfe’s Neck Farm), and near the Little River. We have already found that there is a lack of clams at the campground.

At the beginning of the project, it was quite hard to maneuver ourselves due to the tenacious nature of the mud. The first day we went out into the mudflats, we could hardly walk and kept getting stuck. One of the members of my group fell over and we had to pull her out of the mud. It is definitely a struggle to walk in the mud, let alone dig for clams. We had to learn certain techniques (such as twisting our legs as we moved about the mud and twisting our heels and trying to pry up our upper foot) so we could navigate with the substrate, and so we could complete the gathering of our data.

Throughout the duration of this project, we have gained remarkable respect for clammers, who go out into the deep mud and rifle through it in order to find Soft-shell clams.

Phylo

By Mariel Emrich, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Want to help researchers while playing a game? Dr. Jérôme Waldispuhl of the McGill School of Computer Science and collaborator Mathieu Blanchette have designed a web-based video game called Phylo. By playing Phylo, gamers can contribute to scientific research and advance our understanding of the genetic basis of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer. No knowledge of science needed to play!

The game is played by arranging multiple sequences of colored blocks that represent DNA. Scientists are able to gain new insight into a variety of genetically-based diseases by looking at the similarities and differences between these DNA sequences.

Phylo’s goal is to be able to figure out Multiple Sequence Alignments. Multiple Sequence Alignments are a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify areas of similarities -- including functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships. With this alignment, biologists can trace the source of a certain genetic disease.

Over the past year, Phylo’s 17,000 users have played the game for fun or choosen to help decode a particular genetic disease. Blanchette believes that there is a lot of enjoyment in playing a fun game and contributing to science at the same time. Now you can tell yourself you are not just wasting time playing video games!

DNA sequence alignment is a task that is difficult for computers to do well. The human brain can perform certain calculations more efficiently than computers can such as recognizing and sorting visual patterns. Computers can handle large amounts of messy data, but they sometimes aren’t extremely accurate and precise. The game's goal isn’t to separate humans from computers, but to get them to work together. The point of Phylo is to identify the parts of the sequence that are misaligned and transform the task of aligning them into a puzzle people will want to sort out.

The game was launched in November 2010, and since then, researchers have received more than 350,000 solutions to alignment-sequence problems. Researchers are hoping to encourage more gamers to join and contribute to a better understanding of genetically-based diseases.

To play Phylo visit the website here.

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

New Years Eve Fireworks

Fireworks are used for many special occasions including New Years Eve and the Fourth of July. Fireworks originated in the Han dynasty in 200 B.C.When dry fuel ran short, chunks of green bamboo were thrown onto a fire. The bamboo got darker and started to sizzle. After a while, the bamboo unexpectedly exploded. The reason for this is that bamboo grows so fast that sacs of air get trapped inside the plant’s segments, and when heated, the air pockets expand and eventually burst. The bursting air pockets create such loud sounds that they frighten people as well as animals. The Chinese figured that if the noise scared people so much, then it would also scare away evil spirits. So it became customary to throw green bamboo into a fire on the Lunar New Year.

Today, fireworks are composed of a fuel source and an oxidizer. The fuel’s job is to provide heat, while the oxidizer’s job is to provide the oxygen required to burn the mixture of agents that excite the atoms of the light-emitting compounds (which provide color). Pyrotechnic chemists don’t want their work to explode, since they want it to burn for a little bit to put on a good show. To achieve this, the size of the particles in each ingredient has to be just right and the ingredients have to be blended together perfectly. To slow down the burning, big grains of chemicals are used. They range from 250-300 microns (about the size of a small grain of sand). These ingredients don’t blend together very well, which makes it difficult for the fuel and oxidizer to burn, and produces a longer and brighter effect. It is common for fireworks to contain aluminum, iron, steel, zinc, or magnesium dust to create shimmering sparks.

Aerial fireworks consist of a shell launched from a mortar. The shell consists of four parts:

• a container -- which is paper and string shaped into a cylinder,
• stars -— spheres or cubes of a sparkler-like composition,
• bursting charge -— firecracker-like charge at the center of the shell, and a
• fuse -— which provides a time delay so the shell explodes at the right altitude.

A simple shell used in an aerial fireworks display. The blue balls are the stars, and the gray is black powder. The powder is packed into the center tube, which is the bursting charge. It is also sprinkled between the stars to help ignite them.

There are also multibreak shells, which contain stars of different colors and compositions to create various combinations of fireworks. Multibreak shells consist of shells filled with other shells, or may have multiple sections inside the shell. The sections are ignited with different fuses. The explosives that break the sections apart are called break charges.

Fireworks generate three forms of energy: sound, bright light, and heat.  When the speed of the burn or the escaping gas exceeds the speed of sound, the result is a loud boom. Some shells contain explosives designed to crackle in the sky, or whistles that explode outward with the stars. One shell that makes a very loud bang is the maroon shell.

Firework Colors

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Photo Credit: Carleton College

This winter, I am fortunate enough to be spending a semester in Australia as a participant in Carleton's Marine Ecology Study-Abroad program during which I will be studying the unique characteristics of Australia's various ecosystems. While the program mainly emphasizes coastal and marine environments (including the Great Barrier Reef!), I'll also be spending some time in the tropical rainforest, as well as in Sydney and Melbourne. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog about some of my adventures there -- or at the very least, take some pictures. (So stay tuned!

Prior to our January 1st departure, I was lucky enough to interview Dr. Annie Bosacker, the fearless leader of the program. Dr. Bosacker, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology at Carleton College has done significant research studying baboons in Gombe National Park, Tanzania. Her main research interest is in the social behavior of primates, specifically how social circumstances influence an individual's exposure to stress. Here, Dr. Bosacker speaks about her previous work, her interests in biology, and what it's like balancing a family and a successful career in biology.

How did you come to work in the sciences?

I’m a happier, healthier person when I get to spend a lot time outside. I love forests especially, but I’ve also grown to love rocky ocean shores, open savannahs, and anywhere I can find an animal to observe. I was once completely oblivious to this truth, though. As an undergraduate, I focused my studies on genetics and cellular biology, and I had every intention of pursuing a career as a laboratory biologist. Because these were considered to be the “difficult” subjects, I naïvely thought of these as the “better” branches of biology -— the ones where people do real science.

What changed your mind?

Two experiences set me on a completely different path, and one that I know ultimately led me somewhere I’m very happy to be. First, I got to go on the very same study-abroad program to Australia that I now lead. It was ten weeks straight of field biology. Ten weeks of intense sun, incredible heat, blinding rain, and phenomenal happiness. The idea of doing science in the field started to appeal to me. But it wasn’t until I took my first class in animal behavior that I had a life-changing epiphany. I knew that scientists in nature documentaries got to travel to fantastic places, got to spend their days observing animals and asking great questions. But I never really thought that these were real people doing real science! I was hooked, and lab science lost its hold on me. I’ve found ways to do science outside ever since.

What is your primary research interest? How did you come to work in Tanzania?

My project and my research interests evolved over the years, and it ended up being a very interdisciplinary project that looked at how a female baboon’s social circumstances affect her exposure to life’s stressors. Right now, I’m really fascinated with the idea that early exposure to challenges might influence the suite of coping strategies a female baboon relies on when she’s an adult. I also want to think more about the big picture of the stress response system, and whether approaching our understanding of it in a slightly different way might help us make sense of the sorts of patterns that are central to life-history theory (e.g. if there isn’t a lot of food around, don’t waste your energy making babies).

I ended up in Tanzania because my graduate advisor was Dr. Craig Packer, and he wanted someone to look at stress, rank, aging, and reproduction in the olive baboons at Gombe National Park. It sounded like a pretty fascinating project to me, and I was absolutely thrilled to have an excuse to go to Africa to hang out with a bunch of monkeys. That said, I’m still trying to figure out how I can add research back into the mix of teaching and raising my four kids without careening myself off the tightrope of sanity. My research ideas are mostly simmering on the back burner right now.

What was your favorite part about working in Gombe National Park?

Easy! I had a fantastic excuse to spend my days outside watching wild animals. I inherited my obsession with (addiction to?) animals from my father and grandfather, and I long believed that everybody’s favorite thing to do was to sit at one zoo exhibit and watch the otters or gibbons or tapirs all day (Author's note: Me too!). I can get sidetracked for hours watching my daughter’s pet guppies, so days and days watching the soap opera of wild baboon life was like heaven to me.

How did you become interested in leading the Coastal Marine Ecology trip to Australia?

This was a true story of Right Place, Right Time. Developing a successful study-abroad program was on my goal list, and I’d already figured out ways to involve undergraduates in my field work in Africa. With three young children, this was a distant dream. I was in my second “visiting” year at Carleton when the same program that introduced me to the wonders of field science was canceled because none of the faculty at Carleton was in a position to direct it. It was a popular program, so many students were desperate to see it reinstated, and somehow my name got thrown in as a possible solution. The administration was willing to let me take on the program, in spite of my visiting status. Because one of my many incentives included travel expenses for my family, my husband and I agreed it was an incredible opportunity. (Also, I’m not ashamed to admit that swapping Minnesota winters for Australian summers is a big win!) It was a bit of a leap of faith for everyone, but one that has led to incredibly high rewards for dozens of people.

Overall what would you say is your favorite part of the Australia program?

Heron Island, where we'll be spending some time, is a famous nesting ground for green sea turtles. (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

It’s a teaching opportunity that plays to my strengths. I get to be outside, teaching to my passions. I get to know my students as people, not just pupils. This kind of immersion learning and teaching means that I can help my students learn an incredible amount about ecology, but also—and equally importantly—about themselves. We each meet academic and personal goals in ways you just can’t foster on a traditional campus in a conventional course. We become an incredible community of learners, and the connections we establish are proving to be long-lasting.

I have never been happier in my life than I am with my family and my students Down Under. We do science outside all day, and then we come back home like one giant happy family to share stories, food, and card games. I think I’ve identified a new psychiatric condition I call Post-Dramatic Happiness Disorder. I now spend my days chasing that feeling of perfect bliss, and I count down the weeks until I get to share the experience with another group of enthusiastic undergraduates. So that sense of complete contentment, peace, and purpose—that’s my favorite part.

You are currently a visiting professor at Carleton. What are the primary classes that you teach?

As a visiting professor, I teach a hodgepodge of classes. Basically, anything that needs teaching that I happen to be qualified to teach. I’ve been doing this for the past five years, and so far I’ve taught courses in introductory biology, marine biology, field studies and research, animal behavior, and behavioral ecology.

I also do summer programs—most notably Carleton Summer Science Institute. Our primary goal is to give high school students three weeks of science immersion, in the hopes of enticing them to study the sciences when they get to college. One of my personal goals is to dispel the myth that you have to be inhumanly focused, brilliant, and somber to succeed in science. I try to build a community that takes both science and fun seriously, and so far that model has been incredibly successful.

Overall, what is your favorite part about teaching biology?

[That's] kind of like asking a duck, “What’s your favorite thing about water?” Ducks just like water, and I just like teaching. I can barely function without it. It’s the one thing in life that is guaranteed to make my day better and to make me feel like a pretty fantastic human being.

I think of teaching as a performance art. While my job is ultimately to impart knowledge, teaching and learning is a process that is much more effective when everyone is awake, engaged, and having a bit of fun. In part, I love teaching because it gives me a platform from which I can share stories about the things I’m most excited about—from cellular respiration to the evolution of behaviors. I’m not shy about my obsession with biology—especially animal behavior—and I tell students my number one goal is to make it impossible for them to ever again watch an animal doing anything without asking dozens of questions about what that animal is doing and why. I love getting notes from former students in which they tell me that I infected them with a curiosity about animals that they just can’t shake. What I guess that means is that having the opportunity to share my passions with other people is one of the greatest joys of my job.

You are also a mother of four children. How do you balance your career with everything going on in your family?

My greatest life challenge for the last nine years—and certainly for at least the next eighteen—has been to find a balance between my needs and my family’s needs. Being a perpetual visiting professor has its perks, the greatest being that I can be very thoughtful about how I balance my career with the needs of my family. Sometimes I’m home with my four kids for months, sometimes I’m away for several weeks. It’s ultimately up to me which jobs I will take and which I will turn down. The biggest downside is that I can’t always count on getting to do what I love in the long term. But while my children are still so young, it’s a trade-off that keeps me sane. Mostly.

I will be charting course for Melbourne on January 1st, so stay posted for pictures, fun facts about Australia, and more. Happy New Year!

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Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

Pictured here are two cells that have grown asymmetrically, each with a green pole (non-growing and made up of old, stained cell wall) and a blue pole (growing and made up of new cell wall). (Credit: Image courtesy of Harvard School of Public Health)

Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which you can get exposed to by breathing in air droplets from a cough or sneeze of an infected person. Infants, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems have a higher risk of getting TB. Risks of contracting TB increase if you are in frequent contact with people who have TB, have poor nutrition, or live in crowded or unsanitary living conditions. In the United States, there are about 10 cases of TB per 100,000 people.

Symptoms of TB include coughing, excessive sweating, fatigue, fever, and unintentional weight loss. Tests a doctor may take to see if a patient has TB include bronchoscopy, chest CT scan, and chest x-ray. If these tests show the patient has clubbing of the fingers or toes (mostly in people with advanced disease), enlarged or tender lymph nodes in neck, fluid around lung, or unusual breath sounds (crackles), they most likely have TB.

TB is a difficult disease to treat. People are prescribed a combination of many antibiotics to be taken daily for 6 to 9 months. This is a schedule that is hard for patients to follow and hard for their nurses and doctors to administer. Even after beginning the appropriate treatment, some of the infectious cells survive for long periods of time.

Scientists at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), led Bree Aldridge, Marta Fernandez-Suarez, and senior author Sarah Fortune, assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases, conducted a study to figure out why some tuberculosis cells are inherently more difficult to treat with antibiotics. These scientists set out to distinguish which cells live and which cells die after treatment and the reasons some cells are more resistant to treatment. Their results were published December 15, 2011 in an advance online edition of Science.

The researchers designed a unique microfluidic chamber in which they grew Mycobacterium smegmatic cells (which behave closely to Mycobacterium tuberculosis cells). The cells' walls were stained with a green fluorescent dye. Next, the cells were grown in a stain-free media. They filmed the cells' growth with a live-cell imaging system. New growth is unlabeled and appears blue, while the old cell wall retains the green dye and appears green.

The researchers predicted that the M. smegmatis cells would divide evenly into similar-sized daughter cells. However, the cells divided into daughter cells of a wide range of sizes. This diversity in the size of daughter cells occurs because M. smegmatis grow in an unusual manner, elongating from one end.

The researchers figured that these different sized daughter cells would be susceptible to different antibiotics. Therefore, they treated each cell with different antibiotic treatments according to their size. Different daughter cells did have different susceptibilities to the treatments.

Learning more about how the bacteria responsible for TB grow gives researchers a better idea of why tuberculosis is such a difficult disease to treat and may lead to better targeted treatments in future.

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Researchers have discovered that iron oxide undergoes a new kind of transition under deep Earth conditions. (Credit: iStockphoto)

Iron oxide is a component (along with magnesium) of ferropericlase, the second most abundant mineral at Earth’s lower mantle. In the center of the Earth, there is extreme pressure and high temperature. This causes atoms and electrons to squeeze so closely together that they interact differently from the way they interact in the outer layers of Earth. New experiments and supercomputer computations have enabled researchers to discover something interesting about the way iron oxide (FeO) behaves in deep Earth conditions. Their findings, which were published in an upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters, could change our understanding of the behavior of the protective magnetic field that shields our planet from harmful cosmic rays.

Researchers including Ronald Cohen of Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory studied the electrical conductivity of iron oxide to pressures and temperatures up to 1.4 million times atmospheric pressure and at 4000 degrees Fahrenheit to mimic the extreme conditions at the Earth’s mantle. Additionally, they used a new method that uses only fundamental physics to model the complex interactions among electrons. These researchers at the Geophyiscal Laboratory predicted a new kind of metallization in FeO.

Most compounds typically undergo many changes in structure, chemicals, and electronics in high pressure and temperature conditions. However, unlike previous studies that assumed metallization in iron oxide resulted from a change in structure, in this study, iron oxide went from an insulating state to become a highly conducting metal at 690,000 atmospheres and 3000 degrees -- without any change to its structure. Science Daily News reports that the study demonstrates that iron oxide can be both an insulator and a metal depending on temperature and pressure conditions.

Cohen said to Carnegie Institution for Science News, "The metallic phase will enhance the electromagnetic interaction between the liquid core and lower mantle. This has implications for Earth's magnetic field, which is generated in the outer core. It will change the way the magnetic field is propagated to Earth's surface, because it provides magnetomechanical coupling between the Earth's mantle and core."

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Nest of paper wasp, Polistes dominulus, where Anne Madden found the new fungus species. This wasp species is native to Europe, but has been in the U.S. for about thirty years.

Anne Madden was inspired to this field of study by the leafcutter ants in Costa Rica. The leafcutter ants don’t actually eat the leaves that they harvest; rather they feed the leaf fragments to fungi that they keep in their gigantic nests. Then the gardener ants harvest their crop for food. In fact, a lot of insects and fungi have mutualistic relationships.

The new fungus species, Mucor nidicola, growing on a Petri dish.

In order to identify microbes and fungi, scientists have assembled a database of all of the known fungi and microbe species’ DNA. When Anne put some of her fungi into the database, no matches came up. Anne had discovered a new species!

The new species is fluffy and white, and grows rapidly. Anne and her team named it Mucor nidicola. Anne didn’t get to name the genus, although it means ‘mold’. The word nidicola means 'living in another’s nest'.

For fun, Anne grew out her newly described fungal species, Mucor nidicola, on a plastic dinosaur by coating the T. Rex with growth medium.

At the end of the talk, Anne described her winding path to a career biology. It was reassuring to learn that to be a scientist, you don’t have to know exactly what you want to do the moment you enter college. Many of us are interested in science -- especially after having such an amazing semester at CSG -- but we don’t necessarily know for sure, and it was comforting to hear that we don’t need to know right now.

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Coastal Studies for Girls is the country’s only residential science and leadership semester school for 10th grade girls. CSG is dedicated to girls who have a love for learning and discovery, an adventurous spirit, and a desire to challenge themselves.

Know a child who loves science? Check out these gifts for this holiday season!

Forensics Fingerprint Lab

-Slime Science
This is a fun way for kids to learn about chemical reactions and polymers. Kids learn to make their own slimes with different properties.

-Big Bag of Science
This kit contains over 60 experiments, including soda explosions, growing crystals and Insta-Snow.

 -Mini Weather Station
This weather station allows you to measure temperature, rainfall, wind speed, wind direction and wind chill.

-Cosmic Jet Racer
This kit includes everything to build, decorate, and race two balloon racecars. It is great for kids 8 and older!

Chemistry Kit

-Chemistry Equipment Kit
This kit includes beakers, graduated cylinders, a flask, alcohol lamp, test tubes and a stand, thermometer, tubing pinch camp, glass tubes, rubber stoppers and pH papers.

Biology Lovers:
-DNA Molecular Model Kit
This kit allows students to build a DNA model and nucleotide models.

-Journey Into the Human Body Kit
This kit is a fun hands-on experience to explore the human body. It will teach about bones, joints, lung capacity, and heart rate. This is for kids 6-10 years old.

-ABO-Rh Simulated Blood Typing Kit
This kit contains four different synthetic blood samples to provide the hands-on experience of determining different ABO and Rh blood types.

Earth Science Lovers:
-Amazing Volcanoes Kit
In this kit, kids will build their own volcanoes and make it erupt!

-Soil Test Lab Kit
This is a great kit to study the effects of soil nutrients on plant growth or to improve your garden. Kids will sample soil, prepare it for testing and complete chemistry tests to determine pH and the nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous content.

Astronomy Backpack

-Moon in My Room Lunar Light
This nightlight allows kids to view all the phases of the moon.

Physics Lovers:
-Physics Workshop Kit
This kit comes with all the parts needed to build 36 physics models and do 73 experiments with gravity, forces, simple machines, friction, gears, pendulums, energy and power.

-Optical Science and Art
Kids can play around with light, optics, and visual perception as they do the 42 fun projects in this kit, including making a fiber-optics peacock, prismatic glasses, a camera obscura and optical illusions.

-Magnets in Motion Kit
Kids will discover how a magnet produces its own electrical current.

Technology Lovers:
-Remote Control Machines
With this construction kit, kids can build cars, cranes, bulldozers and robots!

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Photo Credit: Reuters

For years, parental concerns regarding the dangers of heading the ball, or deliberately taking the ball out of the air with the player's head, have been brushed off by players, coaches, and even FIFA, the international soccer federation. In 2001, a study conducted by the U.S. Soccer Federation and the UNC Orthopedic Clinic found that that intentionally heading the ball spreads out the impact over the entire body, minimizing risk of a concussion. When presenting the study, Dan Flynn, USSF Secretary General, concluded that "diminution of cognitive function comes from head injury, not simply heading the ball."

But what if they were wrong?

Through advanced MRI-based tests on 38 amateur soccer players, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine determined that players who headed the ball frequently showed symptoms similar to those seen in patients who have sustained concussions, also known as mild traumatic brain injuries (TBI). In a press release and a presentation at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago, the researchers explained that there appeared to be a threshold of how many balls a player can head before sustaining brain damage -- in this case, 1,100 to 1,500 times per year, depending on which part of the head comes into contact with the ball.

“While heading a ball 1,000 or 1,500 times a year may seem high to those who don’t participate in the sport, it only amounts to a few times a day for a regular player,” said lead author Michael Lipton, MD, PhD. “Heading a soccer ball is not an impact of a magnitude that will lacerate nerve fibers in the brain,” said Dr. Lipton. “But repetitive heading may set off a cascade of responses that can lead to degeneration of brain cells.”

The players who participated in the study were volunteers who had played competitive soccer since childhood, though none had played at a professional level. Participants completed a detailed questionnaire developed especially for the study so that the researchers could determine approximately how many times they had headed the ball in the previous year, and whether or not they had previously experienced concussions. These surveys were also intended to rule out any additional variables that may have caused brain damage in certain players, so that heading the ball could be isolated as the specific cause for brain damage.

Diffusion tensor image showing white matter fibers (in blue) that were found to be affected by heading. Photo Credit: Albert Einstein College of Medicine

The results indicated that heading did, in fact, produce some brain damage, but only if the player exceed the 1,000 to 1,500 limit. Using an advanced MRI-based technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), the researchers were able to isolate five areas in the brain's frontal lobe and temporal-occipital lobe that showed significant loss of white matter compared with peers who did not head the ball frequently enough to reach the threshold. These areas are normally responsible for attention, memory, executive functioning and higher-order visual functions.

In a subsequent study conducted with Lipton's colleague Molly Zimmerman, the same 38 players were tested on their verbal memory and psychomotor speed relative to their peers. The results showed that players who headed the ball frequently performed substantially worse than their peers -- even though most of them were not aware of any mental deficits.

Dr. Lipton explained: “These two studies present compelling evidence that brain injury and cognitive impairment can result from heading a soccer ball with high frequency.”

Admittedly, there have been several previous indications that heading the ball may have physiological and psychological consequences. A 1991 study conducted by the National Hospital in Oslo, Norway found that retired professional players showed significant deficits in memory, judgment, and concentration as compared to their peers. They also experienced dizziness and headaches more often than normal. However, studies such as this one failed to account for possible alcohol use or histories of concussions, so the results were generally overlooked. Still, the connection between soccer and concussions has never been clearer. Concussions occur when the brain slams into the skull, causing internal bleeding on the brain and mild to severe symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, headaches, and memory problems.

A soccer player myself, I became aware of these statistics the hard way when, during my senior year of high school, I sustained a moderate concussion when I collided in mid-air with another player's elbow and was knocked temporarily unconscious. I don't remember much about the actual accident, but I do remember the confusion and headaches that followed me throughout the next few days. In the month that followed, I learned how common concussions are in soccer, particularly in the women's game; one 2007 study led by Dawn Comstock found that among high school sports, girls and boys soccer rank second and third, respectively, for concussion rates, behind only football. I returned to playing after about three weeks of rest and recovery. Other players aren't so lucky.

Most concussions, however, are the result of colliding with objects -- players' elbows, players' heads, the goalposts, or ground. Rarely are actual concussions caused by heading the ball itself. But this new study shows that this point may not matter -- in the end, frequent heading of the ball causes very similar damage to a concussion -- even if it is not a concussion in itself. In the two years since my own concussion, I've always attributed frequent headaches to that particular incident, and nothing more. Now I wonder whether the real culprit is simply that I love heading the ball.

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and heading the ball is an integral part of the game. While I agree that these results should not be taken lightly, I'm not sure that the solution is as simple as encouraging kids to head the ball less frequently, especially since learning to head the ball safely -- that is, with proper neck support rather than on the top of your head -- is a key part of preventing injury later on. However, as it stands, something has to change. I'm not sure whether that would be developing protective gear or simply encouraging children to trap the ball on the ground more frequently. I do know, though, that as wonderful as the game of soccer is, it isn't worth a lifetime of brain damage in my future.

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Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

A fish's view of the 2.4 mile swimming portion of the 2008 Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. Credit: guardian.co.uk

Mr. Evolta was equipped with one of these attachments for each of the race's 3 legs

For the Ironman Triathlon, Tomotaka Takahashi designed vehicles for the robot to use in each event. For the swim, Mr. Evolta was waterproofed and wore a fin to keep itself on course in the heavy surf. For the run, Mr. Evolta used a modified hamster ball, and for the bike, it used a tiny tricycle. Each event was completed by a different Mr. Evolta. In addition to designing a robot that could complete these three events, Takahashi had to ensure that the robot could withstand the hot sun, high winds, and rough surf of Hawaii.

Mr. Evolta, who is the mascot of Panasonic's Evolta line of batteries, runs on 3 AA rechargeable batteries. During the race, the robot was either recharging or moving at all times.

Panasonic has not announced Mr. Evolta's next challenge, but since the robot has been so popular and successful, it seems unlikely that Mr. Evolta will retire.

You can watch a clip of Mr. Evolta scaling the Grand Canyon here.

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Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

Tiny microfluidic chips allow the researchers to synchronize the bacteria to fluoresce or blink in unison. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - San Diego)

By Mariel Emrich, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego created a living neon sign composed of millions of bacterial cells that radiate in unison. Their research, which was published in the December 18 issue of Nature, opens the door to the creation of new biosensors to detect environmental toxins.

The researchers started by attaching a fluorescent protein to the biological clocks of the bacteria. They then synchronized the clocks of thousands of bacterial colonies to glow on and off in unison. Each of the blinking bacterial colonies makes up a biopixel. A biopixel is an individual point of light, similar to the pixels on a computer screen.

Many bacteria are known to communicate by quorum sensing, which is relaying between them small molecules to trigger and coordinate various behaviors. But the researchers found that quorum sensing alone couldn’t be used to synchronize millions of bacteria from thousands of colonies. So they designed a micorfluidic chip that can synchronize all of the millions of bacteria within the chip by sharing the gases emitted by the colonies of bacteria. The gas signal synchronizes the colonies.

These bacteria-driven neon signs not only to appeal people visually, but will also lead to practical applications. For example, researchers engineered a bacterial sensor, using the same technique as they used to create the flashing neon signs. These sensors are capable of detecting low levels of arsenic. The cells will start to blink to indicate the level of arsenic poisoning that is present.

Scientists believe that this approach could also be used to design low cost bacterial biosensors capable of detecting an array of heavy metal pollutants since bacteria are sensitive to many kinds of environmental pollutants and organisms. The bacteria can provide continual updates on how dangerous a toxin is at any time. The bacteria show these changes by blinking in different patterns.

One of the researchers, Jeff Hasty, a professor of biology and bioengineering at UC San Diego and principal investigator in the university's Division of Biological Sciences and BioCircuits Institute, explained in a statement: "These kinds of living sensors are intriguing as they can serve to continuously monitor a given sample over long periods of time, whereas most detection kits are used for a one-time measurement."

For More Information:
Living Neon Signs Composed of Millions of Glowing Bacteria
Researchers Create Living 'Neon Signs' Composed of Millions of Glowing Bacteria
A sensing array of radically coupled genetic ‘biopixels’
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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Ischiban Headband

In August, the 2011 Cincinnati Innovates competition announced a group of engineering and design students from University of Cincinnati were winners of a $5,000 Northern Kentucky Vision 2015 Award and $10,000 from Taft Legal/Patent Award for creating the Ischiban Headband used for diagnosing strokes.

A stroke happens when blood flow to a part of the brain stops. If blood flow is stopped for longer than a few seconds, the brain cannot get blood and oxygen. There are two types of strokes: ischemic and hemorrhagic. Ischemic strokes occur when a blood vessel that supplies blood to the brain is blocked by a blood clot. This blot clot may have formed either because the artery is already very narrow (thrombotic stroke), or a clot may break off from another place in the blood vessels of the brain and travel up to the brain (embolic stroke). A hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel in part of the brain becomes weak and bursts open, causing blood to leak to the brain. About 80% of all strokes are ischemic.

The correct diagnosis is vital. If drugs that are used to treat an ischemic stroke are given to a patient with a hemorrhagic stroke, it can be fatal. This is because these drugs are used to thicken or thin the blood, depending on what caused the stroke. Strokes become more dangerous as time goes on. Therefore, immediate care is crucial. Symptoms include slurred speech; a droopy eye or mouth; weakness on one side; headache; changes in alertness, hearing and taste; and confusion or loss of memory. Generally, stroke symptoms depend on what part of the brain is being damaged. Symptoms usually develop suddenly. Symptoms are usually most severe when the stroke first happens, but in some cases, they gradually get worse.

Before 2011, a brain scan was typically used to identify the type of stroke a patient had suffered. However, it takes hours to receive the result from this method -- during which time the stroke is getting increasingly more dangerous. The new device, developed by Pooja Kadambi, Joe Lovelace, and Scott Robinson, is called Ischiban. It uses a technique called impedance spectroscopy, which measures how waves of energy flow through different tissue or materials to analyze what’s going on deep inside the skull. The energy is a mild electric current produced by up to ten electrodes in the headband. Within minutes, the results are fed to a laptop connected to the headband. On the laptop, the results are in an easy-to-read chart that tells doctors what type of stroke it is. Electrical Impedance was originally invented by Oliver Heaviside in 1886. However, it was newly applied to diagnosing strokes in 2011.

The headband is not painful, but it applies slight pressure to the patient’s head when wearing it. The impedance spectroscopy device has been tested on a small group of healthy volunteers, showing that the technique can produce images of the brain rapidly. This device is not yet available for use. Clinical trials are going to be set up in the near future to examine how it performs during stroke diagnosis.

For more information:
Stroke
New Device that Can Improve Stroke Outcome
Grads get $15 K for Headband
UC Grads' Innovative, Portable Stroke Detection Headband Could be a Lifesaver

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Solar Paper

By Mariel Emrich, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity and is a great alternative energy source.  Purchasing a solar power system can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000. Around 60% of this money comes from the high cost of solar panels. But Professor of Electrical Engineering, Vladimir Bulovic and his colleagues at MIT are working on a less-expensive way to make solar cells by printing them directly on paper or fabric. The researchers discovered a way to print the cells on ordinary printing paper, tissue paper, and on newspaper that has already been printed. Their research was published in Advanced Materials in August.

Currently, in order to print solar cells, extremely high temperatures are needed. Plus, the material on which a circuit is formed is usually glass and the process requires many other expensive components.

But, the new method discovered by Bulovic and his colleagues uses vapors and temperatures at less than 120 degrees Celsius. To print the cells on paper, five layers of material have to be deposited on the paper in consecutive passes. The printing must be done in an airtight room where special ink is deposited onto the paper. With paper and fabric being used as the new substrate, creating the solar cells is much less expensive. A report in an MIT news describes it as "almost as cheap and as easy as printing a photo on your inkjet.”

The paper with the solar cells printed on it can be folded up, slipped into your pocket, and unfolded; afterwards, it will work just as well as it did in the first place. This could be useful in remote locations and developing countries where weight is a large factor in how many cells can be delivered. Also, the paper could easily be applied to window shades to make it very easy to install on your own. The paper can also be laminated, so it can be placed outside without water damage.

The one problem with the invention is that paper-printed solar cells have about a 1% efficiency compared to solar panels that are 21.9-23.2% efficient. However, the researchers at MIT feel that they could increase the efficiency with small changes.

Peter Harrop, chairman of IDTechEx told MIT news, “The work at MIT … is therefore very important. To succeed it must promise low enough cost and low enough sensitivity to humidity."

For more information:
Cost of Solar Power
MIT Researchers are Printing Solar Cells on Sheets of Paper
MIT Researchers Print Solar Cell on Paper

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

A model of an insect wing made entirely out of schrilk.

How did the Wyss Institute choose arthropod exoskeletons as their inspiration? Insect cuticle has some remarkable properties that are were outlined in the press release:

“Natural insect cuticle, such as that found in the rigid exoskeleton of a housefly or grasshopper, is uniquely suited to the challenge of providing protection without adding weight or bulk. As such, it can deflect external chemical and physical strains without damaging the insect’s internal components, while providing structure for the insect’s muscles and wings. It is so light that it doesn’t inhibit flight and so thin that it allows flexibility. Also remarkable is its ability to vary its properties, from rigid along the insect’s body segments and wings to elastic along its limb joints.”

Schrilk has some amazing physical properties. It is as strong and tough as aluminum, but it weighs only half as much. Schrilk can easily be molded into virtually any shape. By varying the amount of water used in its construction, the stiffness of schrilk can be varied. Schrilks, ranging from elastic to rigid, would have even more applications.

Schrilk has great potential in medicine as well. It is biocompatible meaning that it does not elicit an immune system response from within the human body. Schrilk could be used to suture wounds or as scaffolding for tissue regeneration.

Schrilk is composed of two ingredients, fibroin proteins in silk and chitin. Since chitin can easily be extracted from discarded shrimp shells, schrilk is cheap and easy to produce.

Since schrilk is biodegradable, it could be molded into plastic bags, garbage bags and diapers that would not sit in landfills for hundreds of years.

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Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

A 21-day sample on nylon demonstrating palmar flexion creases. (Credit: University of Abertay Dundee/Scottish Police Services Authority)

Earlier this year, forensic experts at the University of Abertay Dundee and the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) discovered a technique to recover fingerprints on fabrics. This technique is known as vacuum metal deposition (VMD). It uses gold and zinc to recover the fingerprint mark that is on a piece of fabric. In the past, VMD has been used to detect fingerprint marks on smooth surfaces, such as carrier bags, plastics, and glass. In fact, it was invented in the 1970’s. However, it was never used on fabrics until 2011.

The researchers at SPSA realized the value the VMD technique could bring to a police investigation. The process starts by placing fabric into a vacuum chamber and spreading a fine film of gold over the fabric. Next, forensic investigators heat up zinc, which attaches to the gold where there are no fingerprint residues. So where there are fingerprint ridges there is no zinc, revealing a clear outline of the fingerprint.

One researcher at SPSA said in statement: "The research is still in its early stages but we are starting to see results. We have shown that fabrics with a high thread count are best for revealing a print and have recovered identifiable fingerprints on a number of fabrics including silk, nylon and polyester." Only 20% of the public is considered a “good donor” for leaving fingerprints. Therefore, while the success rate is still low for recovering a full fingerprint from items of clothing, the researchers have had success in revealing the shape of a fingerprint on many different fabric types.

This breakthrough is key to the forensics world because it can help determine if a suspect is innocent or guilty. This extra piece of evidence could potentially solve many cases because it helps police frame a sequence of events and could be used to provide evidence in cases where someone was pushed or grabbed in a particular part of their clothing. In addition, this technique could narrow down the list of suspects who then might be convicted on DNA or other forensic evidence. As the VMD technique is incorporated into Fingerprint Recognition Technology, the Ability to Verify Rate (ATR) will increase. This provides a more solid and believable argument for court.

For more information:
VMD Technique Used to Trace Fingerprints on Fabrics
Forensic Breakthrough: Recovering Fingerprints on Fabrics can Turn Clothes Into Silent Witnesses
Acquiring Fingerprints From Fabric

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

One of the best books I read this year was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.   The book won several awards and was featured on over 60 critics’ best of 2010 lists. Henrietta’s story is soon to be made into an HBO movie by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball.

Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer. George Gey, the doctor who was treating Henrietta at John Hopkins University, had been taking cells from cancer patients for over 30 years without permission of the patients. However, before Henrietta's cells, each sample quickly died in his lab. In order for these cells to survive, they need the right mix of air and nutrients. He planned to use these cells to create an immortal cell line for research -- called immortal because cells are grown under controlled conditions and can keep replicating forever.

Gey spent many years trying to find the perfect way to preserve cells. In 1951, the Gey Lab invented the roller tube to simulate the way blood and fluids are constantly moving throughout the human body. Once Gey discovered this, all he needed were the right cells. Dr. Gey took cells from Henrietta’s cervix without telling her, or her family. These cells acted differently from previous patient’s cells and kept doubling every 20 to 24 hours in a bath of chicken plasma and nutrients. To this day, it is still unknown why Henrietta's cells had the capability of duplicating in culture unlike all other cells tested previously.

Henrietta’s cells were the first immortal human cells ever to grow in culture. They were then given the name HeLa (the first 2 letters of her first and last name). HeLa cells were used to develop the first polio vaccine, launched in space for experiments in zero gravity and they helped produce drugs for many diseases; such as Parkinson’s, leukemia and the flu. The cells also led to advances in cloning, gene mapping and vitro fertilization. These cells are still alive today, 60 years later, and if you were to weigh all of them together, it would equal about 100 Empire State Buildings (50 million metric tons).

The author of the book spent many years researching the Lacks’ family and visiting the labs in which Henrietta's cells are kept. The book was very informative and was interesting to read about not only the story of Henrietta’s cells, but also the implications and the legacy of the cells.

Taking the cells created ethical implications because the family felt taken advantage of because they didn’t know about these cells until more than 20 years after the fact. Also, nobody has ever said ‘thank you’ to the Lacks family for changing the science and medicine world.

Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter, learned of her mother’s legacy when she was 23 years old. She was contacted by researchers who asked if the family would donate blood for genetic testing. Some of Henrietta’s cells had contaminated other cultures and researchers hoped to find genetic markers to identify the HeLa line. Deborah thought that these tests were just to make sure she didn’t have cancer, since her mother died of cancer at a similar age. When Deborah found out that her mother’s cells were used in scientific research, she had many questions about how much pain her mother was in when they removed parts of her cervix, and if it hurt her mother when scientists experimented with the cells.

The Lacks family did not benefit financially or legally from Henrietta’s contribution to science. In the book, Deborah was quoted saying: “But I always have thought it was strange, if our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors. Don’t make no sense. People got rich off my mother without us even knowin about then takin her cells, now we don’t get a dime…But I don’t got it in me to fight. I just want to know who my mother was.”

For more information visit:
A Lasting Gift to Medicine that Wasn't Really a Gift
Immortal Cells, Enduring Tissues
Honoring the Henrietta Lacks Legacy at John Hopkins
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Asks the Wrong Questions

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

Goia De Cari calls herself a “recovering mathematician.” She also is a classical singer, a playwright, and an actress. She is touring the U.S. with her one-woman show, Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze. On stage, there’s no maze in sight: De Cari performs, hilariously and movingly, on a bare stage with only a small table and chair.

Nevertheless, the maze was real enough, De Cari says. She was inspired to write and perform the show by former Harvard president Lawrence Summers’ suggestion that there are fewer women than men in the sciences because genetically, women aren’t as good at them. Summers made his infamous remarks in 2005. What can it have been like in the 1980s, long before Summers came to Cambridge, MA, to be a woman studying mathematics at M.I.T.? This is De Cari’s story, and she plays all the characters.

After graduating summa cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley, De Cari moved across the country to get her Ph.D. in mathematical logic at M.I.T. The new campus turned out to be very different from feminist Berkeley. Buildings had no names, only numbers. De Cari shared a windowless, sweltering office in a basement with other grad students. A business student hit on her until she told him she was working on her mathematics Ph.D. –- whereupon he asked her to tutor him. Her seminar professor assigned her to bring cookies.

Finally, De Cari was able to move to a second-floor room with windows -– though her desk was by the door. She introduces us to all the MIT characters, faculty and fellow students, with unique expressions and body language. For example, there was Nelson, a neighbor in the second-floor room, a grad student obsessed with triggering nuclear fission. He related everything De Cari told him to a bomb. Whenever De Cari on stage squinted her eyes and pretended she was looking at the big mushroom-cloud poster on Nelson’s wall, the audience knew who was talking.

“To be, or not to be, a mathematician” – that was the question De Cari found herself trying to answer. There were other women grad students in math at MIT, but they disguised themselves by dressing like the men, in jeans and loose flannel shirts. De Cari embarked on a “fashion experiment,” wearing ultra-feminine mini-skirts, heeled boots -- even a dirndl. The other women complained.

In the end, derailed by her father’s unexpected death, De Cari left MIT in 1988 with only a master’s degree. She took only one job in mathematics, teaching at Harvard –- but it didn’t last. She began to pursue performing instead. Does that mean she proved Summers right?

De Cari’s defection from mathematics does prove the study that found that the higher you go in STEM, the fewer women there are. Moreover, two mathematicians, a man and a woman, just released the results of their major new study examining the math “gender gap” – and found no substance at all to Summers’ position. There is no such thing as a “math gene,” and it doesn’t favor males. To read more about this study, visit www.ams.org/notices. The study itself can be found at www.ams.org/staff/jackson/fea-mertz.pdf.

Gioia De Cari is a female mathematician who is lucky enough to be gifted in both mathematical logic and performing. She discovered she loved performing more, although arguably, the theatrical environment could be just as inhospitable as MIT’s male math maze. MIT and mathematics’ loss is the theater audience’s gain.

To find out more about Gioia De Cari and where she will be performing Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze, visit http://www.unexpectedtheatre.org/

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Mary Brennan is a recent graduate of Clarkstown High School South who is making effective use of a gap year by interning this fall at TalkingScience. Mary loves to learn, to read, and to write.

By Kaitlyn Gerber, Carleton College

Earlier this year,  JCPenny's immediately discontinued a t-shirt from their store that read "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me," while Forever 21 came under heavy criticism for a magnet reading "I'm too pretty to do math." Customers complained that the shirt was sexist and -- more importantly -- that it conveyed the message that girls are not as intelligent as boys. But while these items may cater to a dated stereotype, they inadvertently bring up an important issue in today's society: why is there still a "gender gap" between men and women when it comes to science and technology? Could it really be that, genetically, girls are inferior when it comes to doing math?

A new study says no. Published on December 12 in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, the article presents strong evidence that the gender gap is cultural, not biological. Study authors Jonathan Kane and Janet Mertz argue that, for starters, the gender gap is not universal; in fact, there are many countries, such as Japan and China, where no disparity exists between the performances of men and women. In addition, they tested several hypotheses for the gender gap in math and sciences, including the "greater male variability hypothesis" infamously described by Lawrence Summers, Harvard University's former president, in 2005. The hypothesis proposes that math ability is inherently more variable in males, meaning that there are more men than women who excel brilliantly, but also more who fail miserably.

In order to test this hypothesis, Kane and Mertz calculated the variance ratio or the variability in men's math performance compared with that of women, for 86 of countries around the world. Using test scores from the 2007 Trends for International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Kane and Mertz found that the "variance ratio" was by no means universal. In some countries, the ratios indicated much more variance in boys' performances than in girls', such as in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where the ratios were found to be 1.31 and 1.29, respectively. However, the ratios of several other countries, such as Morocco, Armenia, and Japan, were very close or equal to 1.00, indicating no disparity, and a few of the countries tested showed greater variance in girls' performances' (Tunisia, for example, had a ratio of 0.91, while Indonesia had a ratio of 0.98).

If Summers' hypothesis were true, there would not be such a notable difference in the variance ratios of each country; as a result, Kane and Mertz rejected the greater variance hypothesis as the reason for the gender gap in math and science.  "People have looked at international data sets for many years", said Mertz in a press release. "What has changed is that many more non-Western countries are now participating in these studies, enabling much better cross-cultural analysis."

Kane and Mertz also looked at the hypothesis proposed by Freakonomics author Steven Levitt and Harvard Professor Roland Fryer. In a 2009 paper, Fryer and Levitt originally suggested that the single-sex environments in Muslim countries actually benefit girls' ability to learn math, rather than hampering it. However, when Kane and Mertz examined test scores in some Muslim countries, such as Oman and Bahrain, they found evidence that other factors were at work. "The girls living in some Middle Eastern countries, such as Bahrain and Oman, had, in fact, not scored very well, but their boys had scored even worse, a result found to be unrelated to either Muslim culture or schooling in single-gender classrooms," said Kane. He suggested that because many boys attend religious schools, their curricula often do not provide adequate math instruction. Similarly, test scores among girls may be artificially higher because low-performing girls may drop out before 8th grade, when the TIMSS is administered.

As a result, Kane and Mertz concluded that it was country-specific factors, rather than biological factors, that are responsible for the gender gap. To measure the status of women relative to men in each country, the authors created a gender gap index comparing income, education, health and political participation. On the whole, math achievement tends to be high in countries where overall gender equality is better. Specifically, women's political participation and salary appeared to be the main factor linking higher math scores for both genders.

Marie Curie, a pioneering physicist and chemist, was the first person to be honored with two Nobel Prizes, and remains the only person to win a prize in two different areas.

"We found that boys — as well as girls — tend to do better in math when raised in countries where females have better equality, and that's new and important," says Kane. "It makes sense that when women are well-educated and earn a good income, the math scores of their children of both genders benefit."

However, while women may be just as biologically capable of these abilities, there is no doubt that the gender gap in performance is still prevalent in America. Tests still show that while young children of both genders perform equally on standardized math tests, the disparity between boys and girls increases with age. Among 2007 high school graduates, for instance, boys tended to score higher on both the math portion of the SAT and the Advanced Placement Calculus exam, while fewer girls demonstrated "readiness for college-level coursework in math" on the ACT. Furthermore, a 2005 book by Yu Xie, PhD, and Kimberlee A. Shaumann, PhD, found that while women make up 35 percent of university faculty across the country, they comprise only 20 percent all professors in science and engineering.

Fortunately, these disparities have been slowly closing. In the past half century alone, the percentage of women receiving PhDs in mathematics has risen from 5% to 30%. In addition, among U.S. students who are very gifted in mathematics (scoring over a 700 on the SAT Math before turning 13), the ratio of boys to girls has decreased from 13:1 to 3:1, and is still dropping. The fact that these improvements were even possible suggests that women are not inherently inferior; they simply lacked the cultural support necessary to perform as well in the past. Mertz and Kane recommended measures such as decreasing poverty, increasing gender equality, and increasing the number of math-certified teachers in middle and high schools to improve overall performances in math and science.

"These changes would help give all children an optimal chance to succeed," said Mertz. "This is not a matter of biology: None of our findings suggest that an innate biological difference between the sexes is the primary reason for a gender gap in math performance at any level. Rather, these major international studies strongly suggest that the math-gender gap, where it occurs, is due to sociocultural factors that differ among countries, and that these factors can be changed."

As a young woman hoping for a career in science, I couldn't agree more.

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Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer, ATLAS Spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti and CMS Spokesperson Guido Tonelli present the current results in the search for the Higgs Boson. Image: CERN

The Higgs boson, often referred to as the "God particle", has eluded physicists since its existence was first postulated by Peter Higgs in 1964. The Standard Model predicts that sub-atomic particles gain mass by interacting with the Higgs boson. However, the Higgs boson has never been directly or indirectly observed. That may change in the not too distant future. Yesterday, two research groups, both based at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, presented the latest data from the search for the Higgs boson. They were unable to confirm or deny the existence of the Higgs boson, but they are close to a definitive answer.

The process of creating and detecting the Higgs boson and most other subatomic particles involves massive amounts of energy, space, brain power, and persistence. First, easily obtainable particles, usually protons, are accelerated to speeds very close to the speed of light in a particle accelerator. These massive machines, including the LHC, are several miles long and accelerate particles using voltage fields. When the accelerated particles collide with each other, new particles can be created from the excess energy. The mass of the created particles is related to the total kinetic energy and mass of the initial particles. The products of these collisions, including the Higgs boson, are often unstable and quickly decay into other types of particles. Physicists are able to predict what particles will be created and how they will behave based on the Standard Model.

The two experiments that yielded the data presented yesterday, ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) and CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), are searching for contradictions to the predictions of the Standard Model. If, after a collision, researchers can find increased or decreased concentrations of certain particles, it could be a sign that the Higgs boson was created in the collision and they are observing its products. However, any deviations they might observe would be relatively miniscule compared to everything else occurring in the system. Particle physicists have to run tests thousands of times in order to be certain that what they are observing is not due to chance. By testing different initial energies (which correspond to the mass of the created particles) and confirming the predictions of the Standard Model, these experiments have narrowed down the range of possible masses for the Higgs boson.

The latest results are far from conclusive but they do significantly narrow the range of masses that the Higgs boson could inhabit. Both experiments gave a range of masses that the Higgs boson could possibly have. The ATLAS experiment gave a range of 116-130GeV and the CMS experiment gave a range of 115-127GeV. Their statistical certainties for this range, about 95%, were high, but not nearly high enough to confirm a discovery. In order for a discovery to be made officially, the results must have at least 99.9999% certainty -- or less than a one in a million chance of being a fluke. CERN's press release also revealed that "there are multiple independent measurements pointing to the region of 124 to 126 GeV", but these are little more than hints.

It's possible that after conducting more tests at the 124-126GeV range, the experiments will prove that the anomalies they observed were in fact due to coincidence. When these experiments determine definitively whether or not the Higgs boson exists, physicists will have reason to celebrate regardless of the result. If the Higgs boson does exist, it will confirm the Standard Model. However if the Higgs boson does not exist or interacts with matter in a different way than predicted, physicists will have to find a new way to explain why matter has mass.

While neither experiment can provide data definitively confirming or denying the existence of the Higgs boson yet, LHC physicist Joe Lykken assured Scientific American that "we will have a definitive answer about the Higgs. It’s just a question of when it will happen."

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Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

Child with Cancer (www.healthtalkbuzz.com)

In the United States, in 2007, approximately 10,000 children under the age 15 were diagnosed with cancer and 1,545 died from the disease. Cynthia A. Gerhardt, principal investigator in the Center for Biobehavioral Health at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital conducted a study with colleagues by interviewing 40 families that had lost a child due to cancer. The study, which was published online November 3, 2011 in Cancer Nursing, was designed to follow the way in which siblings and their parents grieved over the death of their family member. The siblings were asked to describe how they had changed since the death. The parents were then asked their opinion on how their son/daughter had changed mentally and physically.

Limited research has been done showing the differences between a child's and a parent's view on how a child reacts to a sibling's death. Additionally, this study was done within a year of the death, whereas most comparable studies have been done many years after.

Most parents answered that their surviving child had experienced changes in relationships and other personal changes in the time since their sibling died. However, the majority of participants in this study noticed that their child had either changed positively or negatively -- but not both. The most common change was greater maturity. Interestingly, the children answered differently than their parents. They said that after their sibling died, they were more compassionate and their life priorities had changed.

The study also showed that surviving siblings appeared to become more motivated after their loss, either because it made them realize that every second of their life is meaningful, or because they wanted to act in memory of their sibling.

Dr. Gerhardt has suggested that parents should have direct communication with their children. As this study showed, each child grieves differently and the views of the parent and the child about how the child is responding to the loss differ.

The study showed that most children confronting the loss of a sibling tend to feel guilty about things they have done in the past. Some children also feel guilty that they survived over their sibling. The researchers recommend that children that have lost a sibling should cope with it by talking to family members, seeking other means of support, forgiving themselves, and finding ways to remember the sibling.

Additionally, since parents are grieving the lost of their child, the survey shows that they sometimes forget how hard of a time their other child is having. The researchers suggest that the best way for the parents to help is to focus their attention on their surviving child because children need extra support in a difficult time like this.

Researchers want to make parents understand that it is natural for positive as well as negative effects to arise from the grieving process. In order to make the best of a terrible situation, families may recognize that some positive changes can occur when a child experiences the loss of a sibling.

For further information on sibling grief:
How to Cope With Losing a Sibling to Cancer
How Losing A Sibling Really Affects You
Dealing With Death

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology and forensics.

The African Lungfish can display primitive but highly improbable walking behavior, as observed by University of Chicago scientists. Photo Credit: Yen-Chyi Liu, University of Chicago

Published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists, a recent paper has the potential to reshuffle evolutionary history. Previously, scientists had believed that the ability to walk had originated in tetrapods, animals with a backbone and four limbs, who were through to be the first land-dwellers. However, the ability of lungfish to "walk" along the bottom suggests that the motions of walking actually occurred underwater, before transitioning to land. As a result, fossil tracks originally attributed to early tetrapods may actually be from the ancestors of the lungfish.

The study originated when Heather King, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, observed strange movements in an African lungfish belonging to Dr. Michael Coates, the study's co-author. "If you just look at the lungfish," said King in an interview with Scientific American, "you would think it was impossible for it to walk. It doesn’t have a sacrum, which was thought necessary for the animal to lift itself off the ground, and it doesn't have anatomical feet." King and her colleagues designed a special tank that monitored the lungfish's every move with video cameras, which revealed that the lungfish commonly use their hind, or pelvic, limbs to elevate themselves and push their bodies forward.

"This is all information we can only get from a living animal," explained King in an interview. "Because if you were just to look at the bones, like you would with a fossil, you might not ever know these motions could occur."

At various points, the lungfish both "bounded," using both pelvic limbs at the same time, and "walked," moving its limbs in alternating motion. Because it can apparently rotate each limb and place each footfall in front of the joint, the motion suggests that some creatures would have been capable of producing some of the fossil tracks that had been attributed to primitive tetrapods. In particular, sets of tracks discovered in early 2010 surprised scientists because they were 395 million years old -- 20 million years older than the earliest tetrapods in the fossil record. If these footprints do, in fact, belong to a common ancestor of both the lungfish and the tetrapods, they may indicate that when the tetrapods appeared, the ability to walk had already evolved.

"It's tempting to attribute alternating impressions to something like the footfalls of an early tetrapod with digits, and yet here we've got good evidence that living lungfish can leave similar sequences of similar gait," Michael Coates, professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, explained in a statement. However, "the fin or limb use thought to be unique to tetrapods is actually more general."

Below is a segment of King's footage, in which the lungfish "walks" forwards with its pelvic limbs.

Video Credit: The University of Chicago
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Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she is an active soccer player and science fan, especially of ecology and astronomy.

This September, the OPERA experiment (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) announced that they had observed a pulse of neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. The difference wasn't large. The neutrinos arrived at the detector in Gran Sasso, Italy about 60ns (60 billionths of a second) faster than a photon in a vacuum would have. The neutrinos appeared to be moving about 1/40,000 times (about 17,500mph) faster than the speed of light.

According to special relativity, particles with mass cannot exceed the speed of light in a vacuum (about 186,000 miles per second). Neutrinos have a small mass even on the atomic scale. The upper limit for their mass is billions of times less than that of a hydrogen atom. If neutrinos can move faster than light, then changes will need to be made to special relativity and the myriad theories that stem from it. There are also a few theories that explain these results without violating special relativity. You can read about them here.

This experiment was not the first to suggest that neutrinos may travel faster than the speed of light. In March of 2007, physicists shot a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab, which lies outside Chicago, at a detector 450 miles away in Minnesota. They found with 99% confidence that the neutrinos were traveling between 0.999976 and 1.000126 times the speed of light. Due to this miniscule uncertainty in their results, they were not able to definitively state whether the neutrinos had exceeded the speed of light.

Due to the consequences these results have on physics as we know it, many in the field are not yet willing to accept them. A paper posted one week after OPERA published their results discredited the data. They argued that a particle moving faster than the speed of light would emit low-energy particles as it traveled through space. In addition to creating new low energy particles, this process would deplete the kinetic energy of the neutrinos. The OPERA experiment tested two levels of neutrino kinetic energy, 17.5 and 28GeV (gigaelectron volts). Upon arriving at the detector, both groups of neutrinos had the same kinetic energies with which they were created. The neutrinos in OPERA's experiment did not leave behind the expected "wake" of low energy particles.

Even the scientists at CERN and LNGS (Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso), who conducted the experiment, were skeptical. When OPERA published their report, they immediately began making preparations to repeat the experiment and invited other high-energy physics labs to do the same. On November 22, the OPERA team published similar results and eliminated a potential source of error. In the initial experiment, the neutrinos were created in bunches over a long period of time (much longer than 60ns). If they had assumed that a neutrino came from the start of the bunch rather than the end, it would increase their estimated speed. In the second experiment, the bunches were created in less than 3ns, which greatly reduced the uncertainty. It is possible that there are other sources of error in OPERA's procedure, apparatus or analysis that are still unaccounted for. Many scientists in the field will only be convinced when another group is able to replicate OPERA's results. They might not have to wait too long. Fermilab plans to have results checking OPERA's data by Spring 2012.

You can download and read OPERA's report here.

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Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

A comparison of an ASL-MRI and a PET Scan (Credit: Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association)

Alzheimer’s is neurological disease of the brain that leads to the loss of neurons and loss of intellectual abilities including memory. As the disease progresses, brain cells start to die and patients experience a decrease in the levels of some vital brain chemicals that link the transmission of messages in the brain. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found a new way of diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, using an MRI technique called ASL (Arterial spin labeling). Before this technique was known, in order to diagnose and monitor the progress Alzheimer's disease, patients had to receive a PET scan, a test that requires exposure to small amounts of radioactive glucose analog.

An ASL-MRI is a non-invasive test that can measure cerebral blood flow and can detect changes in brain function associated with Alzheimer’s disease.  This is similar to the PET scan that measures glucose metabolism in the brain. Both tests compare cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The first step of the MRI is to magnetically label the arterial blood. It labels the protons in water molecules and tracks their flow. This can effectively measure the cerebral blood flow using the water molecules as natural tracers.  During this test, arterial blood is labeled before it enters the brain -- before it flows into the area of interest. The MRI shows the locations into which this labeled blood is flowing. From the images, doctors can determine how much blood in flowing into a specific area. This is also used as a base test to determine the changes in blood flow as the disease progresses. When Alzheimer’s disease is suspected, patients usually receive an MRI initially to look for structural changes that could indicate other medical causes, such as a stroke or a brain tumor.

An ASL-MRI eliminates the need for contrast injections or radioisotopes. Although a PET scan and an ASL-MRI scan generally show the same images, the ASL-MRI is a smarter option since it is non-invasive, has no radiation exposure, is less expensive, and is widely available.

For more information:

An New Label, Radiology Today

ASL MRI Helps Diagnose Alzheimer's Safely, Cheaply, and Accurately, Dementia Weekly

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Mariel is currently a sophomore at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. She loves learning about science and particularly enjoys genetics, cancer research, radiology, and forensics.

As I am living at Coastal Studies for Girls I get a chance to be more involved in the environment. I get the opportunity to enjoy, explore, and study so many different parts of nature. Every day that I walk during Solo, our daily ritual, I see nature at it’s most beautiful. The thought of home, in the city, makes me imagine how the beauty I am seeing could be damaged because of cities and because of human impact in general.

Over the last thirty years, the population of the Adelie penguins in Antarctica has decreased from 32,000 breeding pairs to 11,000. This is the result of human actions in our planet. The changes in our planet became more apparent after the Industrial Revolution. This was when many of our advanced technologies were created. A really important creation that occurred during the industrial age was the invention of cars. This changed our whole way of life. We have come to depend on the very things that are ruining our planet.

The invention of cars was very helpful in society for transportation but not for our environment. The constant use of cars, especially today, means an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide that we are putting into our atmosphere; this is not good for our planet. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which traps heat from the sun. Although carbon dioxide is needed in our planet for warmth (it keeps us from freezing), too much of it is extremely harmful for our environment. The increase in greenhouse gases means our planet is getting too hot.

We depend on so many new technologies that everyday we are consuming so much energy and releasing so many greenhouse gases. Over time, as the population of humans increases, so do our greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. The increase in temperature that we are causing through our profuse consumption is impacting the ocean. Ice is melting and the sea level is rising. This is the cause of the decrease in the population of the penguins, whose habitat is being destroyed. Many other species will also be at risk of extinction if we keep consuming and emitting so much.

Not only does the rise in sea level impact animals, it also impacts humans; the rise of the sea level means the destruction and flooding of our coastal cities.

The melting of ice is a huge issue. Ice is one of the most light-reflective surfaces in our planet but the ocean is not. The ocean is dark and if we melt most of the ice in the ocean, what will be left is black water. Black water absorbs more light, which means that our planet will heat up even more. Global warming impacts many different species. Changes to our planet changes animals' habitats and the way they live. Some species may be able to adjust, but many can’t or won’t.

Being at Coastal Studies for Girls and having the opportunity to gain a new appreciation for nature has made me realize the damage that we humans do to the environment with our mass consumption of energy. I have also realized that I want to be involved in the protection of our environment. I am going to reduce consumption and encourage others to do the same. Hopefully I will be able to contribute to the conservation of the beauty of the earth -- the variety of habitats and the different species living in them.

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Coastal Studies for Girls is the country’s only residential science and leadership semester school for 10th grade girls. CSG is dedicated to girls who have a love for learning and discovery, an adventurous spirit, and a desire to challenge themselves.

Since 1966, the US Army has been providing its troops in the field with Meals Ready to Eat or MREs. MREs are "completely self-contained meals that provide all the nutrition a solider-on-the-go needs to sustain him/herself." As of this year, there are 24 different entrees including options like chili and cheese tortellini. The science that goes into producing these meals is quite impressive.

MREs must be able to withstand parachute drops of 1,250ft and non-parachute drops of nearly 100ft. MREs are designed to stay fresh for years below 81 degrees Fahrenheit and short periods of time at extreme temperatures. They even contain a "flameless ration heater", which releases energy when exposed to water, allowing soldiers to enjoy hot meals. MREs contain drink mixes and other dehydrated foods that are often fortified with nutrients. Unfortunately MREs have earned more than a few nasty nicknames due to their sub-par taste. Among the more clever are Meals Rejected by Everyone and Materials Resembling Edibles.

In response to the criticisms of traditional MREs the US army has released a series of sandwiches that are palatable and stay fresh for up to 2 years. These sandwiches contain ingredients like jam or honey that retain moisture with humectants. Humectants, like sugar in the case of jam, bind water allowing food to retain moisture. Since the moisture is locked away, it is not accessible to bacteria and it won't seep into the bread. These sandwiches are sealed in a package with an oxygen scavenger, a small packet of iron shavings. The iron shavings deplete the oxygen in the package as they rust (and become iron oxide).

The sandwiches have received good reviews as well. Watch this video to see for yourself.

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Zach first discovered his passion for science as a high school student at Trinity School in New York City. He now attends Carleton College, where he plans on majoring in Physics. His interests in science include high energy physics, medicine, and technology.

Artist's conception of Kepler-22b. Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Kepler mission, which seeks to detect and analyze extraterrestrial planets of near-Earth size, has confirmed the existence of a planet that could be suitable for life. With a radius that is 2.4 times that of Earth, Kepler-22b is the smallest confirmed planet in the "habitable" zone, the region around a star where conditions could permit liquid water to form.

Two other planets had previously been identified within habitable zones, but because they were located on the fringes of the regions, they were likely to be too hot or too cold to feasibly sustain life. The stars near which the other planets were spotted are also much cooler than our sun, making them unlikely to support life. Kepler-22b's star is in the same class as our sun, although it is slightly smaller and cooler; as a result, the planet is about 15% closer to its star than we are to our sun.

Modeling also suggests that Kepler-22b may have a similar temperature to Earth's. At its ongoing Kepler Science Conference, Bill Borucki, Kepler Principle Investigator at the NASA Ames Research Center, explained that if Kepler-22b had similar greenhouse warming, its surface temperature "would be something like 72 degrees Fahrenheit, a very pleasant temperature here on Earth." The surface temperature of a planet is extremely important, because an earth-like temperature allows water to remain in a liquid state, increasing the chances that the planet can support life.

Launched in 2009, the Kepler observatory orbits the sun and uses a telescope lens called a photometer to measure the brightness of light. It detects planets through a method known as the transit method, which detects changes in the brightness of stars. When a planet crosses in front of the face of a star, it blocks some of the star's light, causing a minute dip in the star's brightness of about 1/10,000. This dip lasts between two and sixteen hours. Three of these dips, or transits, are needed before Kepler flags the potential extraterrestrial planet. The planet's existence is then verified using large, ground-based telescopes and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to review the observations. Although these dips can sometimes be caused by binary stars rather than planets, a team of researchers, led by Jean-Michel Desert of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, announced at the same conference that the probability of these "false positives" is less than one percent.

The Kepler team also announced that it has discovered an additional 1,094 potential planet candidates. Of these, 207 are near-Earth sized, and 48 are located in the hospitable zone (down from 54 in February, as the team has refined its criteria). At 600 light-years away, Kepler-22b is the first planet to be confirmed in the region.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."

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Kaitlyn Gerber is a sophomore at Carleton College, where she plans to major in biology. Originally from Ridgefield, CT, she likes soccer, reading, and science, especially ecology and astronomy.

This graph shows how a traditional black hole and neutron star bend spacetime.

Graciously, Helen agreed to come visit us as CSG on Wednesday, our night of the week reserved for guest lecturers. After dinner, we eagerly gathered in the dining hall for her talk. Helen led an in-depth presentation about her work and research on black holes and neutron stars, and answered all of our crazy questions extremely intelligently.

She talked about her construction of a model of one type of black hole with a neutron star orbiting around it and she compared it to a similar set up with a different kind of black hole. She explained that neutron stars are stars whose atoms are so condensed that they form one giant, super dense star that essentially just has one nucleus. They are commonly found rotating around black holes, and Helen was working to create computer models showing a black hole neighboring a neutron star. Her model showed how much of an impact a black hole makes on the fabric of space, and we all found it astounding to see how much a black hole literally bends the space-time fabric. She explained how much she liked writing the computer code that creates her theoretical black holes, despite the tedious process of the whole thing.

One of the graphs Helen White discussed, showing how the two black holes are different.

After Helen's presentation, she talked to us about her journey as a woman in science. She'd attended a girls boarding school throughout her high school years and told us that she hadn't expect to end up studying physics. Throughout her talk with us, she was extremely open, friendly, and easy to relate to. Her story made it really easy for each of us to gain confidence in growing and succeeding as fellow women scientists.

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Coastal Studies for Girls is the country’s only residential science and leadership semester school for 10th grade girls. CSG is dedicated to girls who have a love for learning and discovery, an adventurous spirit, and a desire to challenge themselves.