Dr. Dragon Issue #15

DR. DRAGON HSMSE’S MATH, SCIENCE, ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE

The Influence Of Sci-Fi Origami Engineering • the search for the higgs boson • the spaghetti problem, and so much more!

Dear Readers, Thank you for picking up the spring 2019 magazine! I am proud to present the amazing writers and staff members who made Dr. Dragon's 15th issue possible.

Special thanks to Maisy Hoffman, our Editor-in-Chief, for the tremendous work she has put into the magazine over the past three years! Thank you to our readers-your support motivates us to research and write. Please enjoy!

Min Yi Lin, President

STAFF PRESIDENT MIN YI LIN

VICE-PRESIDENT MIA AKHTER

TREASURER LAURA SONG

SECRETARY

LINNA CHEUNG

FACULTY ADVISOR RONALD CHOI

DESIGNERS IN CHIEF ZELIE GOLDBERG LITTLE KOREEN GROSSBERG

EDITOR IN CHIEF MAISY HOFFMAN

EDITORS

ALYSSA CHEN HANNAH SAIGER

SPECIAL THANKS HSMSE PTA

WRITERS

MIA AKHTER TAHOOR ARIF MICHELLE CAIZAGUANO KENYA CALDERON AYSSA CHEN KARILYN DURAN NATHAN ELLIS ANN-NICOLE FRIMPONG ZELIE GOLDBERG LITTLE MAISY HOFFMAN MIN YI LIN RAMOND LIN ANGELO LONTOK JOHAN MACHUCA FATOU MBAYE LISETTE PERES LAURA PREKA ELVIRA QUARSHIE AFSANA RAHMAN OLIVIA ROUGE HANNAH SAIGER JASPER STEDMAN TALIA WIGDER SOPHIA WILL

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STEM HEROeS

MIA AKHTER, MAISY HOFFMAN, KENYA CALDERON, SOPHIA WILL, ZELIE GOLDBERG LITTLE, AND ALYSSA CHEN

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INTERPLANETARY AIRCRAFT

BRAIN TO SPEECH

JASPER STEDMAN

ASFANA RAHMAN

07 Graphene ELVIRA QUARSHIE

Space Debris

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influence of sci fi

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MEDICAL ULTRASOUND

CHEMISTRY OF SPICY FOOD

GUS MORRISON

MAISY HOFFMAN

JOHAN MACHUCA

MICHELLE CAIZAGUANO

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The Search Bluetooth pill for the Higgs LAURA PREKA

ZELIE GOLDBERG LITTLE

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Railway Signaling

Food waste

RAMOND LIN

LISETTE PERES

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International Phonetic Alphabet

Origami Engineering

Magnifying Eye Contacts

LIVING ON MARS

ANGELO LONTOK

HANNAH SAIGER

TALIA WIGDER

FATOU MBAYE

PEPPER THE ROBOT

Seeing more colors

History Of Schizophrenia

NATHAN ELLIS

KENYA CALDERON

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spaghetti Problem MIA AKHTER

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MIN YI LIN

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An Interview with jung hoon kim MIN YI LIN

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Unsung Stem heroes from history

By Mia Akhter, Maisy Hoffman, Kenya CALDERON, Sophia Will, Zelie Goldberg Little, and Alyssa Chen

Frances Arnold

Dr. Frances H. Arnold, 62, an American professor of chemical engineering, bioengineering, and biochemistry, earned the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2018 for conducting the directed evolution of enzymes, proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. Her enzymes have been used to make biofuels, medicines, toxic chemicals, laundry detergent, and much more. Only eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded to women in physics and chemistry, and 2018 was also the first year two women, Dr. Frances Arnold and Dr. Donna Strickland, have been honored with a chemistry Nobel and a physics Nobel respectively. Dr. Arnold believes this is just the beginning of a new era and that women will forever continue their success in science.

The future is female!

Aryabhata

Most details about the life of famed Gupta mathematician Aryabhata, born in 476 CE, have been obscured over the years, but one remains eternal: his work changed the history of math and science. His composition of 499 CE, Aryabhatiya, begins by establishing his research in algebraic and trigonometric advancement, and goes on to provide insights about the nature of planetary motion, eclipses, and time on Earth. He also notably theorized a heliocentric model of the solar system long before Copernicus, and used the developing realm of trigonometry to calculate and discover much more about Earth. Aryabhata was a magnificent mathematician and astronomer, and his vital work shaped the Golden Age of India and the future of math.

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Rosalind Franklin

Karen Uhlenbeck

Vera Rubin

Maria Angesi

Rosalind Franklin, born in 1920 in London, contributed tremendously to the model of DNA. Franklin studied chemistry at Cambridge University, earning her bachelor’s degree in 1941. Five years later, she began working at a lab in Paris where she learned X-ray diffraction and crystallography. Her X-ray photographs of DNA fibers showed that there were 2 kinds of DNA, and that DNA forms a double helix structure. This information was groundbreaking, and greatly influenced Francis Crick and James Watson’s modern model of DNA. Unfortunately, Franklin was barely acknowledged by the two scientists and did not share their 1962 Nobel prize. She nonetheless was an incredible scientist and changed a worldwide understanding of biology.

Vera Rubin (1928-2016) was a Jewish American astronomer whose scientific discoveries in dark matter helped shape scientists’ understanding of it today. As a female scientist in the mid 20th century, getting recognition for her research was hard. Sexist regulations worked to keep women out of STEM, but Rubin proved time after time that women deserved a place in the sciences. In the early 1970s, Rubin conducted a detailed study of the motion of stars and the velocity of hydrogen clouds in the Andromeda Galaxy. She discovered that hydrogen clouds outside of the galaxy were orbiting at the same velocity as the more centered ones, which became crucial to confirm the existence of dark matter, creating the foundation for a new generation of scientists.

Seventy-six year old Karen Uhlenbeck, a retired professor from the University of Texas at Austin, became the first woman to achieve the Abel Prize for Mathematics in March of this year. Dr. Uhlenbeck did not gain her passion for math until a college calculus class piqued her interest. Her advisor, Richard Palais, was exploring the connection between analysis and shapes, which became the inspiration for many of her later discoveries. Uhlenbeck’s work in geometry and physics has profoundly influenced the STEM world. Beyond founding a new branch of math—geometric analysis—and explaining particle interactions in quantum physics with math, Dr. Uhlenbeck has shown the world what women are capable of.

Maria Agnesi was born in Milan, Italy in 1718. Recognized as a child prodigy, she could speak Italian, French, Latin, Greek, German, Hebrew, and Spanish by the age of 11. Agnesi is most well known for her contributions to mathematics and is famous for her 1748 work Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth, which introduced difficult concepts in Euler’s works and discussed topics in algebra and calculus. She is also known for the cubic curve the “Witch of Agnesi.” Although she stopped her work in mathematics at a young age, she made important breakthroughs in several fields and is considered by many to be one of the most influential female mathematicians of history.

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Interplanetary Aircraft Since the flights of the Montgolfier brothers’ first hot air balloon in 1783 and the Wright brothers’ first airplane in 1903, aircraft technology has come incredibly far. Long gone are the days when inventors tinkered with ridiculous experimental designs, never knowing which crazy innovation just might work. In the modern day, aircraft designs are remarkably homogeneous because for every application, engineers have uncovered the perfect general design, from which only minor changes are made. However, this perfection has only been achieved on Earth, and it has taken hundreds of years. The exploration of other planets in the solar system—with completely different temperatures, gravities, and atmospheres—provides a new frontier in aircraft design, where all the rules are different, and crazy innovation can once again find a home.

The main reason aircraft are being designed for other planets is that they have many advantages over current missions. Satellites in orbit of other bodies are usually hundreds of kilometers high, so an aircraft only a few kilometers up could better observe the surface, and could cover a much wider area much faster than rovers, which rarely travel above 0.1 mph. Additionally, an aircraft would be better at observing the atmosphere than any other type of mission.

Just like with human exploration, one of the primary targets for interplanetary aircraft is Mars. The idea of an aerial mission has been pursued since the very beginning of the exploration of Mars in the 1960s, when it was still thought to be very similar to Earth. Because of chal-

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lenges uncovered since then, such a mission has never been attempted, but several missions have recently been proposed featuring promising solutions. The largest problem when flying on Mars is the incredibly thin atmosphere, which makes it almost impossible for an aircraft to generate enough lift to fly. At less than 0.6% of Earth’s atmospheric pressure, most aircraft would need to break the sound barrier just to take off. One solution, proposed in 2011 by the Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) project, is to maintain airspeed with powerful engines. ARES would have been a rocket-powered airplane that would initially take advantage of the enormous speeds on atmospheric reentry to glide a substantial distance. When the plane gets too slow and close to the ground after a long glide, its rocket motor would launch it back into the upper atmosphere for another glide without landing. Unfortunately, due to limited rocket fuel, ARES would only be able to fly for a few hours before crashing. Another major issue with flight on Mars is the lack of oxygen in the air, which causes conventional jet engines and combustion engine propellers to fail. A different proposed mission to solve this problem involves a solar helicopter that might go to Mars in 2020. The Mars Helicopter Scout (MHS) is designed to fly above the Mars 2020 rover to find interesting destinations. It generates lift in Mars’ thin atmosphere with a set of two large rotors driven by powerful electric motors. The helicopter must spin its 1.2 meter long rotors at 2,800 revolutions per minute just to lift a tiny 14 cm cube of instruments high enough to see ahead. After a short hop, it would be forced to land to recharge with its solar panels.

Flight on Mars is very difficult, but has not stopped scientists from studying the planet with effective and innovative rovers, landers, and orbiters. On Venus, however, flight may be the only option. Venus’ thick clouds obscure the surface completely, making orbiters largely useless for observing the planet. Underneath the clouds, the immense atmospheric pressures, temperatures, and acidic air prohibit landers and rovers from doing long term research. As a result, many proposals for the exploration of Venus involve aircraft that could stay in the upper atmosphere and dive through the clouds. This is the goal for the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC), a plan to send crews of astronauts to Venus, where they would live in large solar blimps in the upper atmosphere rather than land on the surface. 55 kilometers high above the clouds, Venus’ upper atmosphere is surprisingly easy to live in, with air pressure about half that on Earth. It has a comfortable 88% of Earth’s gravity, and an ambient temperature of only 27°C (81°F). Fortunately, the density of the atmosphere would allow the blimps to inflate without hydrogen or helium; they could float with normal, breathable air. The HAVOC mission would have astronaut crews drop rugged probes into the clouds from blimps and make observations for about a month before returning home. As strange as living in an interplanetary blimp for a month may sound, there is an even weirder concept for exploring Venus’ clouds: the Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable Platform (VAMP).

This hybrid blimp-airplane would consist of a giant inflatable wing, over 50 meters long, driven by two solar powered propellers. At its cruising altitude, the aircraft would get 90% of its lift from its wing and 10% from buoyancy. It would use its solar propellers during the day to travel to a location of interest, and, like a Venusian Batman, it would dive into the clouds to conduct experimentsth at night. Descending through the cloud layer, VAMP would become more and more buoyant until unable to descend any lower, causing it to float back up. The buoyancy not only allows it to ascend without solar power, it also acts as a failsafe, preventing the aircraft from descending too

far and melting.

Historically, innovations in one type of aircraft, be it a helicopter or a passenger plane, have had effects throughout the industry. The brilliant design solutions in interplanetary aircraft are no exception, and will likely lead to improvements in aircraft overall, just as the development of jet engines at the end of WWII eventually led to cheaper and more efficient passenger jets.

The concepts behind aircraft designed for thinner atmospheres are already being applied on Earth with a long range drone, flying at extremely high altitudes, as a part of NASA’s Helios project. Sharing many design elements with solar airplanes designed for Mars, the Helios drone managed to fly to almost 100,000 feet on solar power alone, breaking the altitude record for any non-rocket powered aircraft. This field is without a doubt in its infancy; engineers have yet to actually launch an aircraft to another world. Still, looming in the distant future is the exhilarating vision of Martian and Venusian citizens flying between cities just like on Earth.

—Jasper Stedman Fox, Stuart. “NASA Robotic Rocket Plane To Survey Martian Surface.” Popular Science, 24 Nov. 2009, www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-11/nasa-rocket-plane-survey-martian-surface.

Munroe, Randall. “Interplanetary Cessna.” Xkcd. com, what-if.xkcd.com/30/.

NASA Langley Research Center, A Way to Explore Venus. YouTube, 10 Oct. 2014, www.youtube. com/watch?v=0az7DEwG68A. Wall, Mike. “Incredible Technology: Inflatable Aircraft Could Cruise Venus Skies.” Space. com, Space.com, 3 Mar. 2014, www.space. com/24847-venus-exploration-vamp-inflatable-aircraft.html.

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Brain signals translated into speech For the first time ever, scientists at Columbia University have created a system that translates thought into recognizable and understandable speech. A discovery that combines the technology of speech synthesizers and artificial intelligence, this breakthrough has massive potential, possibly allowing computers to directly communicate with the brain, assisting those who cannot speak.

Years of research show that when people speak, patterns of activity appear in their brains. Experts record and decode these brain signals in an attempt to translate them into verbal speech, but the process is challenging. There have been attempts at using computer models and sound frequencies that have failed to produce intelligible speech. So Dr. Nima Mesgarani—principal investigator at Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute—and her team turned to a vocoder, a computer algorithm that can synthesize speech after being trained by recordings of people talking.

The team asked sufferers of epilepsy who were undergoing brain surgery to listen to sentences spoken by different people. The patients had a variety of electrodes implanted into their brains, allowing the researchers to record comprehensive electrocorticography measurements while the patients were listening to short, continuous stories told by four different speakers. The population of evoked neural activity measured from the patients trained the vocoder to recognize speech.

To test the efficacy of the algorithm, the system was asked to decode voices counting from zero to nine. As the speakers recited the digits, the brain signals of the patients were recorded and run through the vocoder.

The sound produced by the vocoder from the brain signals of those patients was analyzed and refined by neural networks, a form of artificial intelligence that resembles the structures of neurons in the human brain. Finally, the voice from the vocoder recited the sequence of numbers to individuals who listened to the recording and reported what they heard to test its accuracy. “We found that people could understand and repeat the sounds about 75% of the time, which is well above and beyond any previous attempts,” said Dr. Mesgarani. “The sensitive vocoder and powerful neural networks represented the sounds the patients had originally listened to with surprising accuracy.”

The next step in the experiment is to test the vocoder with more complicated phrases. The scientists hope that their system can eventually translate a user’s thoughts directly into words. “This would be a game changer,” says Dr. Mesgarani. “It would give anyone who has lost their ability to speak, whether through injury or disease, the renewed chance to connect to the world around them.”

— Afsana Rahman The Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University. “Engineers translate brain signals directly into speech: Advance marks critical step toward brain-computer interfaces that hold immense promise for those with limited or no ability to speak.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 January 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190129081919.htm>.

Hassan Akbari, Bahar Khalighinejad, Jose L. Herrero, Ashesh D. Mehta, Nima Mesgarani. Towards reconstructing intelligible speech from the human auditory cortex. Scientific Reports, 2019.

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Graphene You may have never heard of it, but one of the greatest substances on Earth is graphene. Graphene is a one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. It is the building block of graphite, used in pencils and lithium-ion batteries, but graphene is a remarkable substance on its own.

Yet another approach involves growing crystals of graphene starting from a carbon-rich solid, such as sugar. Graphene grows atom by atom, using a gaseous catalyst, until a thin layer is formed. This system also has the potential to allow graphene to produced in greater quantities, as it is more precise than other methods.

With a multitude of astonishing properties, this pattern of atoms repeatedly earns itself the title “wonder material.”

Graphene’s unique abilities can be used in a number of ways. It can replace silicon in computer chips, making them generally more efficient, as a smaller amount of graphene can conduct electricity 250 times better than silicon. Graphene can also be used for its strength and size, an extremely unusual combination that can save lives. Emergency housing shelters made of graphene are strong and easily foldable, and may, in the future, be a possible solution to some of the housing and homelessness issues of today. It can also spawn lighter and stronger airplanes by replacing heavy composite materials and metal alloys and by adding more efficient solar panels with graphene-based cells. Additionally, graphene can become as hard as diamond when two layers are stacked. This is could even be useful in creating lighter bullet-proof armor. Graphene is an extremely fascinating substance with some of the most astounding properties on Earth. Graphene has the potential to change the limits of technology, and perhaps someday far in the future, the world.

Graphene is the thinnest material known to man, at one atom thick. It may sound fragile, but it is actually incredibly strong. It is 200 times stronger than steel. On top of that, graphene is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, and can absorb 2.3% of white light.

There have been attempts to study graphene dating back to 1859, when Benjamin Collins Brodie became aware of the armor-like strength of thermally reduced graphite oxide. In 2004, Sir Andre Geim and Sir Kostya Novoselov, both professors at the University of Manchester, discovered and isolated a single atomic layer of carbon for the first time. The pair received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 in recognition of their breakthrough. They initially used adhesive tape to split graphite into graphene, pulling a single layer of carbon atoms off the surface of a graphite volume, but the substance can be produced a few other ways.

The method of Mechanical Exfoliation involves loading up a precise Atomic Force Microscope with a piece of graphite, and rubbing it on a coarse material so that single layers of graphene flake off, a bit like graphite rubbing off on paper from a pencil. Techniques like this are fickle and intricate, and explain why graphene is currently the most expensive material on the planet.

The method of Chemical Vapor Deposition allows graphene to form in a created environment. An organic gas such as methane is closed in a container with another material, such as a piece of copper. The container’s internal settings are then adjusted until a layer of graphene is formed on the added material, which can be extracted.

— Elvira Quarshie Galeon, Dom. “Graphene Computers Work 1000 Times Faster, Use Far Less Power.” Futurism. Futurism, 06 Oct. 2017. Web. 21 Mar. 2019.

Coxworth, Ben. “Graphene-based Armor Could Stop Bullets by Becoming Harder than Diamonds.” New Atlas - New Technology & Science News. New Atlas, 19 Dec. 2017. Web. 28 Mar. 2019.

“Method to Grow Large Single-crystal Graphene Could Advance Scalable 2-D Materials.” Phys. org - News and Articles on Science and Technology. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2019.

“Properties of Graphene.” Graphenea. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2019.

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Space Debris Trapping Humanity Space travel is the most exciting and challenging event humanity has ever undertaken. Americans gravitate toward exploration from the excitement at the possibilities new frontiers can behold. Beginning in the early 19th century, Lewis and Clark set out to discover lands never inhabited or observed by the colonists. Later, Charles Wilkes set out to explore the South American continent, making it to the Antarctic region. Eventually, humanity had nowhere to go but up. Why does space travel captivate the public mind, and why is it needed?

Unfortunately, the world is filled with problems and disagreements. Nothing is perfect. Major disasters and events like World War II, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, and the 9/11 attacks have devastated hundreds of thousands of people and remain persistently active in the public mind today. The advancements of technology, seeking to better the everyday lives of humans, have drastically changed life from what it had been for ancestors of the population. Dystopia and science fiction author H.G. Wells once said,

very simple to get an object into the orbit of the Earth.

It requires sending an object at a high speed into the atmosphere, and then guiding the object to circle around the Earth while maintaining its high speed.

Once an object is locked in orbit, is it very hard to leave. Without energy or fuel to break their motions, objects are trapped in Earth’s orbit, “falling” towards the Earth forever. This has its benefits, as satellites are able to orbit around the Earth for indefinite periods of time without needing constant guidance from controllers on Earth. However, this is also the cause for problems with space debris. Rocket parts detach from a vessel and linger in the orbit of the Earth, floating among other old, abandoned launches and tiny pieces of shrapnel from missile launches and crashes. Floating around Earth, there are around 2,500 defunct satellites, 10,000 objects larger than a computer screen, 20,000 the size of an orange, 500,000 pieces as large as a marble, and over a hundred million which are too small to be tracked. Space debris moves at around 18 thousand miles per hour in different directions around Earth multiple times a day. These pieces, even if the size of a marble, move fact enough that they can punch holes right through solid metal.

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

Space debris is expected to grow Medicine, electronics, transportation and communication have all played large roles in how society op- 10 times the current amount in erates today. Space exploration has been and will be a key to America’s success in the future. From Pulitzer the next decade.

Prize historian William Goetzmann, “America has indeed been ‘exploration’s nation,’ a culture of endless possibilities that, in the spirit of both science and its component, exploration, continually looks forward in the direction of the new.”

All of this greatness and promise for the future comes with a dark irony. With every satellite launched, rocket deployed, or drone sent to explore, humankind prevents itself from getting the opportunity to explore, because these missions add to the expanding prison which is collecting around the Earth. It is not

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If this problem is not addressed in the near future, the Space Age and the wonders that come with it could all come to a screeching halt, trapping humanity on Earth for decades. Communication, GPS, weather data, and many other services could all be eliminated by debris the size of a bullet. Miniature pieces, however, are not the most concerning things in Earth’s orbit—a possible chain reaction from colliding large objects could turn big debris into millions of destructive weapons. Items that crash in Earth’s orbit do not fall to the ground, they make a splash of their contents. These resulting clouds

of dust and debris can trigger a “collision cascade,” absolutely destroying everything in orbit. The worst case scenario is terrifying: a sea composed of hundreds of millions of pieces of debris too small to track moving at 18 thousand miles per hour. Nothing would be able to cross the field, effectively creating a cage for everything on Earth.

Not all is lost, however, as space agencies and governments have been much more efficient at limiting space junk in recent years.

There have been several proposals on how to remove space debris without creating more in the process.

Catching larger objects with a net and proceeding to bring them back to Earth where they would be burned up in the atmosphere is one proposal being tested right now. Other wild proposals include shooting harpoon-like spears at objects which would slow them down and drag them back to Earth, firing lasers to vaporize debris, and clearing the orbit with an artificial magnet. Whatever methods may be used to clean up Earth’s orbit must be ready soon, before millions of potential bullets become billions.

— Gus Morrison Chow, Denise. “Space Junk Is a Huge Problem, but This High-Tech Satellite Net Just Might Help.” NBCNews. com, NBCUniversal News Group, 26 Sept. 2018, www. nbcnews.com/mach/science/space-junk-huge-problem-high-tech-satellite-net-just-might-ncna913426.

Dick, Steven J. “The Importance of Exploration (Continued).” NASA, NASA, www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/Why_We_01pt2.html.

Garcia, Mark. “Space Debris and Human Spacecraft.”

NASA, NASA, 26 Sept. 2013, www.nasa.gov/mission_ pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html.

“UCS Satellite Database.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 9 Jan. 2019, www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/ space-weapons/satellite-database#.XFJlt89Kho5.

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The Influence of Sci-fi Whoosh! Your shiny, red rocket zooms through the Milky Way, flying past stars and planets of all kinds. An alien starship approaches and your fully sentient computer system tells you that the other ship is about to fire its lasers. You put up your defense shields. BAM! The lasers are fired but your rocket emerges victorious!

This scenario is not real. Sorry. In the hearts of billions, however, science fiction stories like this live on. Sci-fi has spurred the drive for scientific discovery since its recognized creation in 1818 with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Science fiction is the future of the world.

Possibly the most common sci-fi theme of all time is outer space, and with the help of sci-fi, space travel became a reality in the Cold War’s Space Race. The first true space-based sci-fi novel, Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, written in 1877, had a significant impact on its readers. This tale of space travel led to an explosion of astronomical dreams, as the popular story caused its audience to truly wonder what space travel could be like. Over the following decades, stories upon stories were written about practically everything related to space: going to the moon or Mars, exploring the depths of the void, and even meeting aliens. Iconic sci-fi stories, such as War of the Worlds, The Martian Chronicles, Dune, and 2001: A Space Odyssey were all part of the growing culture of curiosity.

The years leading up to Neil Armstrong’s famous step on the moon were full of fascination by space and technology, fueled further by the fantasies of interstellar fanatics. Star Trek, airing first in 1966, became a nation-wide endorsement of science and progress. Many, many later forms of technology were based off of devices and concepts from the show, mainly due to its surprising level of factuality. Hand-held communications devices, scanners similar to “tricorders” the Enterprise crew used, and even, recently, needleless injections like the “hyposprays” of the show are all existing innovations inspired by the iconic series. Even virtual reality has somewhat been inspired by a device called the “holodeck” in a

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later incarnation of the series. Most importantly, however, Star Trek led to a real belief in interplanetary travel, prompting scientists, engineers, and fans to expand humankind’s knowledge of the universe’s mysteries.

After 1969, sci-fi still stood strong, pushing the world to explore the possibilities of the future. Released in 1977, Star Wars became possibly the most influential sci-fi film of all time, creating a new explosion of sci-fi in the 1980s. Movies like War Games, Blade Runner, Explorers, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Aliens, as well as books like Carl Sagan’s Contact and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, inspired a new generation of sci-fi fans to learn about science and computers, and to work further in astrophysics and medicine.

Technology progresses as time progresses, but technology does not develop on its own. The way technology looks and works is largely shaped by cultural expectations of design. So much of modern device design is aimed at appearing futuristic, which is why computers and cars alike seem to come straight out of sci-fi movies these days. Society has created a feedback loop of innovation and inspiration, keeping earth’s technology and science fiction ever-evolving.

On a darker note, however, not all of the technology predicted and inspired by science fiction is beneficial. Dehumanizing and isolating technologies like the breeding pods of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the mass media Seashells of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 demonstrate the dangerous directions that technology could go in. Furthermore, H.G. Wells eerily described a horrific weapon similar to that of the atomic bomb in his novel The World Set Free, published long before the Manhattan Project. Though his bombs function a bit differently from the ones produced for World War II and the Cold War and did not directly influence their creation, Wells understood even then the devastation that mutually assured destruction would cause. He recog-nized the moral implications of such ruination and his story warned the world only too early to take caution.

Beyond the astounding technological influences of science fiction, one of the genre’s defining traits is its adherence to moral undertones and allegories. Ethics and humanity are examined in depth throughout the history of sci-fi, but they are most acutely addressed in the subgenre of dystopia. Dystopian novels arose first at the turn of the century with H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, but really took form from the 1930s to 1950s with classics such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984

by George Orwell. The rise of dystopian sci-fi, often specifically detailing inhumane political systems, was due mainly to the poor political climate of the era. Through the Great Depression, World War II, the rise of communism, and the Cold War, the public began to question government and human morality, and art and literature reflected this attitude. As with much of sci-fi, dystopian novels often take place in the future, and become highly predictive and pessimistic visions of social evolution.

To the dismay of the planet, these dark prophecies have subtly come true. With a broken government, a dying environment, and limited privacy because of companies such as Facebook and Google accessing everyone’s digital lives, the world is transforming into a place reminiscent of classic dystopian novels. However, the dystopian genre has not turned the world into what it is. In fact, dystopia has, for a long time, promoted individuality and a sense of resistance in readers. When Trump was inaugurated, 1984 saw a more than 9,000% increase in sales. The public is re-examining the world and looking to fight back. Just as sci-fi inspires the progress of science, dystopia inspires the progress of morality and society. In this day and age, dystopia is on the rise again because it tells of a bleak future where humanity is the world’s most powerful weapon.

Sci-fi keeps our world captivated with tales of discovery, wonder, and curiosity. Most of sci-fi today features lasers, AI, and aliens, and guess what? Scientists around the world are just as excited. Labs are working to create all kinds of lasers, computer scientists are building neural nets and increasingly smart programs, and programs like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) are working to find the Wookies and Vulcans of the

universe. No one knows what the future will entail, but one thing is certain: science fiction will always inspire humanity to go beyond its limits.

— Maisy Hoffman Atwood, Margaret. “Margaret Atwood on Why We Should All Read Brave New World.” Penguin Books, 26 Nov. 2018, www. penguin.co.uk/articles/2017/margaret-atwood-introduc- es-a-brand-new-world/.

Beale, Lewis. “Opinion: We’re Living ‘1984’ Today.”

CNN, Cable News Network, 3 Aug. 2013, www.cnn. com/2013/08/03/opin- ion/beale-1984-now/index.html.

Berlin, Jeremy. “‘Star Trek’ Is Right About Almost Everything.” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 16 June 2016, news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/ star-trek-science-space-astronomy-technology-fazekas/.

Chu, Jennifer. “Device May Inject a Variety of Drugs without Using Needles.” MIT News, 24 May 2012, news.mit. edu/2012/ needleless-injections-0524.

Gittleson, Kim. “World’s Fair: Isaac Asimov’s Predictions 50 Years On.” BBC News, BBC, 22 Apr. 2014, www.bbc. com/news/ technology-27069716.

Handwerk, Brian. “The Many Futuristic Predictions of H.G. Wells That Came True.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 21 Sept. 2016, www.smithsonianmag.com/ arts-culture/many-futuristic-predictions-hg-wells-came-t rue-180960546/.

Locke, Charley. “The Real Reason Dystopian Fiction Is Roaring Back.” Wired, Conde Nast, 3 June 2017, www. wired. com/2017/02/dystopian-fiction-why-we-read/.

“Science Fact: Sci-Fi Inventions That Became Reality.”

BBC News, BBC, 18 Nov. 2016, www.bbc.com/news/ health-38026393.

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Medical Ultrasound Sound is a unique element in our lives that has multiple purposes. Sound is used to understand surroundings better, and can even be used to detect the precise location of objects in order to navigate through sonar, which is used by certain animals. Sound allows awareness, and it can be used for medical detection purposes as well. Through the use of ultrasound technology, doctors can diagnose the source of pain or infection for patients.

Ultrasound is made up of sound waves that have a frequency higher than the ordinary range of human hearing. Ultrasound was discovered in 1794, when scientist Lazzaro Spallanzani proved that bats are capable of navigating through the dark by using echoes reflected when they emit a high frequency sound. Ultrasound waves are produced by a device known as a transducer, which can also be used to detect reflected echoes.

A transducer is made up of crystal materials known as piezoelectrics, which are capable of producing sound waves when electricity is applied to them, and are even capable of producing an electric field when a sound wave is sensed.

There are two forms of medical ultrasound: diagnostic ultrasound and therapeutic ultrasound. Diagnostic ultrasound is a method of imaging where high-frequency waves are used to produce images of internal organs and other structures. Images are created by using a transducer send ultrasound waves to a body and detect them once reflected. An ultrasound scanner then receives the resulting electric signals, and creates an image based on the distance between the transducer and the tissue. Anatomical images created can help doctors observe any changes to the organ or structure. Diagnostic ultrasound has a few limitations in its ability to produce images within the body, since it cannot be used to produce images of bones or of organs that contain gas, such as the lungs. Diagnostic ultrasound is most commonly used to observe the growth of a fetus im-

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portant structures such as the heart, brain, and eyes.

Therapeutic ultrasound is a treatment modality with the purpose of modifying or destroying abnormal tissue. Tissue can be heated or moved, and blood clots can be dissolved with intense beams that can destroy abnormal tissues without needing to cut through the skin. The beams used to modify tissues are known as High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU). The use of HIFU is still being investigated and is currently being considered as a way to close wounds and stop bleeding.

The HIFU even has the potential to treat certain forms of cancer by removing the affected tissue.

Ultrasound is still a relatively young technology, and has only been used for a few decades. Due to the risk of radiation dose caused by CT scans, people consider ultrasound to be a reliable alternative when it comes to imaging purposes, as it does not have any significant risks. Advancements in ultrasound technology have led to smaller and more portable devices being used in hospitals, which have made ultrasound more efficient than other diagnostic testing machines. Scientists believe that ultrasound will be a very important tool in the future, one that has the potential to replace every other point-of-care system. The growth of ultrasound technology can result in improving the quality of life for many people in the world.

— Johan Machuca Technology Update: Ultrasound, www.radiologytoday. net/archive/rt0317p12.shtml.

“Ultrasound.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 27 Feb. 2018, www.mayoclinic. org/tests-procedures/ultrasound/about/pac-20395177.

“Ultrasound.” National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, www.nibib.nih.gov/science-education/ science-topics/ultrasound.

The Chemistry of Spicy Food In this day and age, there is a wide variety of flavors and foods from cultures around the world at everyone’s fingertips. With these distinctions come unique experiences. Some foods stray towards a sweet, aromatic, and warm taste, while spicy foods can cause a tingly or burning sensation in the throat and mouth. Although the effects of spicy food may be agonizing, there are many people who enjoy the pain of spice and find its burning effect stress relieving or exciting. Not only does spice bring joy to people, it also has some potential health benefits that could fight against cholesterol-based diseases that are prevalent today, such as Coronary Artery Disease and Atherosclerosis.

One of the most common spices in the world is capsaicin, and it is found in chili pepper peppers such as jalapeños and habaneros. Another spice is alkyl thiocyanate, which is found in wasabi and induces similar effects in the mouth. Many people believe that one spice is hotter than the other, but based on their wildly different chemical structures it may not even be possible to compare them.

Originating from South America, capsaicin is a colorless, bitter compound with a chemical formula of C18H27NO3. It is responsible for the burning sensation found in certain foods. The capsaicin genus includes a large variety of chilis, each with their own distinct flavor and pungency. Capsicum annuum includes many sweet peppers such as banana peppers and bell peppers, but the capsicum frutescens are defined by the pungent and strong sensations found in tabasco and piri piri.

When the capsaicin compound reacts with the mucous membranes found in a human mouth found in a human mouth, the molecules are able to fit on pain receptor nerve endings. In the structure of capsaicin, there is a nitrogen atom next to a carbon that is double bonded to oxygen and a benzene ring. A very similar structure is found in black pepper, proving that the flaming and pungent sensation results from the shape of these molecules. Alkyl thiocyanate, on the other hand, has a chemical formula of C2H3NS. Because of its different

shape, it reacts with other proteins, and generates a different sensation. Alkyl thiocyanate is known for its agitation of nasal passages more than the tongue, so the pain is concentrated in a separate area.

Oftentimes, satisfaction is experienced after eating a spicy meal. This may be due to endorphins and serotonin, hormones released by the brain to help relieve pain and induce feelings of pleasure or euphoria. Pleasure after eating may account for people’s addiction to spicy food and their need for it during stressful or difficult times. Hotter chili peppers create more pain, so more endorphins are produced, and a higher level of pleasure is procured. Spicy foods can not only help the mental state, but it can also have positive benefits on cardiovascular health. A researcher from the Chinese University of Hong Kong investigated the effects of capsaicinoids and capsinoids on hamsters fed on on a high-cholesterol diet. They found that capsaicin could decrease plasma total cholesterol (TC), a form of cholesterol that blocks blood vessels and increases risk of heart disease. They further found that capsaicin reduces the formation of atherosclerotic plaque, and relaxes the aortic artery. Perhaps in the future, capsaicin will will help people reduce their risk of heart attacks or cardiovascular diseases. This pain-inducing molecule may one day become an important factor in the preventing dangerous diseases.

—Michelle Caizaguano Liang, Y T, et al. “Capsaicinoids Lower Plasma Cholesterol and Improve Endothelial Function in Hamsters.”

Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Feb. 2013, www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22466858.

Le Couteur, Penny, 1943-. Napoleon’s Buttons : 17 Molecules That Changed History. New York :Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2004. Print.

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The Bluetooth Pill Scientists have been exploring the concept of ingestible electronics from the second this idea was thought up in the 1950â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

A swallowable electronic capsule was created in 1957 by scientists Bertil Jacobson and R. Stuart Mackay, but since then medical innovators have wondered how to use and improve upon the device. Over the past year, MIT researchers have been designing and developing an ingestible electronic capsule that can be controlled through Bluetooth. Recent developments of these electronics include a multitude of monitoring functions, including temperature, pH, heart rate, breathing rate, and drug delivery. This 3D printed capsule epitomizes what 21st century technology looks like, because it can take instructions from a smartphone and use smart sensor technology to deeply improve the life of the user.

Compared to most long-term resident electronic devices, which often require invasive procedures to be implanted, the Gastric Resident Electronic (GRE) system is delivered orally and eventually â&#x20AC;&#x153;implantsâ&#x20AC;? itself in the pylorus, an opening from the stomach to the small intestines. Long-term resident electronic devices possess diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities such as stimulation of organs including the heart, brain, and gastrointestinal tract, but can serve as the origin of infection, requiring further operative intervention. Alternatively, the GRE system can be folded into a gelatin capsule, which would dissolve in gastric fluid, for the preferred route of oral drug delivery.

This method precludes the health risks that come with surgical implantation of the long-term electronic device.

Multilayer 3D printing has a particularly important role in the manufacturing of the capsule. 3D printing is a versatile technology that allows the researchers to design

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the capsule with all its special components. The level of customization that comes with 3D printing also allows researchers to build the capsule with alternating layers of stiff and flexible polymers that can endure the hostile acidic environment of the stomach. Robert Langer, a professor at MIT’s David H. Koch Institute and a senior author of the Bluetooth pill study says,

antenna. A company has been launched to further develop the technology for human use, which researchers estimate will happen within two years. The Bluetooth pill is an exceptionally revolutionary piece of technology with the potential to improve the lives of many patients suffering from cancer, infection, allergies, and more.

“We are excited about this demonstration of 3D printing and of how ingestible technologies can help people through novel devices that facilitate mobile health applications.”

— Laura Preka

Since 2016, researchers at MIT have been studying and experimenting with long-term drug delivery systems. Most recently, controlled experiments with the GRE have been conducted by MIT researchers using Yorkshire pigs. From these experiments, scientists concluded that the GRE can reside in a hostile gastric environment for up to 36 days, and maintain Bluetooth connection for about 15 days. Ultimately, experiments on living organisms proved the ability of Bluetooth connections to occur with the GRE. This was demonstrated by the connection of a smartphone within arm’s length and receipt of temperature-sensing data from a pig’s stomach. The architecture of the GRE enables a controlled drug release once the capsule has reached the stomach. Scientists showed the ability to release drugs into the body in a controlled manner by using doxycycline, an antibiotic drug. They noted that after the initial burst of about 10% of the drug in the first half hour, it was released at a constant rate.

Kong, Yong Lin, et al. “3D-Printed Gastric Resident Electronics.” The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, Wiley-Blackwell, 13 Dec. 2018, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ admt.201800490.

“Smart Pill from MIT Monitors and Medicates via Bluetooth.” The Engineer, 14 Dec. 2018, www. theengineer.co.uk/smart-pill-monitor-medicate-bluetooth/.

Trafton, Anne, and MIT News Office. “Ingestible Capsule Can Be Controlled Wirelessly.” MIT News, 13 Dec. 2018, news.mit.edu/2018/ingestible-pill-controlled-wirelessly-bluetooth-1213.

Trafton, Anne, and MIT News Office. “New Drug Capsule May Allow Weekly HIV Treatment.” MIT News, 9 Jan. 2018, news.mit.edu/2018/new-drugcapsule-may-allow-weekly-hiv-treatment-0109.

Vialva, Tia, et al. “Inside the 3D Printed Pill That Livestreams Health Readings to Your Doctor.”

3D Printing Industry, 14 Dec. 2018, 3dprintingindustry.com/news/inside-the-3d-printed-pillthat-livestreams-health-readings-to-your-docThis new Bluetooth pill is similar to one from an earlier study from 2016, when researchers developed a star- tor-145574/. shaped capsule with six arms that can deliver a week’s worth of HIV drugs in one single dose. The ultimate goal of the GRE is to diagnose early signs of disease and respond with the appropriate medication. Researchers envision that this technology could be used to monitor people who are at a high risk for infection, like patients receiving immunosuppressive or chemotherapy drugs, and if an infection is detected, the capsule could release antibiotics. In addition, the device could also be designed to detect allergic reactions and respond by releasing antihistamines. Researchers hope to find a future alternative to the small silver oxide battery that powers the device, such as stomach acid or an external

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The search for the higgs boson For nearly 30 years, a gigantic machine located underground in Geneva, Switzerland was under construction. At its completion, this 17-mile circumference ring known as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) united scientists from over a hundred different countries and changed the course of particle physics forever.

Run by The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN), the LHC has two main types of scientists working on the project. There are two main types of physicists working at CERN.33 Theoretical physicists employ mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects to explain what they see in nature.

Experimental physicists test theoretical physicists’ work by running experiments, analyzing data, and discovering new particles. Both are crucial for experiments to function.

When asked why CERN is conducting such a big experiment, theoretical physicist David Kaplan replied, “We are trying to understand the basic laws of nature.”

Physicists like Kaplan study particles because they are the most fundamental parts of nature. Right after the Big Bang, the whole universe was just fundamental particles. By studying these particles, scientists can learn important information about the history of the universe, why it is the way it is today, and what will become of it in the future. All matter is made of particles, with most matter being made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Although there are hundreds of other particles in the universe, almost all of them can all be broken down into just 12 fundamental particles in two categories: quarks and leptons. This is the idea behind the standard model of particle physics, but when first theorized, it was still missing one thing: the Higgs boson, which holds the model together, as well as all matter in the universe! These hypothetical particles form a field which fills all of space, gives electrons mass, creates atoms and molecules, and, as a result, allows for the existence of all matter and life.

The Higgs field is somewhat like a giant invisible net across all of space. As particles travel through the field they get slowed down and gain mass, though certain

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particles, like photons and gluons, do not get caught in the net.

The LHC was constructed with the goal of discovering this elusive Higgs particle. To begin the process, two beams of protons must race through the 17-mile circular track in opposite directions. After accelerating around many times, the protons travel close to the speed of light. They then smash into each other at 4 different locations, named the ATLAS, LHCb, CMS, and ALICE experiments. Experimental physicist Monica Dunford describes the ATLAS experiment as “a seven story camera” designed to take snapshots of the billions of tiny collisions that occur when the protons collide. The idea is that by giving to protons immense amounts of energy and smashing them together, that energy would be transferred into the Higgs field causing it to spit out a Higgs Boson, since energy produces mass, and a heavy particle like the Higgs would require a large quantity of energy. LHC physicists also hope to discover something completely new along the way.

The mass of the Higgs boson would determine the path of particle physics in the future.

A light Higgs particle weighing roughly 115 times the mass of a proton, or 115 giga-electron volts (GeV) favors an idea known as supersymmetry, which ponders what else is out there and how unknown particles could interact with the standard model. This theory envisions a model much larger than scientists initially theorized, featuring dark matter and many other undiscovered particles. Such a light Higgs, according to the theory, would mean undiscovered particles must exist in order to make the universe stable. On the other hand, a heavy Higgs boson with a mass of 140 GeV favors the multiverse theory, which says that the order and laws which govern the universe are completely random and that in most other universes conditions may not even have allowed for matter to form.

Physicists favored a lighter Higgs boson because if the multiverse theory were to be proven true, it would mean that most information about other particles would be completely out of their reach, and the Higgs may be the last particle ever discovered.

In early 2010, the entire crew at the LHC held their breath as two protons collided for the first time. The protons, rushing at exceptionally high speeds, finally intersected and gave physicists at all four experiment sites a massive influx of data. It initially seemed that the data was accumulating around 140 GeVs, but after roughly a year of further testing, the results became inconsistent. The physicists were left wondering if they had actually found the Higgs because they required strong trends in their results in order to prove the Higgs’ existence.

Roughly two years later, the long awaited spike in the data was discovered, with a weight of approximately 125 GeVs. After decades of work, the Higgs boson had been found. But what did this weight mean for the opposing theories? The Higgs was right in between the two hypothesized values, justifying neither supersymmetry nor the multiverse theory, and opening up the path for either to be true. Today, scientists finally have some of the missing pieces needed for determining the fate of the universe. If no other particles are ever discovered, it could mean that the Higgs might be unstable and could fall apart, bringing the entire universe down with it. Alternatively, new particles could be discovered and greatly expand scientists’ understanding of the universe. Either way, there is a bright future for discoveries just around the corner.

— Zelie Goldberg Little Levinson, Mark, director. Particle Fever. Anthos Media, 2014.

Brainard, Jean. “Fundamental Particles.” CK-12 Foundation, CK-12 Foundation, 11 Aug. 2018, www.ck12.org/ physics/fundamental-particles-in-physics/lesson/Fundamental-Particles-MS-PS/.

Bourdin, Thomas. “What Is the Difference between Quarks & Leptons?” Sciencing, 2 Mar. 2019, sciencing. com/difference-between-quarks-leptons-8076741.html.

Charley, Sarah. “How to Make a Higgs Boson.” Symmetry Magazine, 4 Oct. 2018, www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/how-to-make-a-higgs-boson.

Earthsky Voices. “10 Years of Large Hadron Collider Discoveries.” EarthSky, 16 Sept. 2018, earthsky.org/human-world/large-hadron-collider-lhc-discoveries.

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Railway Signaling The use of signaling has profoundly impacted railways.

When railways around the globe opened, they were fraught with safety issues and crashes, but over the years technology has allowed signalmen to communicate with each other and direct trains safely. Today, signaling has evolved to become a major component of the modern railway.

Since it was invented, different countries’ signals developed separately, but they all use the block principle.

This system divides a railway into sections in which only one train is permitted at a time. To display whether a block is occupied or not to drivers, railways use lighted signals, which display a traffic-light style color scheme.

Signaling is a fail-safe system, so if a fault is present, a signal will automatically go to a “danger” sign.

From 1840 to 1930, signals with an interlocking system of levers showed where a train could be. The interlocking system did not allow a signalman to set a system up in an unsafe manner. When a lever was pulled, locking pins moved, permitting certain levers to be pulled.

These needed to be placed in close intervals, as this system is based on mechanical power, and the system became a very work-intensive way to direct trains around.

In 1872, the automatic track circuit was invented. This device uses an electric current on the rail to determine whether a train is in a block or not. An attached device displays a green signal when the wire is powered, but the preceding signal turns red when the current is returned through the train axles if it is in the block. The use of automatic signals reduced the need for signalman, but they were still needed to manipulate the railway. World War I and World War II both placed railways under incredible strain, as massive amounts of trains were needed to transport troops and equipment for the wars. Some railways developed Train Protection Systems, which enforced speed limits, audibly reminded the driver of the signals, and applied the brakes if unacknowledged. TPS continues to be a cornerstone in signaling technology, even to this day.

In the 1960s, simple computational machines were implemented in train signaling with a device called a “logic gate.” Due to the rigid structure of railways, logic gates revolutionized signaling. Signalmen no longer had to remember individual points and signals, but routes. A signalman needed only to push the entrance and exit buttons for a block, and the relays would compute all

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the signals and points needed to make this route possible. After the train passed, pulling the exit button returned all signals and points back to normal. This system allowed for safer, faster trains across the world.

By the 1990s, many train systems switched to digital signaling. They can be completely automated, with a signalman needed solely for unexpected problems. This system uses fiber optics to transmit data over many miles, replacing thousands of old lever frame signal boxes. This technology is also pushing signaling into new territories. Radio and computer technology can also replace signal posts, sending location and speed information directly to trains. Railway signaling has changed significantly from its early days. Despite the safety challenges railways face, signaling allows for safer train movements without compromising the need to reduce frequencies. These days, it operates trains, transmits information, and detects faults, all without human intervention. Signaling technology will continue to advance and help build safer, more reliable railways.

— Ramond Lin “A Centennial History of Alstom Signaling Inc. (Formerly General Railway Signal Company).” Alstom, 2004. “Automatic Train Operation on the Victoria Line.” Tubeprune, 2003, trainweb. org/tubeprune/Victoria%20Line%20ATO.htm.

Calvert, J B. Toucey and Buchanan Interlocking. 2004, mysite.du.edu/~etu-ttle/ rail/tandb1.htm. “ETCS.” UIC -International Union of Railways, uic.org/ETCS# Influence-of-ETCS-on-Infra-structure Capacity.

Frank W. Bryan, Robert S. McGonigal | May 1. “Railroad Signals.” TrainsMag.com, 1 May 2006, trn.trains.com/railroads/abcs-ofrailroading/2006/05/railroad-signals.

“Radio Communication.” European Rail Authority, 26 Oct. 2018, www.era. europa.eu/activities/european-rail-traffic-management-system-ertms/radiocommunication.

Scalise, Jodi. “How Track Circuits Detect and Protect Trains.” Railwaysignalling.eu, Nov. 2014.

America’s Issue with Food Waste Have you ever thrown out food that never ate because it has expired? Or have you thrown out perfectly good food because you are full? If you live in America, chances are that you or someone you know has done this.

Every year, up to 40% of food is thrown away and 95% of that food ends up in landfills. Considering the number of resources used to produce this food, it is quite an alarming statistic. 10% of the total U.S. energy budget, 50% of U.S. land, and 80% of freshwater are used to provide food to millions of Americans. The produce that ends up in landfills leads to an increase in methane, which is 86 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. This gas is a major contributor to the increasing global temperature.

of maintaining, transporting, and delivering food discourages farmers and businesses from donating their food to non-profits since it is cheaper to just throw it away. Perhaps giving supermarkets, restaurants, and other small businesses a bonus for donating their food to homeless shelters or soup kitchens might push them to act morally. Informing consumers that ‘best by’ and ‘sell by’ dates are not strict guidelines to follow can also drastically lessen waste. You can make a change just by doing small actions like buying only what you can eat and paying constant attention to items in your fridge that might expire or go bad soon. If we all do small things, we can reduce food waste dramatically and provide for people who need it.

While billions of dollars of perfectly good food are thrown away, there are families who every day struggle to sustain themselves. In 2017, 11.8% of families were food insecure at some point during the year. Millions of families are hungry, while others throw away perfectly good food that could go to these people. The amount of food discarded each year could feed 59 million Americans.

— Lisette Peres

Most often this food is tossed due to dates on food labels. Food such as dairy products have ‘sell by’ and ‘use by’ dates, which indicate that by the suggested time, the product might not be as fresh. This does not indicate that the food will turn bad by that date. However, people often assume that it does, and they dispose of food once they believe it has expired. These food labels are merely suggestions placed by the food companies, and are sometimes placed to encourage consumers to buy their product more frequently. Another reason for this accumulation of food waste is that some food does not meet certain ‘aesthetic standards.’ These products are tossed because consumers will not buy them, even though they are perfectly safe.

Incentives are required in order to stimulate a reduction in food waste. The government has attempted to do this before by instituting the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996, which encourages business to donate their unused food by allowing them not be subject to civil or criminal liability. However, the cost

Coleman-Jensen, Alisha, Matthew P. Rabbitt, Christian A. Gregory, and Anita Singh. “Household Food Security in the United States in 2017.” USDA ERS - Food Environment Atlas. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2019.

Foodsafety.gov. “Selected Federal Agencies with a Role in Food Safety.” FoodSafety.gov. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 25 Aug. 2009.

Web. 14 Jan. 2019.

Gunders, Dana. Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill.

Rep. New York: National Resources Defense Council, 2012. Print.

Leib, Emily Broad, and Dana Gunders. The Dating Game: How Confusing Food Date Labels Lead to Food Waste in America. Rep. New York: National Resources Defense Council, 2013. Print.

Rossman, Sean. “Here’s How Many People America’s Wasted Food Could Feed.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, 16 May 2017. Web. 14 Jan. 2019.

How Bad of a Greenhouse Gas Is Methane?” Scientific American. N.p., 22 Dec. 2015. Web. 14 Jan. 2019.

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The International Phonetic Alphabet ði ɪntɚnæʃənəl fənɛtɪk ælfəbɛt What makes writing so useful?

There are many reasons: it can be used as a nonverbal means of communication, it is more permanent than spoken communication, and it offers insight into the pronunciation of a language.

Most languages today have an alphabet, a writing system with symbols representing either consonants or vowels. One widely-used example is the Latin alphabet, used by English and many more languages. However, there are all kinds of completely different writing systems around the world. Many languages in China use a logographic system, in which each symbol represents meaning, though some characters give insight into sound. Though Japanese uses Chinese script, it also has two syllabaries, writing systems in which a symbol represents a whole syllable. Similar to the syllabary is the abugida; in Hindi for example, each symbol represents a whole syllable with an inherent vowel, and extra markings are used to change or remove the vowel. Abjads, yet another writing system, are similar to the abugida, but only represent consonants. Many abjads today, such as Arabic script, may also represent vowels using extra markings.

Apart from logographic systems, all of these writing systems are highly phonetic; just knowing how to read a language’s script allows one to know an accurate pronunciation of a word. However, in practice, each

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of these writing systems has many irregularities. Take English for example, a language where the infamous phrase “English is weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though,” shows just how unphonetic its written form can be. Someone unfamiliar with English might assume that all the words with -ough rhyme, but nearly none of them do! The problem with representing phonetics in writing runs far deeper than in just a single language. Even if all writing systems were completely consistent with their phonetics, each language represents sounds in a different way.

Languages that use the same writing system may still have differences in usage. For example, English, Spanish, and German all use the Latin alphabet, but each differ in the pronunciation of the letter ‘j’. Even if all languages that used the Latin alphabet used ‘j’ the same way, learning the Latin alphabet would not enable someone to know how words in every language are pronounced.

To have a truly phonetic system of writing, linguists in the International Phonetic Association created the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in 1886.

It was more recently updated in 2005. With 107 letters, diacritics (extra symbols added to letters), and prosodic marks (indications of rhythm, stress, and tone), the IPA represents sounds from every language.

How does it work?

As its name suggests, this writing system is an al-

phabet, so there are separate symbols for consonants and vowels. In addition, each symbol only represents one sound (unlike ‘x’ in English, which typically has a ‘ks’ sound), and each sound is only represented by one symbol. For greater accessibility, most IPA characters are based off of the Latin alphabet, which is the most widely used script in the world, with an estimated almost five billion users today. However, there are many letters inspired by other scripts, including some from languages with specific clicking sounds, like the Xhosa language.

If IPA is perfectly phonetic, why is it not regularly used in place of other writing systems? Representing speech perfectly phonetically has some drawbacks. Among the most obvious is the sheer number of symbols to memorize, along with the resemblance of so many letters, like m, ɱ, n, ɳ, ɲ, and ŋ. In addition, representing phonetics perfectly is typically not the goal of writing systems. There are some benefits in having an non-phonetic writing system; English, for example, may be inconsistent, but this is because the spelling of most words have not changed for centuries. This provides insight into how older forms of English were spoken, while also uniting different dialects around the world. A more extreme example would be Chinese characters; although there are tens of thousands of characters, the symbols represent meaning rather than sound, unifying different languages to an even greater extent. For many basic sentences, many languages spoken in China can sound completely different, and yet have an identical written form. This allows two people to be able to communicate through writing, even if they speak two completely different languages.

ing IPA puts one at a great advantage for not only linguistics, but also learning other languages.

— Angelo Lontok Decker, Donald M. Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge University Press, 1999.

“International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).” Omniglot, www.omniglot.com/writing/ipa.htm.

“International Phonetic Alphabet.” International Phonetic Alphabet – IPA Charts, Keyboards and Language Information, www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/.

Laver, John. Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Pariona, Amber. “The World’s Most Popular Writing Scripts.” World Atlas, Worldatlas, 3 Aug. 2017, www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-mostpopular-writing-scripts.html.

Despite its drawbacks, IPA is not a waste.

There are many applications for IPA today, from studying the phonetics of a language, to comparing different dialects, to helping language learners learn the accepted pronunciation of a word. It is not hard to learn; with the help of audio online, learn-

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Origami Engineering Folding art and science together

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The term “origami,” the ancient Japanese art of paperfolding, comes from the word “ori,” meaning folding, and “kami,” meaning paper. The word “origami” may invoke images of a delicate, decorative paper crane or flower, but origami can be used for so much more. It is not only a beautiful way to create art, but a platform for understanding and creating movement in many different fields of engineering.

The art of paper folding can open doors to creating collapsible and kinetic materials to engineer shelters, medicine, and even tools for space exploration.

Many people struggle with homelessness as a result of poverty or natural disaster, and it is currently a vital challenge to create affordable, transportable shelter.

Origami is a very effective means to model and design structures that can collapse and be transported. One nonprofit organization called Cardborigami creates collapsible cardboard shelters. The original architect, Tina Hovsepian, chose cardboard because it is foldable, lightweight, cheap, and naturally insulated. Using a pattern of creases, she created a design that pops up and collapses easily, making structures simple to transport and erect. Cardborigami has sent cardboard shelters to the large homeless population in Los Angeles, as well as to victims of Nepal’s destructive 2015 earthquake.

Using similar concepts to Hovsepians, other engineers have also begun to explore the use of origami-based shelters in the military. The Kinetic Structures Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame has created an energy-efficient shelter that folds up and can be easily transported. This could be revolutionary in the military, because so much manpower is currently devoted to creating and transporting temporary shelters in war.

Origami also introduces new possibilities to the world of medical engineering. GE Healthcare, in collaboration with Brigham Young University, has used origami to create a cover for the mechanical arm of an x-ray machine.

Drawing from an origami crease pattern called Miura-ori, researchers were able to create a shroud out of a synthetic paper that would move with the arm of the x-ray machine while maintaining a sterile environment. Similarly, origami can help create tools such as forceps and surgical probes that need to enter small openings and unfold once inserted. The Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working together on another fascinating origami engi-

neering project. They have created a tiny origami robot that is encased in a pill of ice and swallowed. Once the ice melts, the robot unfolds and is given instructions by an external magnetic field. The robot can then complete important tasks such as removing swallowed foreign objects and healing tissues. As engineers experiment more with the collapsable properties of folded materials, the use of origami can help scientists better access the human body and efficiently treat disease and injury.

Origami-based structures are even sent beyond Earth.

When a spacecraft is sent to explore the universe, it is critical that its elements are energy-efficient and take up very little room. One crucial part of most robotic missions to space is to set up a solar array, a series of panels that take energy from the sun in order to power the vessel. A solar array must maximize its area once assembled while minimizing its volume on the craft. The use of origami principles can create a thin array that folds up very small, but when released, can cover a large area.

NASA is currently working on another project called Starshade, in which they are creating a panel that allows spacecrafts to better image exoplanets by blocking out the light of bright nearby stars. Using the principles of origami, Starshade will be able to fit into a rocket, and bloom into a disk the size of a baseball diamond. NASA is also developing robots that use principles of origami.

These robots will be able fold themselves to fit into small spaces, which is extremely useful for exploring foreign planets. With origami reaching beyond Earth’s atmosphere, there is endless potential. Origami can be used to engineer light, collapsable, kinetic materials that can fit into small spaces, move gracefully, and solve a vast variety of problems in society. The kinetic properties of folds and creases make this ancient art cutting edge.

—Hannah Saiger “Cardborigami.” Cardborigami. 05 Feb. 2019, <https://www. cardborigami.org/#cardborigamihome>.

Kate, Parker. “Origami-inspired engineering unfolds new ideas.” Undergraduate Degree Programs - College of Engineering. University of Notre Dame. 05 Feb. 2019, <https://engineering.nd.edu/news-publications/engineering-in-the-news/ origami-inspired-engineering-unfolds-new-ideas>.

Lee, Elizabeth. “Ancient Origami Art Becomes Engineers’ Dream in Space.” VOA. 26 Oct. 2017. VOA. 05 Feb. 2019 . <https://www.voanews.com/a/ancient-origami-art-bcomesengineers-dream-space/4086041.html>.

Varrasi, John. “How the Future of Origami Engineering is Unfolding (Op-Ed).” LiveScience. 13 Dec. 2014. Purch. 05 Feb. 2019, <https://www.livescience.com/49121-origami-inspired-engineering-is-expanding.html>.

Yeung, Timothy. “Unfolding Origami Engineering – Quark Magazine.” Quark Magazine. 11 Aug. 2017. Quark Magazine. 05 Feb. 2019, <https://quarkmag. com/unfolding-origami-engineering-5bbee7fa0e13>.

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Magnifying Eye COntacts Imagine being able to control how far you see with just the blink of an eye, literally. Scientists at the University of California have been working on new eye contacts lenses that adjust the eye’s range of sight. This device looks like a regular contact lense but is actually quite complex, containing aluminum mirrors, plastic rims, and thin polarizing films. The mirrors that surround each lense allow for light to reflect off and magnify the field of view, thus manipulating the size of objects in sight. The lenses allow a user to switch from a magnified view to a normal view by winking in the user’s left eye. Scientists have used sensors working together in both eyes to correctly identify a wink over a blink, thus making this product easier to use for a larger market.

Soon, prototypes will be on their way to allow people to switch between many different views to focus on different objects.

of millions and scientists will unquestionably continue to create new products to help touch the lives of even more.

For example, one prototype lens can switch between 100% magnification, 220%, and 280%.

Schultz, Colin. “These Contact Lenses Can Zoom In and Out, Give You Telescopic Vision.” Smithsonian. com, Smithsonian Institution, 2 July 2013, www. smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-contactlenses-can-zoom-in-and-out-give-you-telescopic-vision-5864170/.

When first engineered, this product could not be worn for a very long time, because the lenses were very thick and did not allow air to flow through it, clogging the wearer’s vision. Thanks to modern technology, scientists have implemented air channels that let oxygen to flow steadily throughout the lense and eye.

“What Are Telescopic Lenses and Who Benefits from Wearing Them?” Enhanced Vision RSS, www.enhancedvision.com/low-vision-tips/what-are-telescopic-lenses-and-who-benefits-from-wearing-them.html.

These magnifying lenses can be used to help people across the globe. Millions of people struggle with visual impairment, so scientists came up with this new solution to help improve their vision and lives. These lenses can help people see clearer and farther, resulting in a better quality of life. These devices can also potentially help fend off degenerative blindness, which affects around 200 million people worldwide.

Current research will not be the end for magnifying eye contact lenses; new developments have been drafted and are underway for this captivating device. It could be a commercial item for people of all ages, as it is easy and helpful to switch between different view settings.

The lenses could also become a miniature telescope, allowing people with no further technology to witness and observe such far away objects as planets in the solar system. This unique invention will help the lives

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— Talia Wigder EPFL_en. “See Here Now: Telescopic Contact Lenses and Wink-Control Glasses.” EurekAlert!, 13 Feb. 2015, www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/epfdshn020915.php.

Jackeline. “Duette Progressive.” UK, www.synergeyes. co.uk/professional/duette/duette-progressive.

Krazycos. “High-Tech Contact Lenses.” GUNNAR Computer Eyewear, 15 Feb. 2015, gunnar.com/high-techcontact-lenses-zoom-with-a-wink-of-an-eye/.

Living on Mars Humans are depleting Earth’s resources at an alarmingly high and almost irreversible rate. These days, the human race is looking for a suitable planet to call its new home. While there are many planets with high Earth Similarity Index rankings, they are millions of lightyears away. Scientists today wonder: why not look to Earth’s planetary neighbour, Mars?

have grown well in space when grown in a moderately humid place, with a temperature around 71°F. While Mars may be cold and its soil difficult, if explorers can grow the vegetables indoors, settlers would manage to have a large variety of food to eat. Survival on Mars would mainly take place indoors, and would rely largely on technology.

To colonize Mars, scientists must first address the pressing issue of oxygen and air pressure. Explorers will need to set up a habitat on Mars, and it must sustainably support a moderately large number of people. This means the habitat will need a material that can protect it from Mars’ freezing weather and thin air.

Current scientists’ best option is a habitat that regulates the temperature and pressure inside rather than having humans constantly wear spacesuits. This habitat may be made of similar materials to NASA’s Insight seismometer, which has succeeded in overcoming Mars’ strong winds and extreme chill.

In the future, scientists will have to develop better ways to harvest energy and produce water on Mars.

Resources must be self-sufficient for over two years.

Settlers will need to produce food and water entirely on Mars, as shipping sources from Earth is unsustainable and unreliable. Mars therefore must be set up perfectly before anyone can travel there. Once establish, a habitat has to run smoothly for quite some time before settlers can receive help from Earth, if ever needed. As for now, there is a lot of work ahead before humans can colonize Mars. When the time comes, would you be willing to live on Mars?

In order to live on Mars sustainably, explorers must come up with a means of making water and oxygen.

NASA is currently experimenting with a machine design called MOXIE. Like a mechanical tree, MOXIE takes in the abundant carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. This would enormously reduce costs of oxygen transport. If humans make the settlement on a polar cap, water can be collected from melting the caps.

However, that solution would not be very efficient or helpful for long, and it would be better to get water from Earth. Due to the two planets’ ellipses, Earth astronauts and scientists would have to send water supplies to Mars every two years. Mars colonies would most likely be growing food themselves. This is not an impossible feat; astronauts on the International Space Station successfully grew lettuce in 2015. Plants

— Fatou Mbaye Esa. “Mars Polar Cap Mystery Solved.” European Space Agency, 22 Sept. 2008, m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Mars_polar_cap_ mystery_solved.

“Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE).” NASA, NASA, mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/instruments/moxie/.

“The Challenge of Space Gardening: One Giant ‘Leaf’ for Mankind.” Phys.org - News and Articles on Science and Technology, Phys.org, 11 May 2018, phys.org/ news/2018-05-space-gardening-giant-leaf-mankind. html.

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Cracking the Spaghetti Problem If you happen to have a box of spaghetti in your kitchen, try this experiment: take out a single spaghetti strand and hold it at both ends. Try to bend it so that it breaks. How many pieces did you break it into? If it is three or more, then take out another strand and repeat the experiment. Try to see if you can break it into only two pieces. Did you do it? Most likely, you were unsuccessful. It is almost impossible to break dry spaghetti into only two pieces, and this phenomenon has puzzled scientists for decades.

A new MIT study, however, has figured out how to make the perfect break.

Richard P. Feynman was one of the brightest minds of the 20th century. He won the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his work in quantum electrodynamics, which describes the behavior of light and matter. He invented Feynman diagrams, hieroglyphs that make it easier for lesser minds to perform calculations using his theories. Feynman was legendary for his brilliant mind, but there is one mystery that he was never able to solve: the nature of how a spaghetti noodle breaks. He once spent hours of an evening breaking pasta to look for a theoretical explanation as to why the sticks could not be broken in two.

Feynman’s kitchen experiment remained unsolved until 2005, when French physicists Basile Audoly and Sebastian Neukirch formulated a theory to describe the forces at work when spaghetti or any thin rod is bent. They found that when a stick is bent evenly from both ends, it usually breaks near the center, where it is most curved.

This break causes a “snap-back” effect, in which a wave caused by the initial break creates additional fractures.

This theory won the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize in physics, a parody of the Nobel Prize awarded for unusual scientific achievements. This theory answered why spaghetti breaks in multiple fragments, but another question still remained: could spaghetti ever be broken into only two pieces?

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In August 2018, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a prestigious scientific journal, published a report by MIT researchers presenting a way to break spaghetti in two: by bending and twisting the dry noodles.

The team found that if a stick is twisted to a certain degree, then slowly bent in half, it will break in two.

This project was carried out by two students, Ronald Heisser, now a graduate student at Cornell University, and Vishal Patil, a mathematics graduate student at MIT. Their co-authors are Jorn Dunkel, associate professor of physical applied mathematics at MIT, and Norbert Stoop, instructor of mathematics at MIT. Heisser originally took this challenge, along with his project partner Edgar Gridello, in the spring of 2015 as a final project for Dunkel’s course on Nonlinear Dynamics: Continuum Systems. According to Dunkel, “They did some manual tests, tried various things, and came up with an idea that when he twisted the spaghetti really hard and brought the ends together, it seemed to work and it broke into two pieces… But you have to twist really strongly. And Ronald wanted to investigate more deeply.”

Heisser later built a mechanical fracture device to controllably twist and bend sticks of spaghetti. Two clamps on either end of the device hold a spaghetti stick. One clamp is rotated to twist the noodle, while the other bends the stick. Heisser and Patil used the device to bend and twist hundreds of spaghetti sticks, and recorded the process with a camera. They found that by twisting the stick into 360 degrees and then bringing the clamps together slowly to bend it, the stick snapped exactly in two. Their findings remained consistent as they used two types of spaghetti with different diameters.

Subsequently, Patil began to develop a mathematical model to explain how twisting can snap a stick in two.

any forces or waves propagating through the stick as it bent. He discovered that if a 10-inch spaghetti stick is twisted about 270 degrees and then bent, it will snap in two, due to the snap-back effect being weakened by the twist. The stick will essentially unwind to its original figure, releasing energy from the rod and preventing additional fractures. Patil refers to this as the “twist wave,” generated by the unraveling strand that moves faster than the vibration from the “snap-back.” This dissipates the potentially destructive energy and prevents the spaghetti from fracturing any further.

“Just understanding these complex fracture systems would be interesting going forward as well,” Patil explains in the Washington Post. “You have to clamp it hard enough, so you could twist the spaghetti a lot, but softly enough that it wouldn’t just break at the ends.”

Their discovery can help scientists better understand the mechanics of twisting motion, which is not as well understood as bending motion. It also helps scientists understand how twisting motion can be used to control fractures in objects with rod-like shapes. The importance of this experiment is evident, but Heisser and Patil probably do not want to see, break, or eat spaghetti for a while!

— Mia Akhter Audoly, Basile, and Sébastien Neukirch. “Fragmentation of Rods by Cascading Cracks: Why Spaghetti Does Not Break in Half.” Physical Review Letters, vol. 95, no. 9, 25 Aug. 2005, doi:10.1103/physrevlett.95.095505.

Chiu, Allyson. “This Spaghetti-Breaking Problem Stumped Physicist Richard Feynman. Two MIT Students Have Now Solved It.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 16 Aug. 2018.

Chu, Jennifer. “MIT Mathematicians Solve Age-Old Spaghetti Mystery.” MIT News, 13 Aug. 2018.

Heisser, Ronald H., et al. “Controlling Fracture Cascades through Twisting and Quenching.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 115, no. 35, 22 July 2018, pp. 8665–8670., doi:10.1073/pnas.1802831115.

He used previous works by Audoly and Neukirch, who developed the original theory to explain the “snap-back effect.” Patil generalized this theory by adding the element of twisting and checked if the twist would affect

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Say Hello to Pepper!

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Imagine being greeted by a robot on your next trip to the airport, or being served by a robot at the front desk of a hotel. Imagine a robot who can guide and entertain humans. You might even want one at home to keep you company. You may think such a human-like robot can only be found in sci-fi, but it exists right here on planet Earth. Say hello to Pepper, the humanoid robot!

Pepper is a robot manufactured by SoftBank Robotics first introduced to the public at a conference in 2014. Designed to be the world’s first full-scale humanoid robot for consumers, it was priced at roughly $2,000 USD. Its first sales began in December 2015, and during the product’s first six months, over 1,000 units were sold every minute.

Pepper is not a robot that can do laundry or make dinner, which is often expected of robots in sci-fi films.

It is, instead, a goofy-looking, 1.2-meter tall robot who rolls around on a wheeled base. SoftBank says that Pepper is not a utilitarian automaton, but is designed to encourage human-to-robot interactions by providing guidance, humor, and company. Pepper can play games with you, teach you a new subject, and help you communicate with friends and family. It can even read a recipe aloud while you cook.

To successfully engage in human interactions, Pepper is equipped with an “emotion engine,” a piece of software that infers how the user is feeling through facial expressions, tone of voice, and speech. If you come home to Pepper after a hard day of work, it might start playing your favorite song or give its best shot at a dance. Masayoshi Son, CEO and chairman of SoftBank, said, “We want to have a robot that maximizes joy and minimizes sadness.”

Pepper is designed not to replace workers in factories or automate human tasks, but to make human lives better and happier.

machine would, but in a much more friendly way. Businesses have been keen to adopt Pepper in customer service functions, placing it in receptionist and sales associate positions.

Pepper can guide customers, provide directions, record customer satisfaction, highlight products, and entertain customers.

Pepper is employed in companies such as Hamazushi, MasterCard Cafe, Yamada, Baskin Robbins Ice-cream, and Timberland. These companies use Pepper to better their customers’ experiences and help make robots more commonplace.

Pepper is not here to replace jobs or to take care of our every needs in the foreseeable future. It is a buddy meant to help and entertain humans. The rise of Pepper and similar humanoid robots soon to follow signifies a future where human lives are further integrated with and bettered by robots.

— Min Yi Lin Guizzo, Erico. “How Aldebaran Robotics Built Its Friendly Humanoid Robot, Pepper.” IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News, IEEE Spectrum, 26 Dec. 2014, spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/ home-robots/how-aldebaran-robotics-built-its-friendly-humanoid-robot-pepper.

“Humanoid Robot Pepper Is Amusing, but Is It Practical?” Phys.org - News and Articles on Science and Technology, Phys.org, phys.org/news/2016-12-humanoid-robot-pepper.html.

“Pepper For Business Edition Humanoid Robot 2 Years Warranty.” Controling a Robot Using Voice - Speech Recognition Module for Robots - Génération Robots, www.generationrobots.com/en/402422-pepper-forbusiness-edition-humanoid-robot-2-years-warranty. html.

Simon, Matt. “Catching up With Pepper, the Surprisingly Helpful Humanoid Robot.” Wired, Conde Nast, 13 Apr. 2018, www.wired.com/story/pepper-the-humanoid-robot/.

In addition to providing company in homes, Pepper has also seen success in customer service. Pepper is attached with a tablet and provides information like a

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Seeing More Colors It is common knowledge that imagining a color that one cannot see is impossible. Most humans see three primary colors of light: red, green and blue. A rare genetic mutation, however, allows people called tetrachromats—less than 2% of women and less than 1% of men—to see a fourth type of visible light. These people see the world as much more colorful and vibrant than the average human being.

People see color through the use of sensor cells called cones. These cells take different wavelengths of light and convert them into nerve signals that travel to the brain. L-Cones process the range of photons that is converted into red light, M-Cones process green light, and S-Cones process blue light. What gives a tetrachromat the ability to see a fourth color is a fourth type of cone cell, a mutation of the M-Cone. This mutated cone cell occurs in a surprisingly large part of the population, but it is almost always so similar to either the normal M-Cone or normal L-Cone cell that the person who has it sees little to no extra color. It is only in very rare cases that the fourth cone differs in wavelength enough from the other cones for a person’s perception of color to be significantly altered.

Mutated M-Cones do not grant human eyes the ability to see light outside the human visible light spectrum. What it does instead is create greater distinction between the colors of light that people already see. Each different type of cone perceives different colors because it absorbs a different wavelength of light. S-Cones absorb light with a peak wavelength of around 420 nanometers. The wavelength absorbed by M-Cones is strongest at around 520 nanometers, and L-Cones highly overlap with M-Cones, absorbing light with a peak signal at about 570. The mutated M-Cone that causes tetrachromacy does not have a specific range because the mutation is different in everyone, but it has not been observed to deviate too far from the standard M-Cone’s color range. The more it deviates from the range of both the M-Cone and L-Cone, the more distinct a tetrachromat’s extra color perception is.

The reason the mutation is less common in men than in women is because of how the mutation itself works.

The gene that creates the red and green cones is coded on the X chromosome. Since men only have one X chromosome, they can only have three different types

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of cones coded, which typically correspond to red, green, and blue, but in cases of anomaly can cause color blindness. Women, on the other hand, have two X chromosomes, meaning they have two active versions of the gene that creates the red and green cones. If one of these genes is anomalous but the other is normal, a case of tetrachromacy is likely.

Having a fourth type of cone cell may not have obvious practical applications, but tetrachromats can use their abilities a number of ways. Tetrachromatic artist Concetta Antico creates vivid paintings based on her perception of the world. Antico is a prominent tetrachromat, and her perception of color differences is fascinating and unique. Antico wishes to devise a system of training to allow tetrachromats to realize the full potential of their abilities, and hopes to help trichromats and even those with color blindness become more articulate with color.

— Nathan Ellis Tsoulis-Reay, Alexa. “What It’s Like to See 100 Million Colors.” Science of Us, 26 Feb. 2015, nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/02/what-like-see-a-hundred-million-colors.html.

Deleniv, S. “The Mystery of Tetrachromacy: If 12% of Women Have Four Cone Types in Their Eyes, Why Do so Few of Them Actually See More Colours?” The Neurosphere, 17 Dec. 2015, theneurosphere.com/2015/12/17/the-mysteryof-tetrachromacy-if-12-of-women-have-four-cone-typesin-their-eyes-why-do-so-few-of-them-actually-see-morecolours/.

Biology, Dr. “Rods and Cones.” ASU - Ask A Biologist, Arizona State University School of Life Sciences Ask A Biologist, 6 Jan. 2010, askabiologist.asu.edu/rods-and-cones.

Robson, David. “Future - The Women with Superhuman Vision.” BBC News, BBC, 5 Sept. 2014, www.bbc.com/future/ story/20140905-the-women-with-super-human-vision.

Greenwood, Veronique. “Eye of the Beholder: How Colour Vision Made Us Human.” New Scientist, New Scientist, 2015, www.newscientist.com/article/ mg22630170-400-eye-of-the-beholder-how-colour-vision-made-us-human/?cmpid=ILC%7CNSNS%7C2017GLOBAL-inlinelink&utm_medium=ILC&utm_source=NSNS&utm_campaign=inlinelink.

History of Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a very severe and chronic mental illness that affects over 20 million people worldwide. Patients who suffer from this illness have symptoms of hallucinations, delusions, and psychotic episodes that make it very difficult to participate or live in society. Although there are medical solutions to schizophrenia, there is still a lot that is unknown about it, and many people have misconceptions about the mental disease. Research and development on schizophrenia have been around since the 20th century, and with the advancement of science, more is being conducted today.

Throughout medical history, the concept of “madness” and other forms of psychosis have been observed and noted. There are written documents from Egypt dated back to 1550 BCE that provide a description of an illness similar to schizophrenia. In earlier days, people with mental illnesses were treated the same, regardless of differences in the mental illnesses. A common belief was that mental disorders were a result of evil spirits, and that the solution to these illnesses was to rid the mentally ill of those spirits using any method possible, including mutilation of the skull. Archaeological discoveries have shown Stone Age skulls with holes drilled into them, further proving that mental illnesses similar to schizophrenia have been around for millions of years.

The term schizophrenia, which means a splitting of the mind, was first coined by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in the early 1900s. Based on this definition, many people incorrectly misinterpret the disease as a multiple personality disorder. Instead, the term describes how people with this disorder have fragmented thoughts. Bleuler developed the term to replace the name of dementia praecox, the first medical description of what is considered to be today’s modern classification of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia was identified as a mental illness by doctor Emile Kraepelin in the late 1800s. He classified the disorder, then still called dementia praecox, into three subtypes: catatonic, hebephrenic, and paranoid. These subtypes are included in today’s classification of the disorder, but it has been since established that schizophrenia is not related to dementia.

Early modern treatment of this disorder included exorcisms and insulin shock treatment, and patients were often confined to asylums and wards. A popular form of treatment was different types of therapy, including sleep, gas, and fever therapy. Many treatments aimed to control disturbed behavior, rather than cure or alleviate the illness. Information on the classification of schizophre-

nia and its solutions was still limited due to the lack of knowledge and tools in psychological science. There was also an issue regarding how most people viewed schizophrenic patients, as they received a bad reputation from society, and were often dismissed as crazy people who “had issues.”

A major breakthrough in treatment of the illness came in 1952, when surgeon Henri Laborit discovered a medicine that successfully treated the symptoms of schizophrenia.

He discovered chlorpromazine, an antipsychotic more commonly known as thorazine. This led to more and more patients being treated with antipsychotic medication, showing progress in the solution to schizophrenia.

In the 1970s, programs and support groups were created for patients, such as the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Today, schizophrenia has a more developed definition and identification criteria. Books such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and the International Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders (ICD-11) were created to help doctors diagnose and identify mental disorders, including schizophrenia, that people are suffering from. Solutions and medical treatment have also developed over time, with many patients now prescribed atypical antipsychotics or second-generation antipsychotics, which do not produce adverse side effects. Psychosocial therapies have also been developed to treat schizophrenia, such as family therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Progress has been made in terms of identifying schizophrenia and finding solutions to the illness, giving sufferers a chance to relieve their symptoms and to live a better life.

— Kenya Calderon Burton, Neel. “A Brief History of Schizophrenia.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201209/brief-history-schizophrenia.

Jablensky, Assen. “The diagnostic concept of schizophrenia: its history, evolution, and future prospects” Dialogues in clinical neuroscience vol. 12,3 (2010): 271-87.

“The History of Schizophrenia.” Schizophrenia Facts and Statistics, schizophrenia.com/history.htm.

Tracy, Natasha. “History of Schizophrenia.” HealthyPlace, Healthy Place, 20 Apr. 2012, www.healthyplace. com/thought-disorders/schizophrenia-information/history-of-schizophrenia.

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An interview with Jong Hoon Kim Jong Hoon Kim is a computer science professor at Kent State University. He grew up in South Korea, where he earned his Bachelor of Science at Seoul National University of Science and Technology. He went on to earn his Master of Science and Ph.D. at Louisiana State University. He is the director of Advanced Telerobotics Research Laboratory where he led Tele-Bot projects involving the creation of a remote and immersive experience through robotics and sensory technology.

Do you mind telling us a bit about yourself and how you got started working in the field of robotics?

My name is Jong Hoon Kim and I am from South Korea. I worked in an SI company, or System Integration, where we work with companies who need assistance in maintaining their data and resources. I realized that the work was exhausting, boring, and not for me. I decided to study abroad in the U.S., and graduated from Louisiana State University. One of their departments has a robotics lab with a focus on mobile robots, so I decided to join it. After graduating and getting my PhD., I got a job in Miami at Florida International University, as a professor. Because my expertise was in robotics, the director of the school asked me to design a new lab as well as develop a new course. During one of the opening ceremonies of our lab, where we displayed many of our robotics projects with the students, I met Jeremy Robbins.

He was a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy

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Reserves who served during the Afghanistan War. Through his experiences, he noticed that disabled police and military veterans had difficulties coming back into society. He asked if there were any robotic technologies that could enable them to recontribute to their communities. We discussed the idea of patrolling robots through telerobotics, to allow injured veterans to patrol areas and combat crime through a robotic avatar from their homes. Although this might have been a good idea, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development requires a lot of money with uncertain outcomes. At first, I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take him seriously because there was no money or action backing up these ideas, it was all talk.

However, some time later, he came back to my office and brought 20k in a check, which was all the money he had gotten from his retirement and finishing his duties. A lot of people paid attention to our 20k project because of the motivation and where it came from, especially the media. A lot of magazines and TV shows wanted to see the progress. We were met with media attention from Universal Studios, Robocop, Discovery Channel, and Fox News. We are working on our Tele-bot 2 where we can create and use robots for patrol, and another one is searching and rescue.

These goals are limited by two obstacles: being able to fluently control the robot, and being able to report

the sensory information back to the user, so we’re trying to use a lot of VR technology to make a true avatar.

What were some obstacles you faced, and how did you overcome them?

We lacked the money, knowledge, and support from the school because these projects often required multi-millions and more advanced technology. A lot of people said we were just wasting our time. One good thing is that Jeremy Robbins, who donated to our project and had a very good heart, spread the word to a lot of people and contacted a lot of institutions to ask for help in our project. One of the institutions he contacted was a robotics institute in Florida, IHMC. The institute had a robotics project similar to ours they had to terminate.

We got the knowledge on how to build the robot, so we redesigned it with a minimum cost to build our own robot.

material given to us, and there was a lost link between the learning and the real world application, so it was just learning for the exam, and after the exam I forgot everything. When there’s something I want to achieve, like building something small, in order to make it, I needed to learn the skills to build the project. When you learn something in the class, try to apply it, try to make connections and try to ask questions. ask your teachers “so what?” and “where does it apply?” “Where’s the indirect connection?” and “what progress does it leads to?” Try to find things in your subject and link it to what you like. If you do it that way, your learning is fun and meaningful. Teaching was just for the exam. It made me sick and it was boring, like “why do I have to learn this?”

If you try to find and make that connection, you can be excited about the topic and take away something truly meaningful from the time you spent there.

— Min Yi Lin

What is the goal of your research in Tele-bot 1 and 2?

In Tele-bot 1, it was just to prove the concept that you can control a robot remotely. In Tele-bot 2, instead of you just controlling the robot, we’re trying to see how we can provide a more immersive experience in controlling. like for example, when you are driving a car, you are feeling that you are driving a car, but you are not a car. We’re trying to make a robot where you can say, “I’m not driving the robot, but I am the robot, I can move, I can see.” The first step was to just prove the concept, now the second step is to see if immersive controlling really has the benefit of controlling rather than just us driving the robot. One of the things we are trying to work on is a search and rescue operation case. The end goal of my research is that once we connect through our system to the avatar, we don’t feel like we are controlling the robot, but rather that we are the robot with our conscious there.

Can you give some advice to high schoolers who are interested in pursuing the field of robotics?

My high school teacher always talked about getting high scores on exams like the SAT. We just learned the

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ISSUE #15

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About Dr. Dragon Dr. Dragon is our school’s student produced magazine that focuses on math, science, and engineering. The mission of this magazine is to give HSMSE students the opportunity to take the school’s core subjects and explore subtopics that particularly interest them. Students on the magazine staff research and write about subjects of their choice. They are also involved with the production of the magazine, and learn about everything from design to fundraising and budgeting.

If you are an HSMSE student and want to contribute your thoughts, please talk to our officers or our faculty advisor, Mr. Choi.

Contact information: Dr. Dragon email: hsmsedrdragon@gmail.com Mr. Choi: RChoi@hsmse.org Also, you can read our previous magazines by visiting our website: sites.Google.com/site/hsmsedrdragon/

Copyright © 2019 by Dr. Dragon All rights reserved. Published by Dr. Dragon No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission by the publisher.