标签： STEM Writing Contest

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.

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 Logan Ramanathan 的作品。

一台 3-D 生物打印机用悬浮的人体细胞挤出“生物墨水”，以创建三层组织结构。

这篇来自加利福尼亚州洛斯阿尔托斯山 Nueva 学校的 17 岁的洛根·拉马纳坦 (Logan Ramanathan) 撰写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。

3-D Bioprinting: A Modern Day Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus, the god of fire, was tasked with creating the human — to shape the human body and its organs from mud. Now, through science, a version of Prometheus’s feat may be becoming a reality.

Fourteen hours after entering into surgery, 10-year-old Luke Massella awoke in Boston Children’s Hospital. Luke was born with a condition called spina bifida, a spinal disease that can cause wide-ranging health complications. By 10 years old, he had undergone over a dozen surgeries, and in 2001, a malfunctioning bladder led to kidney failure. Luke needed a new bladder; however, traditionally, this was not possible. Previously, bladder failure meant living with either an ostomy bag that collects urine outside the body or an internal pouch drained with a tube. Additionally, without a healthy bladder, Luke’s kidneys would never be able to heal.

“I was kind of facing the possibility I might have to do dialysis [blood purification via machine] for the rest of my life,” Luke said. “I wouldn’t be able to play sports, and have the normal kid life with my brother.” Dr. Anthony Atala, a pioneering pediatric urologist, had other ideas.

Using specialized 3-D printers and a small piece of Luke’s bladder, Dr. Atala’s team, over two months, was able to grow Luke a new bladder. The transplant surgery was an overwhelming success. To this day, Luke lives without complication; the first-ever case of a 3-D-printed organ transplant. By 2018, nine other patients had received similarly printed organ transplants.

Bioprinters work similarly to traditional 3-D printers; however, instead of depositing layers of plastic, they deliver layers of biomaterial which includes living cells. These living cells are grown from seed cells taken from the patient and cultivated to form a bioink. The printers follow instructions from detailed computer models of organs or other tissues that are often made specifically for a given patient. Thus, through the use of an MRI scan and harvested cells, printers can make a custom organ, providing a perfect match.

In the past decade, the bioprinting industry has rapidly developed to work on even more complicated tissues and organs. A team at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, for example, recently achieved a breakthrough in the printing of human blood vessels.

According to Jennifer Lewis, a professor at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, in less than a decade, almost all organs could be printed, eliminating the need for transplant donors. With 17 Americans dying every day while waiting for organ transplants, bioprinting could become hugely impactful. Through new technology, hundreds of thousands of people would be able to receive lifesaving transplants which would have been otherwise impossible.

Through bioprinting, science is bringing mythology to life. This time, though, instead of titans shaping elements of the human body from mud, researchers and doctors are printing organs using high-tech equipment, ushering us into a healthier future.

Works Cited

Belton, Padraig. “A New Bladder Made From My Cells Gave Me My Life Back.” BBC News, 11 Sept. 2018.

Cartwright, Mark. “Prometheus.” World History Encyclopedia.

Fountain, Henry. “At the Printer, Living Tissue.” The New York Times, 11 Aug. 2013.

Khademhosseini, Ali. “3-D. Technology: Building a Better Blood Vessel Video and Transcript.” Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Lord, Brian. “Bladder Grown From 3-D. Bioprinted Tissue Continued to Function After 14 Years.” 3D Printing Industry, 12 Sept. 2018.

Rabin, Roni Caryn. “Doctors Transplant Ear of Human Cells, Made by 3-D Printer.” The New York Times, 2 June 2022.

Rogers, Kristen. “When We’ll Be Able to 3-D-Print Organs and Who Will Be Able to Afford Them.” CNN, 10 March 2023.

Rosen, Ellen. “A Possible Weapon Against the Pandemic: Printing Human Tissue.” The New York Times, 27 July 2020.

Tang, Jenny. “Organ Regeneration With 3-D Printing, and Future Applications.” Imperial Bioscience Review, 28 Jan. 2022.

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  Leah Li 的作品。

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 Justin Wang 的作品。

科学家们发现，一种用作鱼饵的毛虫可能是分解塑料的关键。

加利福尼亚州  Alhambra 高中 16 岁的Justin Wang撰写的这篇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。

Nature’s Solution to Plastic Pollution: The Amazing Power of the Wax Worm

Scientists hold their breath as they slowly cut open the belly of the world’s largest animal, the whale. What tumbles out is horrifying: thousands of pieces of plastic weighing a staggering 220 pounds. In the winter of 2019, a young sperm whale was found dead on Luskentyre Beach in Scotland. Scientists concluded that a combination of nylon fishing nets and plastic bags clogged up the digestive system and starved the poor whale to death. Heartbreaking scenes like these, not uncommon in recent years, are a direct result of our human carelessness.

Efforts have been made to reduce plastic waste through reusing and recycling, but they are not nearly enough. Luckily, a recent discovery has brought some relief to both scientists and environmentalists.

Meet Dr. Federica Bertocchini, a Spanish biologist doubling as an amateur beekeeper. While cleaning out her hives, she noticed hive-damaging worms eating the beeswax and started to remove them. After tossing the worms into a plastic bag, she spotted small holes in it. Dr. Bertocchini examined the holes, and realized that the worms were feasting away at the plastic! Her biologist instincts kicked in, spurring her to bring the worms into a lab.

The Galleria mellonella larvae, also known as the “wax worm,” can seemingly “eat” polyethylene, one of the longest-lasting plastics that is very simple to make but hard to break down. Subsequent tests revealed the capability of these worms to chemically dissolve plastic at an unprecedented rate. What gives this worm such an ability? It turns out that beeswax and plastic are both composed of long chains of carbon, which allows phenol oxidase enzymes in worm saliva to oxidize and destroy these polymers. But the worms don’t care about this technical jargon — to them, it’s just another tasty treat.

Instead of raising millions of baby worms and letting them wander leisurely through plastic paradise, a more practical solution would be to harvest and replicate these enzymes for plastic degradation. As the team’s discovery gathers attention, Dr. Bertocchini suggests that water-based enzyme solutions could be implemented by waste processing plants or at-home plastic waste kits, establishing a wider distribution of this game-changing technology. With the participation of families all around the world, a trickle can become a torrent. What’s left would only be natural components, such as ketones or alcohol, deemed safe for release or reuse in other processes.

Although using wax worm saliva to dissolve plastic might not be a widespread solution for decades to come, it shines a light on sustainable ways to reduce waste. Bio-recycling, which uses nature to make resources from waste, has gained recognition as more people realize the efficiency of these methods. These little worms seem to be acting as messengers, reminding us to live in harmony with nature.

Works Cited

Bromwich, Jonah Engel. “A Very Hungry Caterpillar Eats Plastic Bags, Researchers Say.” The New York Times, 27 April 2017.

Diaz, Johnny. “Dead Whale, 220 Pounds of Debris Inside, Is a ‘Grim Reminder’ of Ocean Trash.” The New York Times, 2 Dec. 2019.

McGrath, Matt. “‘Humble’ Worm Saliva Can Break Down Tough Plastic.” BBC News, 5 Oct. 2022.

Sanluis-Verdes, A., et al. “Wax Worm Saliva and the Enzymes Therein Are the Key to Polyethylene Degradation by Galleria mellonella.” Nature Communications, 4 Oct. 2022.

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  Judah Spiegel 的作品。

加利福尼亚州 Albany Albany 高中 14 岁的犹大·斯皮格尔 (Judah Spiegel) 撰写的这篇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。

Computing Creativity: Can A.I. Produce Art?

In 1992, Edward de Bono argued that “creativity is the most important human resource of all.” But might computers have the capacity to be creative? Could artificial intelligence surpass us in even the most human of phenomena? These questions have moved to the forefront of society with the launch of ChatGPT and DALL-E, two powerful deep learning models capable of creating art, albeit heavily based on existing ideas.

The source of human creativity is a complex and heavily-debated topic. One theory supposes that creativity emerges from solving problems in new ways. The game designer Mark Rosewater explains that “if you use the same neural pathways, you get to the same answers, and with creativity, that’s not your goal.” But studies from the University of Virginia suggest humans most default to solving problems by building on known solutions, restricting originality.

Some neuroscientists propose another theory regarding creativity. Research from the University of Calgary reveals that when being creative, humans don’t use the same brain regions associated with thought and problem-solving, implying that creativity is primarily an unconscious process. According to this theory, the brain solves problems best when not directly focusing on them using the frontal lobe, instead letting the other parts of the brain take over.

A.I. cannot currently emulate the full complexity of the human mind. Do these deep learning networks even have the required components that we use when we are creative? Douglas Hofstadter, in his award-winning book “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid,” explains how “emergent phenomena,” such as creativity, correspond to connections between levels within mental systems. Similar connections could exist in artificial neural networks, even if the underlying mechanics differ. For example, modern artificial intelligence employs attention circuits that may cause it to behave similarly to the frontal lobe where most of the brain’s focusing tendencies come from.

The emergent nature of creativity opens the door for similar tendencies in machines, but they are tuned so carefully to replicate existing ideas that it may not be enough for true originality. Mr. Rosewater’s theory on creativity suggests that for A.I. to be creative, it should be able to solve problems in new ways, which is difficult because A.I. is based so heavily on already existing ideas. Alternatively, if creativity is an unconscious process as the University of Calgary research suggests, then it occurs mostly outside the frontal lobe and may not exist in machine learning networks. Either way, current A.I. probably lacks the capacity for genuine creativity and originality, but it can combine existing ideas in interesting ways. Is this true creativity? Maybe not, but it is close.

The question of machine creativity has repercussions in many areas, such as developing copyright law regarding A.I. works, considering A.I. submissions in art contests, and determining the use of ChatGPT as a tool for school assignments. Creativity may be, at least for now, an exclusively human trait. Computers are not yet starting revolutionary artistic movements, but they are already combining what exists into something new, challenging us to look deeper into our own creativity.

Works Cited

Cho, Kyunghyun, et al. “Describing Multimedia Content Using Attention-Based Encoder-Decoder Networks.” IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Nov. 2015.

Hofstadter, Douglas R. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books, 1999.

Kwon, Diana. “Our Brain Typically Overlooks This Brilliant Problem-Solving Strategy.” Scientific American, 7 April 2021.

O’Connor, Ryan. “How DALL-E 2 Actually Works.” Assembly AI, 19 April 2022.

Rosewater, Mark. “Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons.” Magic the Gathering, 30 May 2016.

Stevens, Alison Pearce. “Study Is First to Link Brainwaves to Certain Forms of Thought.” Science News Explores, 8 March 2021.

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  Erica Frischauf 的作品。

这篇来自俄亥俄州莱克伍德莱克伍德高中的 16 岁的埃里卡·弗里肖夫 (Erica Frischauf) 撰写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。

Hearing Colors and Tasting Sounds: What Is Synesthesia?

We’re all well aware of how we use our senses on a daily basis: We might hear a dog barking, or taste a crisp apple. But what if hearing that dog barking also caused you to see the color blue? Or tasting that apple caused you to hear a subtle G sharp? This could be an everyday occurrence for someone with synesthesia.

Synesthesia is a complex brain condition that involves a mixing of the senses. When one sense is stimulated for a person with synesthesia (known as a “synesthete”) another sense may react. There are many different forms and types of this. Chromesthesia (the association of sounds with colors) and grapheme-color synesthesia (the association of letters, numbers, words and symbols with colors) are the most common, but there seems to be an almost endless number of variations.

For a while, it was thought that synesthesia was just a product of overactive imaginations, but recent studies have shown significant differences in the ways the synesthete brain operates compared to a “normal” one. Each one of our senses is connected to a specific part of the brain. By using magnetic resonance imaging, scientists were able to show that synesthetes with chromesthesia had large amounts of activity in the visual parts of their brain when receiving auditory stimuli — activity that was absent from non-synesthetes undergoing the same treatment. Synesthetes have also been found to have higher levels of white matter, which is responsible for communication between different parts of the brain.

So why is this? What causes some people to taste bananas when listening to classical music? The answer may lie within their genetic code. Nearly half of all synesthetes have reported that a close relative also shares the same condition, suggesting that it might be a genetic trait. One of the leading theories is that synesthesia is a result of a mutated “pruning” gene. As we develop, some of the unnecessary connections within our brains get “pruned” away. But a mutation in this process could leave some of these connections untouched, resulting in a cross-wiring of the brain.

One of the more recent focuses of research on synesthesia, though, has been how it may benefit those with the condition. Multiple studies have concluded that synesthetes have exceptional memories. Research has found that synesthetes may have subtly enhanced senses: Those with color-related variations are better at differentiating between similar colors, and those with touch-related variations have a more sensitive sense of touch. Furthermore, synesthesia seems to be more common in artists and poets, suggesting that it may enhance creativity too.

Looking toward the future, synesthesia may be helpful in curing diseases involved with our brains’ networking systems and aiding those experiencing cognitive decline. It’s already been shown that synesthesia can be induced through drug use, sensory deprivation and hypnosis. Further research into this could provide ways for us to strengthen deteriorating connections within the brain and improve failing memories. Synesthesia is opening the door for all kinds of neural discoveries!

Works Cited

Bascom, Nick. “Unraveling Synesthesia.” Science News, 22 Nov. 2011.

Bower, Bruce. “When Brains Wring Colors From Words.” Science News, 18 March 2002.

Choi, Charles Q. “Why It Pays to Taste Words and Hear Colors.” Live Science, 22 Nov. 2011.

Cullen, Jamie. “How We All Could Benefit From Synesthesia.” The Guardian, 26 April 2014.

Gaidos, Susan, and Laura Sanders. “The Colorful World of Synesthesia.” Science News, 22 May 2008.

Tierney, Wesley. “Is the Letter ‘A’ Red?” Arizona State University, Ask a Biologist, 14 May 2019.

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  Daphne Zhu 的作品。

在纽约州雪莉的 Wertheim 国家野生动物保护区，被南方松甲虫蹂躏的枯死沥青松树

加州圣何塞林布鲁克高中 15 岁的 Daphne Zhu 撰写的这篇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。

The Canadian Rockies loom up on both sides of the rickety road we’re bumping along. Mountains, with their high, majestic slopes lush with green forest, never fail to fill me with awe. Except this time, it’s because they’re not green. The whole mountainside is covered with the purple-gray skeletons of pine trees, branches limp, withered, dead.

A fire, I assumed — until I noticed the same view I’d seen outside the car window in a visitor center’s photograph. Pine beetles were eating through forests in the region, the caption explained, leaving barren forest habitat and a serious problem: The area of forest killed by the beetles beats the former record by 10 times. So I jumped into a library database and started reading.

The culprit of forest destruction in western Canada and even the United States lies in the mountain pine beetle. The insects burrow into pine bark and into the phloem, or food-transporting vessel, of the tree. Here, they lay their eggs; when the larvae hatch, they eat away from the inside until they move out to a new tree.

Not only do the beetles themselves carve up the pines, but spores of blue stain fungus also spread from their mouthparts into the phloem they burrow into. Fungal infection is even more effective in blocking nutrient circulation, which quickly leaves the tree to die.

The heart of the issue? Climate change.

Temperature exceeds predation as the primary factor in keeping pine beetle populations under control. Winter’s arrival used to mean that larvae, lacking cold tolerance, would die in great numbers. However, with winter temperatures warming and cold days decreasing in frequency, the beetles’ population growth is overwhelming. “It’s an exponential increase,” states Dr. Jeffrey B. Mitton, a University of Colorado professor of ecology, which means that within years, the crisis could escalate to astronomical heights.

And they’re expanding their range. The beetles conquer territory from Alaska in the north to New Mexico in the south, leaving skeleton forests in their wake. If these infestations continue to spread like spilled ink, blotting out coniferous forests across the continent, the loss will be more than that of green mountain scenery. It will be of a critical carbon sink: As the infested trees decompose, carbon dioxide stored throughout their lifetime is released. All the while, forests that once held the brakes on climate change are no longer absorbing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted in bold that such diseases have the potential to wipe out millions. Unlike Covid, pine beetle infestation spares no survivors. And unlike Covid, no vaccine will boost the hosts with immunity to mitigate future attack. Besides suppressing outbreaks by removing infected trees before larvae can break out, we must commit to combating climate change. Only then will beetle populations fall back to what they were. Only then will we prevent the sight of faded mountainsides from becoming a lasting relic for future generations. Only then will we protect the longevity of the great forests of North America.

Works Cited

Embrey, Sally, MSPH, et al. “Climate Change and Ecosystem Disruption: The Health Impacts of the North American Rocky Mountain Pine Beetle Infestation.” American Journal of Public Health, May 2012.

Morgan, Korey. “Racing the Clock to Stem the Spread of the Mountain Pine Beetle.” U.S.D.A. Forest Service, 11 May 2021.

Perkins, Sid. “Book Review: Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America’s Great Forests (David Suzuki Foundation Series) by Andrew Nikiforuk.” Science News, 7 Oct. 2011.

Robbins, Jim. “Double Trouble From Mountain Pine Beetles?” The New York Times, 19 March 2012.

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  Catherine Ji 的作品。

加利福尼亚海岸附近的一头蓝鲸。

这篇来自伊利诺伊州威尔米特市新特里尔高中的 14 岁的凯瑟琳季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。

Digging into the skin of a bowhead whale, Craig George, a biologist and researcher, heard a crunching noise. Along the coast of Alaska, beside Native whale hunters, he pulled out a perhaps century-old harpoon point from the 60-ton giant. Further discoveries found points up to 211 years old, proving the longevity of these cetaceans. Surprisingly, Dr. George did not find a single cancerous tumor. Why is it that these animals are so resistant to such a fatal disease, despite it being the second leading cause of death in humans, killing almost 10 million people annually?

Common sense tells us that, as they have around a thousand times more cells than humans, cetaceans should be more prone to cancerous mutations. Contrarily, this is not the case. Whales, elephants and other massive creatures have instead shown to be the world’s longest-living cancer-resisting mammals.

It has already been discovered that changes in whale DNA contribute to their massiveness. According to research done by Mariana Nery, “positive natural selection in four genes … correlate[s] with a bigger body.” However, these changes (mutations) also are large factors that induce cancer. These changes cause the cells to rapidly multiply and possibly inhibit organ function. Age and weight are both determinants that increase the risk of developing cancer in humans. The longer we live and the more massive we are, the more opportunity for cell mutations. First constructed by Richard Peto in 1977, Peto’s Paradox states that the chance of cancer does not correlate with the number of cells in an animal. In fact, it appears to be the opposite in cetaceans.

The answer lies in that, as whales have a much higher rate of gene mutation than other mammals (around 2.4 times), they have a high number of tumor suppressor genes, according to a study led by Daniela Tejada-Martinez and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Tumor suppressor genes are responsible for preventing cancer from developing and spreading. The study found that certain gene variants found in cetaceans “could have favored the evolution of their particular traits of anti-cancer resistance, gigantism and longevity.”

Another project led by Marc Tollis, published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, implemented DNA and RNA sequencing on a skin sample from an adult female humpback whale off the coast of Massachusetts. After decoding the whale’s genome, or her complete set of DNA, the researchers compared it to other mammals. Their analyses suggested an increase in cancer-suppressing genes as well as genes that support the maintenance of healthy cells.

In an ideal world, humans can possess the same cancer-resisting abilities as whales. Carlo Maley, director of the Arizona Cancer and Evolution Center, argues that scientists may be able to “translate [their] discoveries into preventing cancer in humans.” One day, humans may be able to experiment and develop drugs based on the mammals’ biological superpowers, perhaps ending cancer’s strangling grip on the world.

Works Cited

Incorvaia, Darren. “Unlocking the Genes That Made Whales Into Giants.” The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2023.

Rozell, Ned. “Bowhead Whales May Be World’s Oldest Mammals.” The Field, 24 Nov. 2016.

Tejada-Martinez, Daniela. “Positive Selection and Gene Duplications in Tumour Suppressor Genes Reveal Clues About How Cetaceans Resist Cancer.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 24 Feb. 2021.

Tollis, Marc, et al. “Return to the Sea, Get Huge, Beat Cancer: An Analysis of Cetacean Genomes Including an Assembly for the Humpback Whale (Megaptera Novaeangliae).” Molecular Biology and Evolution, 9 May 2019.