从左上角顺时针方向：“活着：不朽的水母如何欺骗死亡”;“颜色与大脑：我们都只是调色板的木偶吗？“从敌人到朋友：我的杀手止痛药”;“美味的罗非鱼：你的下一个绷带？和“干鼻Covid-19疫苗：无痛和无针的替代品”
想象一个我们可以将致癌烟草转化为可再生能源的世界;针头几乎无痛;我们可以重新利用自己的细胞来逆转退行性疾病;以及我们可以使用激光发现埋藏的古代世界的地方。
这听起来像科幻小说的内容，但这些只是青少年为我们的第三届年度STEM写作比赛研究和撰写的一些创新和科学可能性。
我们与《科学新闻》的合作伙伴一起，邀请学生选择科学、技术、工程、数学或健康方面的一个问题或问题，并在 500 字以内进行解释。有些人解决了他们在自己生活中观察到的问题，比如麦齐耀，他在接受手术后想知道什么可以帮助伤口更快地愈合。（一个答案？罗非鱼皮。其他人对周围的世界感到好奇。海伦·罗奇（Helen Roche）想了解颜色如何影响大脑——她甚至在家里的不同颜色的房间里写了一篇文章来找出答案。（“紫色是迄今为止最好的，橙色是迄今为止最差的。还有一些人承担了重大的全球性问题，比如艾米丽·邢（Emily Xing），她想找到解决吸烟的方法（她的祖国中国是世界领先的烟草消费国），最终也找到了应对气候变化的解决方案。
从 3，564 个参赛作品中，我们选出了 8 个获奖者、16 个亚军和 33 个荣誉奖。这些文章不仅向我们介绍了一个有趣的科学或数学概念，而且以一种外行人可以理解的方式进行，并且阅读起来很吸引人。您可以通过以下链接完整阅读八篇获奖文章。
艾米丽告诉我们，写文章帮助她“想象一个人们不怕尝试疯狂想法和承担创造性风险的社会——一个牵强附会的创新可以帮助编织更美好的明天和解决全球问题的地方。我们希望，像我们一样，你能从这些文章中学到一些新的东西，并为这些年轻人描绘的充满希望的未来感到振奋。
恭喜我们的获奖者，感谢所有送作业的老师和学生，以及许多自愿帮助我们选择的具有STEM背景的评委。
STEM 写作比赛获奖者
按作者姓氏的字母顺序排列。
获奖论文
Varun Fuloria, age 15, The Harker School, San Jose, Calif.: “Stayin’ Alive: How the Immortal Jellyfish Cheats Death”
Amy Ge, age 15, The Governor’s Academy, Byfield, Mass.: “Dry Nasal Covid-19 Vaccines: A Pain- and Needle-Free Alternative”
Rahul Koppisetti, age 16, Livingston High School, Livingston, N.J.: “Maggots: A Revolting Medical Rebirth”
Helen Roche, age 17, Lakewood High School, Lakewood, Ohio: “Color and the Brain: Are We All Simply Puppets of the Color Palette?”
Pyncha Soottreenart, age 17, Bangkok International Preparatory and Secondary School, Bangkok: “From Foe to Friend: The Mosquito’s Painkiller”
Emily Xing, age 16, Centennial High School, Ellicott City, Md.: “From Addiction to … Aviation? Tobacco, an Unexpected Fuel for the Future”
Qi Yao Mak, age 15, Shanghai High School International Division, Shanghai: “Tasty Tilapia: Your Next Bandage?”
Anya Zhang, age 17, Dublin Jerome High School, Dublin, Ohio: “From Car Sensors to Archeological Maps, Laser Technology Proves a Bright Idea”
Runners-Up
Rysa Antonette Ang, age 16, Philippine Science High School, Quezon City, Philippines: “The Tale of the Modern-Day Sirens”
Minjae Baek, age 17, Korea International School, Jeju, Korea: “Adsorption-Based Separation: A Step Closer to Combating Climate Change”
Sabrina Bauche Roberta Córdova, age 16, La Salle, Cancún, Mexico: “Extraterrestrial Plants: The Future of Sustainability in Space”
Anne Christiono, age 15, William P. Clements High School, Sugar Land, Texas: “Cursing to Cope With Pain and Stress: An Evolutionary Explanation”
Youyi Ding, age 15, Westmont High School, Campbell, Calif.: “Wordle Spelling our ABCs: The Science Behind Wordle”
Crystal Fu, age 16, William B. Travis High School, Richmond, Texas: “The Condition That CHEW’ve Never Heard Of”
Robert Gao, age 15, University Laboratory High School, Urbana, Ill.: “Cutting-Edge Magic: How CRISPR and Cas9 Redefine the Impossible”
Bryan Deidrick Kho, age 16, St. Louis 1 Catholic Senior High School, Surabaya, Indonesia: “Inner Speech: Conscience or Crazy?”
Dohyun Kim, age 17, Seoul Foreign School, Seoul: “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: Where Brain Meets Brawn”
Audrey Kuo, age 16, The Academy for Mathematics, Science and Engineering, Rockaway, N.J.: “Songbirds and Synapses: How Music Facilitates Neurogenesis and Fights Alzheimer’s”
Malissa Li, age 11, Mason Intermediate School, Mason, Ohio: “Lessons Learned From Laziness: How Bears Beat Muscle Stiffness”
Stephanie Qian, age 12, Suncrest Elementary School, Burnaby, British Columbia: “Human Decomposition: From Human Corpses to Garden Soil”
Caroline Pettigrew, age 15, Bellaire High School, Houston: “Smart Shirt: The Fashion of the Future”
Grace Sun, age 16, The Bishop’s School, San Diego, Calif.: “Music of the Heart”
Hongning Wang, age 15, Eastlake High School, Sammamish, Wash.: “Meet AlphaFold, the Artificial Intelligence Unfolding Biochemistry”
Yu Xiao, age 14, North Allegheny Intermediate High School, Pittsburgh: “Can the ‘Magic Drug’ Metformin Significantly Increase Your Lifespan?”
Honorable Mentions
Julia Banuelos, age 16, Piedmont High School, Piedmont, Calif.: “Understanding the Psychology and Neuroscience of Implicit Bias”
Weihan Chen, age 14, Valley Forge Middle School, Wayne, Pa.: “How Running Helps the Human Brain Stay on Track”
Joshua Diao, age 17, Mission San Jose High School, Fremont, Calif.: “The Hermit Thrush: A Singer’s Closest Relative”
Ella Evans, age 14, Bellaire High School, Houston: “How a ‘Poop-Pill’ Can Remedy a Peanut Allergy”
Angel Gupta, age 16, Wilton High School, Wilton, Conn.: “Tan, Sunburn or None of the Above: The Underrated Truth Behind Our Skin Color”
Alice Guo, age 17, Westford Academy, Westford, Mass.: “Revenge Is a Dish Best Served … Through Procrastination?”
Myungjae Han, age 17, Kellett School, Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong: “Xenotransplantation: Pigs, Frankenstein and the Future of Medicine”
Amelia Joseph, age 15, Indus International School, Bangalore, India: “Losing the Genetic Lottery: The Blue People of Kentucky”
Saahil Joshi, age 17, Crystal Springs Uplands School, Hillsborough, Calif.: “Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth: The Science and Future of Drug-Drug Interactions”
Micah: “Salt: The Sapid and Sophisticated Seasoning”
Katherine Kricorian, age 17, Santa Susana High School, Simi Valley, Calif.: “From Algae to Energy: A Blooming Solution to Pollution”
Chloe Lee, age 14, Korea International School Pangyo Campus, Gyeonggi-do, Korea: “Do Plants Have Feelings?”
Seungjae (Andy) Lee, age 13, Hong Kong International School, Tai Tam, Hong Kong: “Keeping Your Pet Friend Forever: Is Cloning a Soul Possible?”
Zhuocheng Li, age 16, Green Hope High School, Cary, N.C.: “The Blood That Saved Countless Lives”
Andrew C. Lin, age 12, Visions in Education Homeschool Academy, Carmichael, Calif.: “Breaking the Speech Barrier”
Andy Lu, age 16, Desert Vista High School, Phoenix: “Hypersonic Flight: Can We Go Faster?”
Camille: “Sugar and the Body: A Bittersweet Relationship”
Natalia Meza, age 17, American School of Madrid, Madrid: “What Happens in Vagus, Stays in Vagus?”
Aman Mistry, age 17, Smithtown High School, East Saint James, N.Y.: “Helping a Blind Man See: The Miracle of Optogenetics”
Dalli (Diane) Nam, age 14, The Madeira School, McLean, Va.: “Could Genetically-Engineered Pigs Save Human Lives?”
Khew Pearlvei and Tan Hui Shi, ages 16, Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary), Singapore: “The Ickiest Big Business: Human Waste to Fuel”
Megan Rowe, age 15, The Potomac School, McLean, Va.: “Lighting Up the Way: How Bioluminescence Helps Us Survive”
Suyeon Ryu, age 15, Stuyvesant High School, New York, N.Y.: “The Role Racial Classification Lies in Science”
Brent Shi, age 14, Atlanta International School, Atlanta: “It’s the Yeast We Can Do: A Fungus Prompting Big Discoveries in Space Travel”
Betty Shiqing Lu, age 16, United World College, Changshu, China: “An Unexpected Burst of Energy: Supercapacitors Made From the Glossy-Leaved Paper Plant”
Jenny Tang, age 17, duPont Manual High School, Louisville, Ky.: “A Lending (Augmented) Hand: How Virtual Reality Redefines the Surgical World”
Rishi Vridhachalam, age 16, Portola High School, Irvine, Calif.: “Shrouded in Slime, an Ancient Sea Sounds the Siren”
Priya Venkatesan, age 17, Walton High School, Marietta, Ga.: “Elephants: Colossal, Resilient and the Key to Curing Cancer”
Lucia Wang, age 17, Staples High School, Westport, Conn.: “Crumbling Paintings, Swelling Crystals and Menacing Monsoons: Climate Change’s Erasure of Humanity’s Oldest Art”
Guanhua Wen, age 15, Sage Hill School, Newport Coast, Calif.: “Nature’s Murder Mystery: The Bloodfall in Antarctica”
Angela Yang, age 14, Granada Hills Charter High School, Los Angeles: “A Dance Party on the Spinal Cord: The New Cure for Paralysis”
Serena Yue, age 12, Basis International School, Shenzhen, China: “The Musical Power of Healing: Reducing Epileptic Seizures”
Zhishuo Zhu age 17, Hangzhou Foreign Language School, Hangzhou, China: “Artificial Intelligence: Becoming Human”
感谢竞赛评委
From the Society for Science Community: Victoria Bampoh, David Bray, Jennifer Donnelly, Phebe Martinez Fuentes, Terianne Hall, Lori Herbsman, Meghan Hess, Kehakashan Khan, Jefferson Marshall, Amanda Nix, Dawn Parker, Shannon Payne, Breann Ross, Amy Telford, Yesenia Torrescolon, Peggy Veatch, Laura Wilbanks, Jieun Yoo
From The New York Times Science-Journalism Community: David Brown, Cara Giamo, Shannon Stirone
From The Learning Network Community: Kathryn Curto, Jeremy Engle, Caroline Gilpin, Michael Gonchar, Annissa Hambouz, Simon Levien, Keith Meatto, Natalie Proulx, Vanessa Vieux, Sonya Wisdom