作者： chenchen

你有没有想过为什么世界不会每次眨眼都变黑？或者说，无能的人怎么会对自己的能力如此自信？或者海洋中的塑料对我们的食物意味着什么？

这些学生有答案。

在我们有史以来的首届STEM写作比赛中，学习网络与《科学新闻》合作，挑战青少年选择一个他们感兴趣的与STEM相关的问题，概念或问题，并以500字或更少的字数向普通观众解释它清晰引人入胜的方式。

我们收到了1，618份参赛作品，涉及医学和心理学，化学和生物学，几何学和天文学等主题。其中，我们的评委，包括《纽约时报》的科学记者和全国各地的科学教育工作者，选出了44名决赛选手——8名获奖者、14名亚军和22名荣誉奖——我们在下面列出了他们。

我们从来都不确定像这样的新比赛会发生什么，但我们希望学生们能以探究和发现的精神来承担这项任务。他们做到了。

我们的一位获奖者告诉我们，在注意到蚁丘主宰着她的后院后，她受到启发，开始研究蚂蚁状微型机器人。另一个人想知道是什么导致了她的许多朋友和家人遭受的睡眠呼吸暂停。一位亚军质疑是什么让辛辣食物如此吸引人，辛辣食物是她墨西哥传统的主食。

为了找到答案，他们搜索了新闻文章和科学期刊，采访了专家，甚至进行了自己的实验。

但是，让我们的获奖者与众不同的不仅仅是他们写了什么或他们用来支持它的证据——而是他们巧妙地解释他们的主题，以便普通观众能够理解它们的方式。毕竟，这是一场写作比赛。凭借引人入胜的钩子、相关的类比、巧妙的隐喻和强烈的声音感，这些作家不仅帮助翻译了复杂的主题;他们还使他们阅读愉快。

但不要相信我们的话。我们将全文发布八篇获奖论文，您可以通过单击下面的作品链接自行阅读。我们希望，像我们一样，你会学到新的东西，并从中获得乐趣。

感谢所有参与的学生，并祝贺我们所有的决赛选手。如果您对本次比赛有任何反馈，请写信给我们 LNFeedback@nytimes.com。

STEM 写作比赛获奖者

按作者姓氏的字母顺序排列。

获奖评论

Tiny in Size, but Goliath in Force: The Colonization of Ant-Based Microrobotics

Imagine climbing a skyscraper — but while lugging an elephant. Or with a team of five others, lifting the weight of the Eiffel Tower and three Statues of Liberty. As Sisyphean as this sounds, functional equivalents of these incredible feats have already been accomplished by ant-inspired microrobots. And these examples are only the tip of the anthill.

As the ants keep marching on, dominating as a massive superorganism that has colonized nearly every landmass on Earth, researchers are increasingly turning toward ants as inspiration for biomimicry-based robots. An army of ants boasts the ideal physical anatomy and biological organization for transforming the capabilities of microrobots in the real world — from leading in search-and-rescue missions, to mapping previously unexplored terrain on earth and in space.

At the base level, simple math and physics govern the tremendous strength of the individual ant. From the square-cube law, ants have an optimum ratio between surface area and volume: analogous to the ratio between strength and mass. This allows ants to exert more force per milligram of weight. The physiology of ants are another asset to explore. Researchers at Ohio State University reported on the astonishing power of an ant’s neck joint in the Journal of Biomechanics in 2014. By measuring how much centrifugal force was required to separate the ant’s body from its head (the same force you feel on “rotor rides” at the carnival — minus the decapitation, of course), they discovered that the joint could support 3,400 to 5,000 times the body weight of the ant!

But their biological and social coordination is what really sets ants apart. Not only are ants able to pool their strength into a collective unit, but they also practice decentralized communication through chemical signals called pheromones. This protean system functions similarly to a chain of ripples in water, and it effectively allows for cohesive teamwork even across wide distances.

When a combination of these abilities is applied to swarm robotics, the results are impressive. MicroTug robots created at Stanford University are one example. They made headlines when a team of six — weighing just 3.5 ounces together — pulled a car weighing 3,900 pounds. Synchronizing the bots’ movements so that each used three of their six legs, much like how ants cooperate in real life, made this act possible. Tribots, an invention of Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Osaka University, are another instance. Based on trap-jaw ants, division of labor and leadership is a core component of Tribots. So, if one robot fails, the system of “fault tolerance” means that the success of the mission won’t be adversely affected. Both MicroTug and Tribot robots hold immense potential in emergency relief and exploration and navigation missions.

“Just like insects, small robots can be powerful,” says Jamie Paik, lead researcher at EPFL, echoing a growing sentiment among the research world. And given the breadth of ant abilities still untapped by microrobots, it won’t be long before there are more queen robots in the field.

Works Cited

Akpan, Nsikan. “How Do Ants Synchronize to Move Really Big Stuff?” PBS NewsHour, 28 July 2015.

“Ant Factoids.” Arizona State University.

Gorder, Pam Frost. “Study of Ants’ Remarkable Strength May Lead to Powerful Micro-Sized Robots.” The Ohio State University, 13 Feb. 2014.

Gordon, Deborah M. “Local Links Run the World.” Aeon, 1 Feb. 2018.

Hernandez, Daisy. “Robotic Ants Function Just Like Real Ones.” Popular Mechanics, 15 July 2019.

Johnson, George. “Of Mice and Elephants: A Matter of Scale.” 12 Jan. 1999.

Koenig, Sven. “Tutorial on Ant Robotics.” Sven Koenig.

Markoff, John. “Modeled After Ants, Teams of Tiny Robots Can Move 2-Ton Car.” The New York Times, 13 March 2016.

“Microtugs.” Stanford Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab, 28 April 2016.

Stevens, Allison Pearce. “Tiny Microrobots Team up and Move Full-Size Car.” ScienceNews for Students, 19 April 2016.

In the Blink of an Eye

Imagine walking into a theater to watch a movie. While it is playing, the screen goes blank every ten seconds. Wouldn’t it ruin the movie? Humans blink about six times per minute, a blink every 10 seconds. Why do we not notice the world going black every time our eyelids close?

Blinking, also known as the cornea reflex, is our brains’ automatic response when anything comes too near our eyes that could potentially be damaging. Our eyelids have tear film, made from fluids and oils, on them. Blinking spreads those over the outer eye, cleaning and moisturizing it. This is essential, or the eyes will dry out. In fact, it is so important that for patients with nerve damage that prevents them from closing their eyelids, doctors are sewing small gold weights into their eyelids so they will close easier to lubricate the eye. The question still remains, though. Why don’t we notice that the world is going black for about 400 milliseconds, the average blinking time?

Before we blink, we signal to our brain that we are about to blink. Our brains take a “picture” of what we are seeing now, and save it in our brain. We hold that picture for the milliseconds that our eyes are closed, so when we open our eyes again, it seems that nothing has changed. This is why our vision is so seamless; we still have a picture in the mind of what we are looking at. When we blink, our eyeballs roll backward and may not get back to their original positions when our eyes open again. The brain compares the “pictures” of before the blink and after the blink, and forces our eye muscles to fill in the gaps.

A study was done by the Nanyang Technology University in Singapore in a dark room with a dot on a screen. Cameras tracked their blinks, so that every time they blinked, the dot moved one centimeter. Participants didn’t notice the movement, as their brains immediately readjusted to the dot. After about 30 of these dot movements, researchers noticed that the participants’ eyes immediately shifted as they blinked, to anticipate where their brain expected the dot to be. This caused the participants to not even be aware that they blinked, because when their eyes reopened, their eye muscles immediately knew what had changed and filled in for the lost time.

Understanding how the brain works together with the eyes to make up for changes outside the body during a blink is important, because it could help scientists find ways for the brain to make up for other changes inside or outside the brain. For example, if an eye were injured, they now know how the brain can make up for lost vision. Gerrit Maus, an assistant professor of psychology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said, “These findings add to our understanding of how the brain constantly adapts to changes, commanding our muscles to correct for errors in our bodies’ own hardware.”

Works Cited

Laliberte, Marissa. “Ever Wondered Why Things Don’t Get Darker When We Blink?” The Healthy, 9 Feb. 2017.

“Science Watch: Repairing the Blink.” The New York Times, 7 Aug. 1990.

Stern, John. “Why Do We Blink?” NBC News, 25 Feb. 1999.

Stromberg, Joseph. “Why Do We Blink So Frequently?” Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Dec. 2012.

“Why the Lights Don’t Dim When We Blink.” ScienceDaily, 19 Jan. 2017.

A New Cancer Treatment That Is Faster, More Efficient and Less Risky Is Coming: Bacteria Bombs

Bacteria are usually thought of as microscopic, disease-causing nuisances. They have long been seen as something that needs to be washed away with soap and warm water, or killed en masse with hand sanitizer. But what if these stigmatized organisms could be used to fight cancer, the stubborn killer devastating millions of people? Scientists at the University of California, led by Jeff Hasty, are working to genetically engineer bacteria that will infiltrate tumors and kill them. Combined with conventional treatment such as chemotherapy, researchers are hoping bacteria will be very effective at killing tumors and, further, stopping them from spreading. If proven safe and effective, this bacterial treatment could provide a vital victory in the war against cancer.

The immune system regularly patrols the body to find and destroy cancerous cells, but tumors can disguise themselves as normal cells by releasing a protein that tells the body to leave the tumor alone. And so, the tumor hides in plain sight, invading the healthy tissue around it. Tumors use blood vessels that branch all over the surface of the tumor to steal resources. Chemotherapy delivers cancer killing drugs to the bloodstream, but these drugs can only reach as far as the blood vessels reach, and most of the tumor’s blood vessels do not get to the center of the tumor.

This is where the bacteria, specifically salmonella, can come to the rescue. The scientists at the University of California have changed the DNA of bacteria to seek out these tumors, and populate them without invading the rest of the body. The bacteria settle in and start to replicate. But, like little bombs, they soon explode and release “a toxic cocktail” in the words of Dr. Sally Adee. The cocktail contains “three types of cancer-killing drugs: one that destroys cell walls, one that alerts the body’s immune system, and one that triggers cells to die” according to Dr. Adee. This allows the bacteria to attack the tumor directly in a localized way to keep the damage away from other healthy cells. Importantly, it also alerts the immune system to begin its offensive by destroying the tumor’s immunosuppressive proteins. In his Nature Reviews Cancer article, “Engineering the Perfect (Bacterial) Cancer Therapy,” the University of Massachusetts professor Neil Forbes said, “the immune system plays a complicated role in bacteriolytic therapy; it provides a mechanism to guide bacterial accumulation, but also impedes dispersion and efficacy.” Thus the body and these bacteria form a surprising team in their war against cancer.

Of course, this treatment has risks. The main danger is that the bacteria will become the enemy and infect the person. To prevent this, researchers have modified the bacteria to not only thrive in the environment of a tumor, but also to struggle to survive in healthy tissue. This is a revolution in the way people have thought about cancer treatment. Bacteria may soon join the list of unlikely allies in the fight against cancer, joining the ranks of debilitating chemicals and harmful radiation.

Works Cited

Adee, Sally. “Self-Destructing Bacteria Are Engineered to Kill Cancer Cells.” New Scientist, 20 July 2016.

Forbes, Neil S. “Engineering the Perfect (Bacterial) Cancer Therapy.” Nature Reviews Cancer, 14 Oct. 2010.

Williams, Thomas. “New Cancer Treatment? Scientists Have Programmed Bacteria to Kill Cancer Cells in Mice.” The Conversation, 21 July 2016.

Zimmer, Carl. “New Weapons Against Cancer: Millions of Bacteria Programmed to Kill.” The New York Times, 3 July 2019.