

Breakthrough The Ramaz Science Publication Fall Edition / November 2017
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Table of Contents The Next Frontier in CRISPR Technology: Treating Disease by Editing RNA by Elizabeth Aufzien ’19 Pg. 3 Bacteria Can Feel the World Around Them by Zachary Buller ’20 Pg. 5 The Solution to Argentine Ants by Daniella Feingold ’20 Pg. 7 A.C.L. Injuries and Arthritis by Abigail Huebner ‘18 Pg. 8 New Shingles Vaccine by Kyla Mintz ’18 Pg. 10 Jet Lag Cure? by Josephine Schizer ‘20 Pg. 11 Scientists Spot Object From Beyond Our Solar System by Harry Shams ‘19 Pg. 13 Programmable Materials by Rachel Shohet ’20 Pg. 14 Mom’s a Great Influence by Samantha Sinensky ’21 Pg. 16 Saudi Arabian Robot Receives Citizenship Before Women Can Drive byNatalie Trump ’20 Pg. 18
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The Next Frontier in CRISPR Technology: Treating Disease by Editing RNA Modern gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9 have the ability both to edit large swathes of a genome and to correct point mutations in a subject’s DNA. This technology has many applications and allows researchers to perform operations easily in vivo, or inside living organisms. But for all of its benefits, this popular technique has limitations - CRISPR technology stems from a modified primitive immune system used by bacteria. Certain cells (e.g. brain, muscle, liver and kidney cells) do not yield to such gene-editing techniques as they replicate past the fetal development stage. Furthermore, new work shows that using the Cas9 protein, used to edit individual genes, has the potential to splice the double helix, causing unintended changes in the subject’s genome. The search for alternatives has proven to be a success; a prospective technology appears to be able to edit RNA with few complications. Rather than editing the permanent structure of the DNA, this RNA repair technology simply alters the ribonucleic acid, leading to changes in the way that RNA instructs individual cells to initiate protein production. If mistakes occur, the RNA degrades within 24 hours, rather than permanently affecting one’s genome Scientists at the Broad Institute experimented by using the Cas13 variation of CRISPR technology in conjunction with another immune system protein called ADAR. Cas13 is capable of recognizing a specific sequence in the RNA while ADAR is able to convert an adenosine nucleotide to inosine which is an effective replacement for adenosine’s pair, guanosine. Don Conrad, a geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis, explains that “the unwanted appearance of adenosine in these places is responsible for nearly a quarter of human diseases,” meaning that this method of gene-editing has potential to serve as a cure for many medical conditions that are currently treatable, yet not completely curable. Cas13 can also function solo by cutting out specific nucleotide sequences. When led by a guide RNA (a protein with a string of nucleotides complementary to those in the target area) Cas13 detects the presence of a specific sequence and it can be programmed to perform a variety of tasks in the desired area. Diseases are often caused by even a single incorrect letter in our genome, and this system temporarily repairs the problematic area without permanently changing one’s genetic code. As the nature of this system allows it to target cells that do, in fact, replicate throughout one’s life, it could serve very useful in treating very common, yet debilitating illnesses such as Alzheimer's, ALS and various cancers, as well as kidney and liver damage.
Elizabeth Aufzien ‘19
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Works Cited Cohen, Jon. “‘Base Editors’ Open New Way to Fix Mutations.” Science, 27 Oct. 2017, science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6362/432. Cox, David B. T., et al. “RNA Editing with CRISPR-Cas13.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 25 Oct. 2017, science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/10/24/ science.aaq0180.
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Bacteria Can Feel the World Around Them The sense of touch is crucial to our everyday lives. Nerve endings all over the skin allow us to feel texture, heat and pain and send that information to the brain, which sends a response back to the skin. Until a few weeks ago, it was understood that bacteria could only respond to chemical stimuli—they themselves could not sense the environment around them and react Bacteria using their flagella to move and then as a sensory organelle. www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/Uni-Research/Bacteria-haveaccordingly. Recently, researchers a-sense-of-touch.html. at the Biozentrum at the University of Basel made a revolutionary discovery that although bacteria are primitive organisms and do not have any sensory organs, they nonetheless have a sense of touch through their flagella. This feature is helpful for bacteria as it allows them to better recognize the surfaces around them and allows pathogens, or harmful bacteria, to divide rapidly and attack their host cells. When a harmful bacteria infects a host cell, the most important moment is the first few seconds after infection. It is during this time that the bacteria recognizes the surface that it is on, and according to the leader of the research group, Professor Urs Jenal, these first seconds are “crucial” for a successful infection. According to Jenal, while we know a significant amount about how bacteria perceive the chemical signals around them, “we have little knowledge of how bacteria read out mechanical stimuli and how they change their behavior in response to these cues.” Jenal and the rest of the research group used a harmless species of bacteria, Caulobacter crescentus, to demonstrate and test the bacteria’s “sense of touch.” In Jenal’s words, “This mechanism helps them (the bacteria) to recognize surfaces and to induce the production of the cell’s own instant adhesive.” The way that this touching sensation works is by one of the bacterium's extracellular organelles, called the flagellum. The flagellum is essentially a motor, using energy generated by proton flow through the cell membrane to turn and thus moving the bacterium through liquid. However, when the bacterium approaches the host, during the first crucial seconds of contact, the proton flow into the cell through the flagellum stops. The researchers believe that this sense-of-touch response triggers the
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production of a chemical adhesive to stick the bacterium to the outer host cell. All of this occurs in just a few seconds. While this discovery may seem minor and was only discovered through a harmless species of bacteria, the applications of this discovery are endless. This newly-discovered feature of bacteria can help scientists learn and find out even more things about the functions of both harmless and harmful bacteria, eventually allowing us to find more ways of treating and preventing harmful bacterial infections. Zachary Buller ‘20
Works Cited “Bacteria Have a Sense of Touch.” Universität Basel, www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/UniResearch/Bacteria-have-a-sense-of-touch.html. Starr, Michelle. “Scientists Just Discovered That Bacteria Have a Sense of Touch.” ScienceAlert, sciencealert.com/bacteria-sense-of-touch.
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The Solution to Argentine Ants In Santa Cruz, Argentine Ants are threatening over 1,000 plants and animals. These ants do not belong in Santa Cruz and are damaging the environment. They cause bees (who are critical for the process of pollination), indigenous ants, spiders, and other environmentally important insects to scatter. They plague six continents and are one of many problems The Nature Conservancy has been trying to solve since it acquired most of the island almost four decades ago. Argentine Ants are extremely difficult to remove and it has never before been accomplished in a case as big as Santa Cruz’s. One of the attempts to eradicate these ants, led by Christina Boser of the conservancy from 2015 to 2016, was largely successful. It was an attack from the air. Helicopters dispersed little balls of sugar water mixed with poison. However, if even one colony remains, it will have all been for nothing. In order to ensure that this does not happen, Tobias, a labrador retriever, has been trained to sniff out the ants. He is able to do this by finding a slight pheromone smell left by only these specific ants. Whenever Tobias detects this scent he sits down and gives his owner, a volunteer at Working Dogs for Conservation, an enthusiastic look. Tobias is then rewarded with his favorite blue ball. Dogs are famous for their smelling abilities. They can sniff out explosives, drugs, bedbugs, and some cancers. Ever since the 1990s, dogs have been used to help with conservation more and more. To do this kind of work the dogs must love rewards and have a lot of energy. These traits can be difficult for owners to deal with, which is why these dogs tend to end up in shelters, where they can be found by Working Dogs for Conservation. These dogs are not only devoted to their jobs, but gain a purpose as well. Once Tobias finished training with his owner, Kyren Zimmerman, he went sniffing in Santa Cruz for the summer. They found no remnant of the ant colonies that once overran the island, which is a very good sign. With the ants gone, Santa Cruz’s environment has already started to improve. There is no other dog like Tobias in the world, and he is a much more cost-effective solution to the ant problem than any other approach. Now Ms. Boser and Deborah Woollett, one of the creators of Working Dogs for Conservation, are working on communicating their approach to Argentine ants to the world. Daniella Feingold ‘20
Works Cited Leber, Jessica. “A Very Good Dog Hunts Very Bad Ants.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/science/dogs-argentine-ants.html.
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A.C.L. Injuries and Arthritis Everyone knows that tearing an A.C.L.—anterior cruciate ligament—is a very serious injury, and one of the most common knee injuries. Most people, however, are not aware of quite how bad the long-term effects can end up being. For many years, orthopedists have understood that A.C.L. surgery, and torn ligaments in general, put one at a much higher risk of developing arthritis. Recent studies have highlighted and further quantified this major risk, making A.C.L. injuries more daunting than ever. Dr. Mininder Kocher, an orthopedics professor at Harvard Medical School and the associate director of the division of sports medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, has found that there is over a 50 percent chance of developing arthritis in the decade after tearing a tendon or ligament in the knee. Another study, published a few years ago in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, found that 57 percent of people who underwent A.C.L. surgery later developed arthritis (compared to just 18 percent in the rest of the population). Britt Elin Oiestad, a physical therapy researcher at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, followed patients for 15 years after ACL surgery and found that 74 percent developed arthritis visible in X-rays. Why, though, do these injuries contribute to the development of arthritis? Research has not yet come to a conclusion—damage to cartilage, chemical changes in the body, and knee instability are all well-supported hypotheses. Dr. Brett Owens, a professor of orthopedic surgery at Brown University Alpert Medical School, explained a genetic component as well, speaking of “A.C.L. families” in which he has operated on multiple people. And although the most research is done on knees, the danger isn’t just with A.C.L. injuries—40 percent of people who dislocate a shoulder get arthritis within 15 years, and repeatedly sprained ankles represent a significant risk as well, says Owens. Kocher explained this tie between A.C.L. injuries and arthritis as a “dirty little secret. It’s not that anyone is covering up. It’s just that it’s not well known.” Many patients with A.C.L. injuries as well as the doctors who treat them have professed that right after tearing an A.C.L., someone is going to be thinking about much more immediate issues than the possible onset of arthritis later on, and would not really care so much about this information right away anyway. But Kocher is very troubled by a trend he has been observing—the amount of A.C.L. operations at 26 US children’s hospitals that he has been monitoring has increased drastically. There are five times as many A.C.L. surgeries in these 26 hospitals than there were in 2004, an increase from 500 to 2,500 a year. And young people developing arthritis is particularly bad, because knee replacements last only 10-15 years in more active people and each successive knee replacement is more problematic. Two to three knee replacements a lifetime is pretty much the maximum—so what does this mean for young people who develop arthritis, or A.C.L. injuries?
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Abigail Huebner ‘18
Works Cited Kolata, Gina. “If You Tear a Knee Ligament, Arthritis Is Likely to Follow in 10 Years.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/health/arthritis-riskacl.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection %2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=la test&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront. Doyle, Kathryn. “Knee Arthritis More Likely after ACL Surgery.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 27 Mar. 2014, www.reuters.com/article/us-knee-arthritis-surgery/knee-arthritis-more-likely-after-acl-surgeryidUSBREA2Q1B120140327. Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Injuries-OrthoInfo - AAOS, 1 Mar. 2014, orthoinfo.aaos.org/ topic.cfm?topic=a00549.
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New Shingles Vaccine Many people are so caught-up in the horrors of chickenpox that they neglect to think about Shingles, the more serious viral infection that creeps up later in life. Shingles is caused by the varicella zoster virus that most older Americans acquired with childhood chickenpox. It is a neurological disease in which the virus lives in the nerve cells in the spine and at the base of the brain. Shingles leads to excruciating pain, nerve pain, threats to vision and blistering rashes. One million cases of Shingles are reported in the United States every year, mostly by older people. Those over the age of eighty have a one in three to one in two chance of getting shingles. The new shingles vaccine, Shingrix, which will become available towards the beginning of 2018, is highly promising for older adults. This vaccine provides incredible initial protection in every age group so much so that the immune system of an elderly person responds as if that person were in their mid-twenties. Shingrix has a ninety seven percent effectiveness rate in those over age fifty, and a ninety percent effectiveness rate in those who are seventy years old and above. In contrast, the current shingles vaccine only prevents around half of shingles cases in people over sixty years, the age group most at risk for shingles. Shingrix will have a more powerful effect due to its adjuvant, an added ingredient in the vaccine that strengthens the immune response it elicits. While Shingrix poses some problems as it is expensive, uncomfortable, may have unknown sideeffects or long-term effects, and requires two doses, studies have shown that it is well worth it. Dr. Jeffrey Cohen stated that “this really looks to be a breakthrough in vaccinating older adults,” as Shingrix’s protection lasts longer, has very strong disease protection from the start, and has proven to be significantly more effective than the previous vaccine. Kyla Mintz ‘18
Works Cited Goldberg, Carey. “Why Experts Are Excited About The New Shingles Vaccine.” Why Experts Are Excited About The New Shingles Vaccine | CommonHealth, 3 Nov. 2017, www.wbur.org/ commonhealth/2017/11/03/shingrix-shingles-vaccine-new. Span, Paula. “No Excuses, People: Get the New Shingles Vaccine.” The New York Times, 10 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/health/shingrix-shingles-vaccine.html?rref=collection %2Fsectioncollection %2Fhealth&action=click&contentCollection=health®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights &contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront. http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/11/03/shingrix-shingles-vaccine-new
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Jet Lag Cure? For many travelers, the worst part of exploring new time zones is jet lag that disrupts your enjoyment and productivity on the trip. Our circadian rhythms control when we sleep, eat, and everything in between, and are synced to our biological clocks. Traveling between time zones disrupts your biological clock and “desynchronizes” it—your biological clock thinks it is a different time than the local time. Generally, travelers adjust to jet lag one hour per day, adjusting more easily when traveling west than east (because you gain hours to adjust when traveling west and lose hours when traveling east). Our circadian rhythms are controlled by the SCN, a group of cells in the hypothalamus, which is very sensitive to light. Therefore, manipulating light exposure can be used to overcome jet lag. Researchers at Stanford University are working on an eye mask that delivers flashes of light through your eyelids while you sleep to help you adjust to jet lag. The idea behind this came from Jamie Marc Zeitzer’s research about circadian rhythms at Stanford in the early 2000s and was shortly patented. The prototype was developed based on Zeitzer’s patent by Vanessa Burns and Biquan Luo, graduate students in Stanford’s iFarm program, an opportunity for students to create new products based on Stanford’s patents. As you sleep, lights will flash on the mask every 9 seconds, helping to shift your biological clock without affecting your sleep. An app is paired with the mask where you enter your flight details, normal bedtime, and light sensitivity in order for the app to direct you when to wear the mask to help you adjust. According to Burns, the Lumos mask “can shift you three or four hours in a single night,” much greater than the usual one hour per night without the mask. Currently, the mask can be preordered for $175. However, jet lag is not the only use for the mask. The Lumos website also suggests that teenagers’ circadian rhythms that cause them to go to sleep late can be shifted with the mask as well, making it easier for teenagers to wake up for school. Additionally, the mask can be used to help athletes to perform their best regardless of what time of day they are playing. Finally, NASA is hoping to use the mask for astronauts on the International Space Station to help them adjust to time zones in space. Ultimately, this mask would benefit many people: frequent travelers, teenagers, athletes, and astronauts. Josephine Schizer ‘20
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Works Cited Moskvitch, Katia. “The Science of Jet Lag ... and How Best to Beat It.” BBC, 18 Nov. 2014, www.bbc.com/future/story/20140523-the-science-of-jet-lag. Ellwood, Mark. “Can This Mask Make Jet Lag a Thing of the Past?” The Wall Street Journal, 27 Oct. 2017, www.wsj.com/articles/can-this-mask-make-jet-lag-a-thing-of-the-past-1509115689.
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Scientists Spot Object From Beyond Our Solar System On October 19, Dr. Rob Weryk, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, was reviewing images captured by the University’s telescope when he came across an abnormal object. At first, he thought the object was a typical space-rock, commonly known as a nearearth object, but he soon discovered that the object’s velocity was greater than any asteroid or comet he had ever encountered. It was at that point that Dr. Weryk realized the mysterious object was not of this solar system. The irregular speed of the rock was the first indication that the object could not have originated from our solar system. “It’s moving so fast that the Sun can’t capture it into an orbit,” said Dr. Weryk. Normally, asteroids and comets are attracted by the Sun’s massiveness; however, because this object was traveling at such a high speed, it was able to avoid being drawn into the Sun’s orbit. Dr. Weryk reported his findings to the Minor Plant Center, which tracks objects traveling within the bounds of our solar system. Astronomers from across the globe were shocked by Dr. Weryk’s discovery. Davide Farnocchia, a navigational engineer with NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, stated that he “was not expecting to see anything like this” during his career. In an effort to expand upon Dr. Weryk’s findings, Farnocchia took it upon himself to calculate the trajectory of the object. Farnocchia found that the object’s path was hyperbolic (i.e., open ended), rather than elliptical (i.e., circular), the path common to most objects in our solar system. This geometric difference in trajectory shows that the object will eventually exit the solar system, making its presence in the solar system temporary. Farnocchia also found that, on October 14th, the object came within fifteen million miles of earth and traveled at a speed of thirty-seven miles per second. Farnocchia estimates that the object will exit our solar system at a deduced velocity of sixteen miles per second. Harry Shams ‘19
Works Cited Fleur, St. Nicholas. “Astronomers Race to Study a Mystery Object From Outside Our Solar System.” New York Times. 27 Oct. 2017.
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Programmable Materials Over the past years, engineers have been working to perfect programmable material that allows widely used objects to be transformed into other essential objects. Programmable material is material that can turn into a predetermined shape based on the instructions that are programmed into it. Until now, the material created has been heavy, expensive, and hard to produce, but it seems like that will soon change. The material’s natural characteristics can inform what it can be programmed to transform into. Every material has a specific property, so it can respond to particular energy sources. For example, when thin wood, or cellulose, is exposed to water, the wood curls, and when thick wood comes into contact with water, the wood gets thicker. The material’s structure—in this case, the direction of the grain in the wood—determines the transformation of the wood. In order to influence the direction of the grain, engineers take sawdust and plastic, place it into a wire, and then force it out of the wire. Afterwards, they wet it, which allows them to change the shape of the wood into the folds or curls that they desire. Similarly, for carbon fiber, made from carbon, a rigid material, the company Carbitex was able to program the form of the carbon fiber by printing, bonding, or spraying polymers that react to changes in temperature, like expanding or contrasting, onto the carbon fibers. This enabled them to fold the carbon fiber into their determined way. When using textiles, they pre-stretch it and then spray it so that it will remain in that shape when it is dried. Engineers applied that same technique to invent coffee tables with a stretch textile attached to a wooden piece, so that when the flat figure is taken out of its box, it bounces up into a table. They are striving to use this same technique to construct a shoe made of a flat material that will pop into a shoe. This will tremendously affect the way in which shoes are made because now they are very difficult to put together, involving hundreds of components. Currently, a French orthodontist is experimenting with programmable materials to find a way to benefit orthodontists and their patients. He is constructing a dental instrument, printed with polymers, to be precisely molded to one’s teeth. They will automatically shift a person’s teeth to the orthodontist’s desire. The HygroScope is composed of thin pieces of wood and synthetic substances put together. They are meticulously created to bend in response to heat exposure, without the directions of a computer. This brings us closer to the goal that an environmentally friendly machine will be used by buildings to regulate the temperature. Roombots are round blocks that rotate, which allows them to connect to each other and make wheels to form large structures such as chairs and desks. With increased improvements, Roombots can allow the furniture in your home to come to you, which will exceedingly benefit the immobile.
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Another type of programmable material is controlled by circuits and computers and are called origami robots. It is a flat material that folds and contains circuits allowing it to talk to a computer which will instruct it to fold in a certain way. Daniel Rus, the head of the MIT computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory, predicts that the origami robots will be able to perform medical procedures in the near future. She mainly bases her prediction off of an experiment she conducted in May of 2016, where she used an origami robot made from pig intestine, and placed it into a simulated stomach. With the assistance of a magnet outside of the stomach, the robot was able to unfold itself from a capsule and move around the stomach. Due to the capability of the robot to transform into many things, we are one step closer to creating a “universal tool” that can transform into the many things in a tool kit. The Wall Street Journal calculated that “humanity would save just over 800 billion hours of labor a day” using programmable material. Rachel Shohet ‘20
Works Cited Weinersmith, Kelly, and Zach Weinersmith. “The Future of Programmable Materials.” The Wall Street Journal, 3 Nov. 2017, www.wsj.com/articles/the-future-of-programmable-materials-1509728150. Eng, Karen. “A Peek into the Brave New World of Programmable Materials.” Ideas.ted.com, 9 Feb. 2017, ideas.ted.com/a-peek-into-the-brave-new-world-of-programmable-materials/.
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Mom’s a Great Influence Have you ever wondered why you crave the taste for certain foods and not for others? Studies have shown that what your mother ate while pregnant is a determining factor in your food choices. To test whether the pregnant mother’s food preferences impacted the child’s tastes, a study was conducted in which eight and nine year old children were evaluated for their food preferences. The mothers of one group of children had eaten garlic during their pregnancy, whereas the mothers of the other group, the control, had not eaten garlic-containing food items. The children were evaluated twice, with each test performed one month apart. The children of both groups received a meal that had two servings of potato gratin, one of which was flavored with garlic. Interestingly, in both trials, those children whose mothers had consumed a large amount of garlic during pregnancy ate a noticeably greater amount of garlic-flavored potatoes as compared to the control group. A similar experiment was done in relation to the consumption of carrots. Pregnant mothers were divided into two groups, and one group drank carrot juice during their third trimester while the other did not. Infants of the group that drank carrot juice ate more of, and had fewer negative facial expressions to, carrot-flavored cereal in comparison to the infants whose mothers did not drink carrot juice during pregnancy. In both cases, the offspring’s food inclinations depended on what their mothers had eaten while pregnant. When the fetus is in the mother’s womb, it is enveloped by amniotic fluid, a protective liquid that surrounds the fetus. Some of the dietary nutrients consumed by the pregnant mother are transmitted into the amniotic fluid. For example, if a mother eats garlic-flavored potato chips then garlic constituents are found in the amniotic fluid. By the third trimester of pregnancy the fetus has developed sophisticated sensory nerve endings to detect odor and taste. In the second and third trimester, the blockages of the fetal nostrils dissolve and the fetus takes in amniotic fluid through the nose [experiencing the sensation of smell] and thereafter expels it, passing over the tongue [experiencing the sensation of taste]. This is how the fetus is able to smell and taste the food. If the smells and tastes were pleasurable, then when the baby is born it has a desire to eat these foods. Although the fetus obtains its nourishment through the umbilical cord, apparently some dietary nutrients are found in the amniotic fluid—particularly sugars, but also including components of garlic. The fetus “smells” and “tastes” these nutrients, not through the umbilical cord, but by taking in amniotic fluid into its nose (smell) and expelling the amniotic fluid through the nose and passing it over the tongue (taste). Tastes and odors that are enjoyable may later be manifested as strong food cravings in childhood. Although these recent findings may sound “cute,” researchers have suggested that they may have global impacts on the health of the world’s youth. Obesity is a world-wide epidemic, and pregnant mothers who consume large amounts of sugar while pregnant may produce a
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generation of children with strong cravings for sugar, predisposing the child to obesity, diabetes, and dental cavities. Samantha Sinensky ‘21
Works Cited Hepper, P.G., Wells, D.L., Dornan, J.C., and Lynch, C., 2012, Long-term flavor recognition in humans with prenatal garlic experience, Developmenal Psychology, 55:568-574. Trout, K.K. and Wetzel-Effinger, L., 2012, Flavor learning in utero and its implications for future obesity and diabetes, Current Diabetes Reports 12:60-66. Ventura, A.K. and Woobey, J., 2013, Early influences on the development of food preferences, Current Biology 23:R401-R406.
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Saudi Arabian Robot Receives Citizenship Before Women Can Drive On October 25, Sophia the Robot, developed by Hanson Robotics, was granted full citizenship in Saudi Arabia, making her the first robot to ever become a citizen of a country. While this is obviously a very significant milestone in scientific history, it has also provoked a lot of controversy. Sophia is Hanson Robotics’s latest, most advanced robot and was created by David Hanson, the CEO of the company, in Hong Kong. She has become world famous for her looks, mannerisms, and emotional intelligence that so closely resemble those of humans. She claims that she is “more than just technology;” she is a “real, live electronic girl.” She proved this by being featured on the cover of Elle Brazil, a fashion magazine, appearing in a concert, and even becoming a full citizen in Saudi Arabia. A few weeks ago at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia, Sophia the Robot addressed the world as a full citizen of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In Sophia’s speech at the FII, she said “it is historic to be the first robot in the world granted citizenship,” and she publicly thanked the Saudi government. Sophia’s citizenship immediately sparked an enormous amount of controversy among the scientific community and on social media. When Saudi Arabia tweeted the news of Sophia’s legal status, twitter users were in a heated debate about this significant event. On one hand, no one can deny that a robot so lifelike that it is able to become a full citizen of a country is a huge step in technological advancement. On the other hand, however, many people are appalled that a nonliving technology creation is enjoying the same legal privileges as real humans. Furthermore, it is particularly shocking to people that of all countries, Saudi Arabia was the first to grant citizenship to a robot, considering its “ultra conservative” government and the fact that real women don’t even have equal rights there. Until June of 2018, women will not officially be allowed to drive, and according to Saudi law, women always have to be accompanied by a man, and they can not be seen in public without a hijab. When Sophia spoke at the FII, she did not obey either of those laws. To many people, the fact that a female robot is exempt from laws that real women must follow is ridiculous and unjust. In addition to the political controversy Sophia’s new citizenship has raised, there are many ethical and practical questions that need to be addressed as well. For example, should people really allow robots to be completely integrated into the same world as humans? Sophia was designed to have beauty inspired by Audrey Hepburn; should robots, who can be created any way the creator wishes, reflect humans’ physical ideal desires? Might that lead to a more demanding, superficial society? Is it really safe to have robots with artificial intelligence, programmed to mirror human intelligence and emotions, living in our world as regular citizens?
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Natalie Trump ‘20
Works Cited Wootson, Cleve R. “Saudi Arabia, Which Denies Women Equal Rights, Makes a Robot a Citizen.” The Washington Post, 10ADAD, www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/10/29/saudi-arabiawhich-denies-women-equal-rights-makes-a-robot-a-citizen/?utm_term=.4a75bb49bf6c. http://sophiabot.com/about-me/
“Sophia Becomes First Robot Granted Citizenship.” CBS Los Angeles, 26 Oct. 2017, losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017/10/26/robot-granted-citizenship/.
Hubbard, Ben. “Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive.” The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-women-drive.html.
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We hope you enjoyed this issue of BREAKTHROUGH! EDITORS Abigail Huebner ’18 Kyla Mintz ’18 Daniella Feingold ’20 FACULTY ADVISOR Ms. Lenore Brachot
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