作者： chenchen

我们通过发表论文来表彰学生 STEM 写作比赛的前 10 名获奖者。这是  Yejin (Jenny) Son 的作品。

位于朝鲜和中国边界的白头山，也称为白头山，在 1000 年前爆发，是人类历史上最猛烈的火山爆发之一。

这篇文章由来自韩国松岛查德威克国际学校的 17 岁的 Yejin (Jenny) Son 撰写，是 The Learning Network 第四届年度 STEM 写作比赛的前 10 名获奖者之一，我们收到了 3,000 多份参赛作品。

An Awakening of a Geological Giant: The Next Deadly Eruption of Mount Baekdu

In the summer of 1816, six inches of snow fell in the northeastern United States. People spent Independence Day seeking refuge inside fire-warmed churches. Meanwhile, across Europe, food prices skyrocketed, and riots spread like wildfire throughout city streets. Bakeries and markets went down in flames as people scoured the land for any scrap of food. While in Asia, a disruption of the monsoon contributed to a deadly outbreak of cholera that killed thousands of people. These bizarre events may appear entirely unrelated, but what if a single incident ties them all together?

A year earlier, Mount Tambora, situated in Indonesia, produced the largest volcanic eruption ever recorded. It ejected as much as 50 cubic kilometers of ash and gas into the atmosphere that darkened a million square kilometers of sky and blocked the sun from view. This led to the upheaval of atmospheric circulation patterns, causing what scientists now call the “Year Without Summer” in 1816. Perhaps most alarmingly, scientists state that a similar cataclysmic event could occur once again in the not-too-distant future.

On the border between China and North Korea lies an active volcano called Mount Baekdu, also known as Changbai in China, that undergoes a major eruption every 1,000 years. The last such eruption occurred in 946 when 45 megatons of sulfur dioxide were released into the atmosphere — 1.5 times the amount put out by the Tambora eruption. And as the date suggests, a millennium eruption is now overdue.

Scientists who have been monitoring the status of this sleeping giant detected around 3,000 earthquakes between the years 2002 to 2005; however, since 2006, seismic activity has dramatically decreased — a key signal that a volcanic eruption is imminent. Furthermore, a Russian satellite noticed a remarkable increase in surface temperature around the mountain, while the concentration of hydrogen and helium emissions also rose tenfold in 2006. “Mount Baekdu is almost like the calm before a storm right now,” said Yun Sung-Ho, a professor of earth science education at Busan National University.

The National Institute of Environmental Research of Korea has analyzed the potential power of Mount Baekdu and suggested that the global impact may be as devastating as the Mount Tambora explosion. Volcanic ash and gas could dim the sun, lowering the temperature in East Asia by 2 degrees for two months. Not only can the fallout of volcanic ash leave an indelible imprint on our skin, but it has far-reaching secondary damages on the economy and livelihoods, as witnessed in 1816.

Scientists state that cooperation among the international community is urgently needed to prepare for all possible outcomes. They suggest that an evacuation plan must be developed, and a close monitoring system must continue. In the face of this herculean giant’s unpredictable fury and destructive force, it reminds humans that studying volcanoes is not just a matter of scientific curiosity but a crucial discipline that holds the key to protecting our planet.

Works Cited

D’Arcy Wood, Gillen. “The Volcano That Changed the Course of History.” Slate, 9 April 2014.

Evans, Robert. “Blast From the Past.” Smithsonian Magazine, July 2002.

Jeong-Won, Heo. “North’s Analysts Worry About Paektu Eruption.” Korea JoongAng Daily, 6 June 2019.

Munger, Michael. “1816: ‘The Mighty Operations of Nature’: An Environmental History of the Year Without a Summer.” University of Oregon, 2012.

Oppenheimer, Clive. “Climatic, Environmental and Human Consequences of the Largest Known Historic Eruption: Tambora Volcano (Indonesia) 1815.” Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, June 2003.

Park, Chang-Seok. “Mt. Baekdu Eruption’s Impact on North East Asia (25).” The Korea Times, 3 May 2012.

Park, Dae-gi. “If Mt. Baekdu Erupts, the Temperature in East Asia Will Drop by 2 Degrees.” KBS News, 31 Jan. 2011.

St. Fleur, Nicholas. “Only a Rumbling Volcano Could Make North Korea and the West Play Nice.” The New York Times, 9 Dec. 2016.

Volcano Hazards Program. “Be Ready for the Next Volcanic Event.” U.S. Geological Survey.

Voosen, Paul. “North Korea’s ‘Millennium Eruption’ Flooded the Skies With Sulfur, but Left Little Climate Trace.” Science, 30 Nov. 2016.

Wayman, Erin. “‘Tambora’ Links Volcano to the ‘Year Without a Summer.’” Science News, 13 July 2014.

Witze, Alexandra. “North Korea Lets Scientists Peer Inside Dangerous Volcano.” Nature, April 2016.

我们通过发表论文来表彰学生 STEM 写作比赛的前 10 名获奖者。这是 Siwen Cui 的作品。

冠状病毒大流行凸显了我们嗅觉的重要性

这篇来自康涅狄格州肯特 Kent学校的 Siwen Cui，18 岁的文章是学习网络第四届年度 STEM 写作比赛的前 10 名获奖者之一，我们收到了 3,000 多份参赛作品。

What the Nose Knows: The Underappreciated Olfactory Sense

Which would you rather give up, your sense of smell or your hair? In a survey of about 400 American adults, 37.9 percent of respondents chose to give up their smell. When asked which sense — smell, hearing or vision — they would rather lose, 84.6 percent of the respondents picked smell. These statistics “dramatically illustrate the negligible value people place on their sense of smell,” wrote the authors of this research.

From an evolutionary perspective, olfaction is the oldest sense. It was pivotal for locating food sources, potential mates and predators, all of which assured the survival of early organisms. As urban structures were built as shelters from the harsh environment, the importance of olfaction seemed to diminish, such that we appear justified in considering smell a somewhat dispensable function. Nonetheless, this ancient sense deserves more appreciation.

Our understanding of the sensation and perception of smell was incomplete until the discovery of olfactory receptors in 1991. Now we know that when we take a whiff of fresh-brewed coffee, odor molecules from the coffee travel through our nostrils and bind to olfactory receptors in the nasal cavity, which then fire nerve signals to the olfactory bulb, where the stimulus of coffee’s smell is processed and relayed to the brain. Here is a fascinating fact about olfaction: Unlike vision, hearing, taste or touch, olfactory signals do not travel to the brain’s integration center (the thalamus) but rather take a direct route from the olfactory bulb to the cortex.

What are the implications of this unique neural pathway? Since the thalamus is not involved in olfactory signal transmission, the brain registers certain smells without our conscious awareness. More intriguingly, the olfactory bulb is embedded in the limbic system, which houses the amygdala and hippocampus, responsible for memory formation and emotional information processing. These structural and functional features of the human brain endow the olfactory sense with an extraordinary connection to emotive autobiographical memories.

In 2006, Johan Willander and Maria Larsson, researchers at Stockholm University, tested the evocative power of verbal, visual and olfactory stimuli on 93 elderly volunteers. Their results indicated that “odor-evoked memories were associated with stronger feelings of being brought back in time,” sparking autobiographical memories from the more distant past with more potent emotional effects, wrote Dr. Larsson. The sense of smell vividly connects us with our past and constitutes a unique dimension of the recollections that shape our identities.

The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the profound emotional value of olfaction and the oxymoronic public dismissal of its importance. Anosmia — the loss of olfaction — is a common symptom of Covid-19 infections that can persist after a few weeks or years. Victims of this sensual deprivation reported feeling vulnerable and isolated from both their surroundings and their past. Because olfaction is so frequently considered a minor sense, we often underestimate the gravity of olfactory disorders. It is thus important for us to recognize the serious impairment of mental well-being that anosmia may induce. Let us cherish and appreciate what our noses know.

Works Cited

Angier, Natalie. “The Nose, an Emotional Time Machine.” The New York Times, 5 Aug. 2008.

Coelho, Daniel H., et al. “Quality of Life and Safety Impact of Covid-19 Associated Smell and Taste Disturbances.” American Journal of Otolaryngology, 22 March 2021.

Herz, Rachel S., and Martha R. Bajec. “Your Money or Your Sense of Smell? A Comparative Analysis of the Sensory and Psychological Value of Olfaction.” Brain Sciences, 23 Feb. 2022.

Jarvis, Brooke. “What Can Covid-19 Teach Us About the Mysteries of Smell?” The New York Times Magazine, 28 Jan. 2021.

Sanders, Laura. “Covid-19 Gave New Urgency to the Science of Restoring Smell.” Science News, 29 Aug. 2022.

Walsh, Colleen. “What the Nose Knows.” The Harvard Gazette, 27 Feb. 2020.

Willander, Johan, and Maria Larsson. “Smell Your Way Back to Childhood: Autobiographical Odor Memory.” Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, April 2006.