Young Scientist Journeys

The Butrous Foundation Journeys Trilogy

VOLUME 1

Edited by Paul Soderberg and Christina Astin Introduction by Ghazwan Butrous

Young Scientist Journeys

Edited by Paul Soderberg and Christina Astin

The Butrous Foundation C

A

N

T

E

R

B

U

R

Y

2

COVER PHOTO: Road

(See box on page 331.)

The Butrous Foundation

to Sedona, by Ted Grussing

Young Scientist Journeys

Volume 1 of The Butrous Foundation’s Journeys Trilogy

Publisher Ghazwan Butrous Editors Paul Soderberg and Christina Astin Authors: page 5

ISBN 978-0-9566440-0-8 Published by The Butrous Foundation Canterbury, England www.butrousfoundation.com Book designed and created by Paul Soderberg Printed by Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd. Mumbai, India www.medknow.com

© 2010 by The Butrous Foundation All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of The Butrous Foundation.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this volume are views and opinions of the individual author making them and are not to be construed as the views or opinions of either The Butrous Foundation or The King’s School, Canterbury. Likewise, although many of this book’s contributors are ISB alumni, their views and opinions expressed herein are entirely their own and in no way reflect the views and opinions of the International School Bangkok or its officers or employees. Similarly, the views and opinions of various authors who in their chapters mention a current or former employer should in no way be construed as representative of the views or opinions of his or her current or former employer.

Young Scientist Journeys

5

Contributing Authors Christina Astin MA (Cantab), MInstP, CPhys, LTCL Mike Bennett Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.), MS, ATP Vince B. Bennett Jr. BS Andy Bernay-Roman RN, LMHC, NCC, LMT Ghazwan Butrous MD, PhD, FESC, FRSA Ann Ladd Ferencz, artist and Art educator Tony Grady Jr. Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.), MS Kwon Ping Ho Executive Chairman, Banyan Tree Holdings Ltd. Jameela Lanza Ellen Jones Maxon PhD J. Glenn Morris MD, MPH&TM Susan Norlander Eva Raphaël MPH Phil Reeves MScEd Lee Riley MD Paul Soderberg Walteen Grady Truely PhD Corky Valenti MA Dee Woodhull MS, CIH, CSP Kim Pao Yu PhD ATP: Airline Transport Pilot (the US Federal Aviation Administration’s highest pilot certificate); Cantab: University of Cambridge member; CIH: Certified Industrial Hygienist; CPhys: Chartered Physicist; CSP: Certified Safety Professional; FESC: Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology; FRSA: Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; Jr.: Junior; LMHC: Licensed Mental Health Counselor; LMT: Licensed Massage Therapist; Lt. Col.: Lieutenant Colonel; LTCL: Licentiateship Trinity College London; Ltd.: Limited; MA: Master of Arts; MD: Doctor of Medicine degree; MInstP: Member of the Institute of Physics; MPH: Master of Public Health; MPH&TM: Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine; MS: Master of Science degree (“master’s”); MScEd: Master of Science Education; NCC: National Certified Counselor; PhD: Doctor of Philosophy degree (“doctorate”); Ret.: Retired; RN: Registered Nurse; USAF: United States Air Force.

Young Scientist Journeys

7

DEDICATION Late in 1927, just a month after the era of silent movies ended and as “talkies” were enthralling people worldwide, two baby boys were born in America, in the Northeast. The first would influence countless millions, and the second would influence countless thousands. The first baby, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 5 December, was Bhumibol Adulyadej, who became King of Thailand. The second, born in nearby Philadelphia just three weeks later, on 24 December, was Philip A. Reeves.

His Majesty, King Bhumibol, is one of the very few heads of state ever to hold several science patents (a recent one was granted in 2003 for a rainmaking innovation, another granted in 1993 for his revolutionary new wastewater aerator). In May 2006 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented to His Majesty the UN’s first-ever Human Development Lifetime Achievement Award.

Now the world’s longest-reigning monarch (on the throne more than 63 years), King Bhumibol continues to influence millions of people in Thailand, the only Southeast Asian country never colonized by a European power.

Mr. Reeves met Vinij, his wife, in Boston, to which she had been sent from Bangkok by King Bhumibol to obtain a Nursing degree. Moving to Thailand in 1960, Mr. Reeves influenced thousands of children during his quarter-century career as a Science teacher at the International School Bangkok (1960-1984), and those children grew up to influence thousands more, ad infinitum.

This book is therefore dedicated to His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and to Mr. Reeves, and to all young people worldwide who want to make this world a better place both through Mr. Reeves-style Science and through Thai-style freedom.

Young Scientist Journeys

9

Contents Introduction: The Journeys Trilogy, Ghazwan Butrous . . . 11 Chapter 1. Science is All Around You, Phil Reeves . . . 17 Chapter 2. The Beauty of Science, and The Young Scientists Journal, Christina Astin . . . 19 Chapter 3. The Long Journey to This Book, Paul Soderberg . . . 25 Chapter 4. Dare to Imagine and Imagine to Dare, Lee Riley . . . 43 Chapter 5. How the Science Club Helped Me Become a Human Being, Andy Bernay-Roman . . . 55 Chapter 6. Your Journey and the Future, Paul Soderberg . . . 63 Chapter 7. Engineering as a Ministry, Vince Bennett . . . 83 Chapter 8. Cold Facts, Warm Hearts: Saving Lives With Science, Dee Woodhull . . . 99 Chapter 9. My Journeys in Search of Freedom, Mike Bennett . . . 107 Chapter 10. Insects and Artworks and Mr. Reeves, Ann Ladd Ferencz . . . 121 Chapter 11. Window to Endless Fascination, Doorway to Experience for Life: the Science Club, Kim Pao Yu . . . 129 Chapter 12. Life is Like Butterflies and Stars, Corky Valenti . . . 135 Chapter 13. Tend to Your Root, Walteen Grady Truely . . . 143 Chapter 14. Lessons from Tadpoles and Poinsettias, Susan Norlander . . . 149 Chapter 15. It's All About Systems—and People, J. Glenn Morris . . . 157 Chapter 16. A Journey of a Thousand Miles, Kwon Ping Ho . . . 165 Chapter 17. The Two Keys to Making a Better World: How-Do and Can-Do, Tony Grady . . . 185 Chapter 18. Becoming a Scientist Through the Secrets of Plants, Ellen (Jones) Maxon . . . 195 Chapter 19. The Essence of Excellence in Everything (and the Secret of Life), Jameela Lanza . . . 203 Chapter 20. The Families of a Scientist, Eva Raphaël . . . 211 Appendix: Lists of Articles by Young Scientists, Past and Present . . . 229 The SSS Bulletin, 1966-1970 . . . 230-237 The Young Scientists Journal, 2006-present . . . 237-241 Acknowledgements . . . 243 The Other Two Titles in the Journeys Trilogy . . . 247 Contents of Volume 2 . . . 249 Excerpt from Volume 3: A Great Scientist . . . 251 Index . . . 273

Young Scientist Journeys

11

Introduction

The Journeys Trilogy Ghazwan Butrous

This book is the first of my foundation’s Journeys Trilogy. The three volumes are particularly for those aged 12 to 20 who are inspired to have careers in science or to use the path of science in other careers.

It is to “mentor in print” these young people that we undertook the creation and publication of this trilogy.

Reading this first book is a journey, that starts on this page and ends on the last one, having taken you, Young Scientist, to hundreds of amazing “places,” like nanotechnology, Song Dynasty China, machines the length of football fields, and orchids that detest wasps. But the best reason to take the journey through these pages is that this book will help you prepare for all your other journeys.

Some of these will be physical ones, from place to place, such as to scientific conferences. Others will be professional journeys, like from Botany to Astrobiology, or from lab intern to assistant to researcher to lab director. But the main ones, the most exciting of all your journeys, will be into the Great Unknown. That is where all the undiscovered elements are, as well as all other inhabited planets and every new species, plus incredible things like communication with dolphins in their own language, and technological innovations that will make today’s cutting-edge marvels seem like blunt Stone Age implements.

On all those thrilling journeys, the one thing you won’t have is: certainty. Put simply, you as a young scientist can indeed plan your career—but you can’t plan your future. So the intent of our Journeys Trilogy is to mentor you: to empower you, to give you an edge, or a head start, meaning better odds for success on all your different journeys in any life you choose.

Today, in the 21st Century, you have an abundance of sources of learning and the means for gathering information that simply did not

12

The Butrous Foundation

exist when today’s established scientists were in their teens. In those bygone days, the sources were chiefly textbooks and journals, and instruction was primarily by conventional teachers in schools and by parents. But within the past few decades there has occurred a proliferation of questionable sources and an explosion of knockoff teachers.

In today’s world, you go into a school and real teachers teach you Science, Music, Maths, and History; and as soon as you step back outside the school, you are bombarded by instruction from the advertising industry and from the mass media and from vast legions of “experts” on the Internet, and from activists for all manner of special interests, these counterfeit experts, these knockoff teachers, all vying for your time and attention (and your money), all competing to be the one to instruct you in what to buy, what to boycott, what to fear, what to feel, what to believe, what to scorn, what to listen to, what to ignore, on and on unceasingly.

What can one do, Young Scientist? How can you meet this uniquely modern challenge of knockoffs everywhere? I submit to you that with teachers, as with Rolexes, you have these two choices: you can accept a cheap imitation; or you can insist on the real thing.

As to the real thing, there is one teacher that is never wrong (although often misunderstood), always trustworthy, almost always soft-spoken rather than strident, and, most importantly, always ready and willing to teach you the most important things that you need to know. This super teacher is Nature.

The American physicist who is called the “Father of Nanotechnolongy,” Richard Feynman, put it this way: “The imagination of Nature is far, far greater than the imagination of Man.” Paul Cézanne, the French painter, expressed essentially the same concept when he said, “When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a Godmade object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.” The same sentiment likewise has been echoed by great minds throughout history, including these three: Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC): “If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is Nature’s way.” German writer, philosopher and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): “Nature is beneficent. I praise her and all her works. She is silent and wise. She is cunning, but for good ends. She has brought me here and will also lead me away. She may scold me, but she will not hate her work. I trust her.” Swiss scientist and Ice Age expert Jean Louis Agassiz (1807-1873): “Study nature, not books.”

Young Scientist Journeys

13

Given the absolute reliability and supreme importance of Nature as a teacher, it follows that the best human teachers will be those people who know Nature best, which is to say: scientists. For, isn’t the study of some aspect of the natural world the main point of each and every science from Astrobiology to Zoology?

But not all scientists are equally knowledgeable or wise, of course.

So, Young Scientist, your challenge is to find the best-qualified scientists and then to learn from them—that is, to appoint them to be your teachers for your lifetime, even at present, whilst your academic teachers are preparing you for life.

One such eminently qualified teacher is Peter Medawar (1915-1987).

A Nobel Prize-winning zoologist and immunologist, Sir Peter wrote a book that was much like the one you now are holding in your hands.

First published in 1979, it was titled Advice to a Young Scientist. Although he was writing primarily to university students, a great deal of what he says is applicable to you, particularly this observation: “No one actively engaged in scientific research ever thinks of himself as old.”

However, “young at heart” is not really the same as “young.”

One conclusion I reached from my own science career, as well as from observing young scientists over the years, is that younger minds are more creative and innovative that those of established scientists. Why this should be so is itself an intriguing scientific question. It is probably due to our curricula and the ways we teach and train students to become the embodiment of our own ways of thinking. Thus challenging socalled scientific norms or the status quo cannot be accepted, and the established journals are not receptive to out-of-the-box ideas.

But if there is one crystal-clear lesson from the history of Science, it is that challenging the status quo with innovative ideas becomes the cornerstone of the future. Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Pasteur, Einstein, Edison, Gates, and endless others, all initially threatened the Scientific Establishment with their originality. Thus it follows that the power of young scientists to contribute to Science is potentially immense; but, alas, the ears that should listen to them don’t hear, and the opportunities for young people to contribute and communicate their own scientific enquiries are very limited.

So, Young Scientist, you face a paradox today: thanks to the Internet and today’s “global society,” you have the ability to share your views with the whole world—but not the audience you deserve, thanks to the “instinct” of established scientists to ignore you.

14

The Butrous Foundation

With my wife, Mouna, in 2006, I established The Butrous Foundation because of my conviction that young scientists should not be ignored, but should be both listened to carefully and empowered. That is our mission: empowering today the science leaders of tomorrow.

The primary way in which we are accomplishing this mission is enabling the publication, by young scientists of many different countries, of The Young Scientists Journal, which, as described on page 16 (below) is the world’s first scientific publication of, by, and for, literally all the young scientists in the world. Another way in which we are accomplishing our mission is by publishing our Journeys Trilogy for young scientists, starting with this book, Young Scientist Journeys.

The purpose of this first book is to empower young scientists of today by presenting the stories of young scientists of the past. This approach is evidence-based Science. This book offers you a wealth of evidence acquired by men and women who were young scientists of the ’60s and who now are near their 60s. These pages offer you the empirical evidence of their journeys through a wide array of fields— journeys just like the ones upon which you yourself will soon be embarking.

Our authors include a nuclear physicist, a botanist, a disease control centre director, an environmentalist, a journalist, a medical researcher, a professor of public health, a fine artist, a chemical engineer, a social scientist, a commercial pilot, a test pilot, a psychotherapist, a landuse planner, an IT expert, an OSHA Compliance Officer, a biochemist, a businessman, a programming guru, and a teacher for a quarter-century of middle- and high-school Science.

This diverse group of authors gained their perspectives all over the world, as they were born and raised in, or residents of, Afghanistan, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the Slovak Republic, the Sultanate of Oman, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, the United States, and Zambia.

While this volume presents the personal journeys of these authors from so many walks of life, the second volume will present the findings of their various journeys into Science issues shown on page 249 (below).

Those findings are a veritable treasure map of the “clues” that lead a young scientist to a successful career and a happy life—things like remembering to have fun, always remaining skeptical, joining professional

Young Scientist Journeys

15

associations that will help you (but carefully avoiding groups that would hinder or harm you), understanding the difference between greatness and fame, and getting key tools for your Science career from other fields, such as Art or Sports or Business or Philosophy.

All these things in My Science Roadmaps, Volume 2 of our trilogy, are presented within the context of the wisdom of the great gurus and teachers of the past in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

Thereafter, in Great Science Journeys, the trilogy’s final volume, an elite gathering of well-known scientists reflect on their own journeys that resulted not only in personal success but also in the enrichment of humanity. In Volume 3, for example, biochemist Akira Endo describes his discovery of the class of drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of coronary heart disease, for which he recently was called one of the 20th Century’s 10 scientists who were greater than Albert Einstein, thanks to the millions of lives that have been saved by Dr. Endo’s discovery.1 (Dr. Endo’s chapter is excerpted on pages 251-271, below.)

Thus it is with complete confidence, and real pleasure, that I offer to you my Foundation’s Journeys Trilogy, which I believe is unique in its combination of the wisdom of “normal” people who took the path of science as their guide, and their long investigations of science issues from the perspective of the wisdom of the past, and the reflections of eminent scientists on the things that are most essential for the progress of human civilization.

About the Author Ghazwan Butrous MD, PhD, FESC, FRSA, is a Professor of Cardiopulmonary Sciences at the University of Kent, Canterbury; Managing Director at the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute; and an independent consultant in pharmaceutical research and development (after 19 years as Chief Scientific Officer at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals). He is Director of The Butrous Foundation, and Patron of The Young Scientists Journal.

1 Billy Woodward, Scientists Greater Than Einstein: The Biggest Lifesavers of the Twentieth Century, Fresno, Calif.: Linden Publishing (2008).

Young Scientist Journeys

17

Chapter 1

Science is All Around You Phil Reeves

You will find, Young Scientist, that science is all around you: the air you breathe; the ground you walk on; the soap you use to wash your hands; the trees, shrubs, plants, and birds of the air and the animals of field and forest, not to mention the mosquito that stings you at night while you are sleeping.

Science is a trip to woods or jungle to study the life in a square meter of ground—in three separate environments, noting the percentage of predators to prey; it is to plot the location of deer in a savannah area using scat counts as a guide; it is to lie on your back at night and watch the constellations rise in the east and set in the west; it is to plant seeds and watch them grow—measuring their development from day to day; it is making and cooking a loaf of bread in a makeshift oven on a Bunsen burner and then eating it; it is squeezing an orange into a fire and watching the flame shoot out; it is taking water samples at various depths and in several locations in the ocean and then measuring contents, pH, and salinity—then comparing and plotting the results.

You will find that each day your interest in Science will grow keener and more fun.

Young Scientist, Science is a study of your surroundings and sharing your interest with others. Utilize your senses to gain the most Science has for you. Don’t be afraid of getting dirty. Some of the most interesting plants, flowers, and creatures are tiny. Invest in a microscope, a butterfly net, tweezers and binoculars—these are basic instruments for delving into the World of Science.

Happy hunting!

18

The Butrous Foundation

About the Author (shown above with his trusty butterfly net in Khao Yai, Thailand’s first national park, in 1964) Phil was a Science teacher at the International School Bangkok (ISB) from 1960 to 1984, the founder there of both the first Science Club and the first Science Fair, and the advisor of the authors of this book when they created and published The SSS Bulletin in 1966 (Student Science Society). Upon leaving Bangkok, he donated part of his personal collection of butterfly and beetle specimens to the Applied Scientific Research Corporation of Thailand (ASRCT, in Bangsue), and part to the Kiel Canal Museum in Germany.

(Throughout Germany, where Phil had been stationed during his 3 years in the US Army, 1949-1952, Schmetterlingsgarten, “butterfly gardens,” are extremely popular.)

Philip’s publications in The SSS Bulletin, included: “The Butterflies of the International School, Bangkok,” vol. 1, no. 1&2 (April 1966), pp. 36-38;“The Butterflies of Nakhon Nayok Province, Thailand,” vol. 2, no. 1 (December 1966), pp. 20-21; “Walkingsticks,” vol. 3, no. 1 (February 1968), pp. 23-24; “Chinchooks: Sticky-Toed Acrobats of Bangkok,” vol. 4, no. 1&2 (January 1969), pp. 50-53; and “How to do it: Plant Propagation in Bangkok,” vol. 4, no. 3 (March 1969), pp137-140.

Young Scientist Journeys

19

Chapter 2

The Beauty of Science, and The Young Scientists Journal Christina Astin

Science derives its power and its glory from its truths. These eternal constants, the things about it that do not change, are the ultimate springboard for all the great scientific discoveries and brilliant innovations.

These verities of Science, which to my mind constitute its beauty, were also the “power source” that fueled the founding of The Butrous Foundation in 2006, the creation of The Young Scientists Journal that same year, and the publication of this book in 2010.

The Beauty of Science To paraphrase Gandhi, Science is like a diamond: it can be viewed from many different facets, each one beautiful.2 Science is a manysplendored thing, comprising dozens of disciplines, which all share the same facets of beauty, the same truths.

One of Science’s many beauties is its accuracy—which is not an optional extra. For her flights of fancy and imaginary creations, British novelist Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. Two years earlier, for his flights of fancy and imaginary test results reported in two scientific articles on human cloning, South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk was indicted on charges of criminal fraud and embezzlement, fired from his university position, and formally barred from conducting further research on human cloning.3 2

Gandhi said, “Truth is like a diamond, with different facets . . . I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.”

3 Born in Kermanshah, Persia (Iran), in 1919, British writer Doris May Lessing is the author of The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and other novels. In 2001 she was awarded the David Cohen Prize, for a lifetime’s achievement in British Literature. Hwang Woo-suk (born 29 January 1953), a veterinarian and researcher, was a Professor of Theriogenology and Biotechnology at Seoul National University. Until November 2005, he was considered a pioneer in stem-cell research. (Theriogenology: the branch of

20

The Butrous Foundation

Another of Science’s many beauties is its frequent progress through serendipity—happy accidents. During his lifetime he was hailed as America’s greatest scientist since Benjamin Franklin. His name was Joseph Henry, and he invented the first electromagnetic telegraph, instituted the national weather-reporting system, and was the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution—and he became a scientist entirely by accident. In 1813, at the age of 16, he chased a rabbit into an abandoned church, and beneath a floorboard he found a dusty old Science book. After reading the book over and over until he understood it, he decided to become a scientist.

I find immense beauty in Science’s rationalism. Although scientists may make fortuitous discoveries such as Henry’s (and the famous discovery of penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming), and despite the diverse inspiration scientists find in fields far from Science, such as rain forest legends of magical plants influencing modern medicines, the scientific method stands supreme as the scientist’s creed.

Another beauty of Science is its accessibility. Other fields, like Religion or Sports or Military or Business, all employ the us/them mindset, success defined in terms of competition. But Science is a treasure house of knowledge that is freely accessible to anyone with the desire to use it.

Science is characterized by its essential and beautiful brevity, which at times takes on an almost haiku quality. One of the most influential scientific papers of all time—the one in which Albert Einstein presented his equation, e = mc2, which changed the world forever—was all of 3 pages long.4 The most influential life sciences paper ever published— James D. Watson and Francis Crick describing the double helical structure of DNA—was only 1 page long.5 Music, art and literature strive to find truth through beauty too, but Science is distinguished by its leanness, by what Bertrand Russell in The Study of Mathematics (1919) called its “austere beauty”; excess embellishment is pared away to get to the core of meaning.

Veterinary Medicine concerned with reproduction.) He was dismissed from the university and indicted after two of his papers in the journal Science were shown to have been based on fabricated data. The Seoul Central District Court on 26 October 2009 found him guilty of embezzlement and bioethical violations but cleared him of fraud.

4 Einstein’s article, which enabled the Atomic Age, appeared on pages 639-641 in volume 18 of Annalen der Physik (1905): “Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig?” (Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?).

5 Watson J.D. and Crick F.H.C., “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,” Nature, 171 (25 April 1953), p. 737.

Young Scientist Journeys

21

Those two world-altering papers illustrate another of Science’s beauties, which is its revolutionary potential! Scientific discoveries have caused global tectonic shifts in our ways of thinking, our ways of life and our quality of life. Imagine the world’s reaction when scientists announce contact with extraterrestrial life, or when a mammalogist learns how to speak with dolphins.6 Science provides life-support for virtually all other fields. Artists use safer oil paints because of scientists. Law enforcement got its most powerful tools, like DNA-typing, from scientists. Cooks and chefs worldwide use Teflon, created by a chemist in 1938. Innovations by NASA scientists led directly to safer gear for firefighters, and to the modern running shoe. This is yet another of its beauties: its generosity.

Another of Science’s beautiful facets is its continuity. In other fields, like Politics or Economics or even Technology, great spheres of thinking rise up then fade away and are replaced by new trends.

Monarchies, Communism, the telegraph: all are, like the dinosaurs, going extinct. But Science today is the same body of knowledge that it always was, only bigger and stronger.

Space travel today, even a close encounter with an asteroid, is enabled by principles worked out by Newton in the 1680s. Einstein’s revolutionary theory of relativity seemed to contradict Newton and quantum mechanics appeared to invalidate our understanding of matter, but in fact both these pillars of modern physics only built on what went before. Newton quoted to his rival Hooke (being uncharacteristically modest!): “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” (in a letter dated 5 February 1676).

Yet another beautiful thing about Science is its universality.

Science ignores national boundaries and transcends language. This principle was enshrined in the world’s most prestigious prizes by their founder, Alfred Nobel.7 The same principle knits together the many scientists involved in the creation of this book, and in the work of The Young Scientists Journal, as indicated by the scores of nations in our Index (page 273).

6

Or, possibly, when a marine biologist at Loch Ness finds a living plesiosaur, or a primatologist in the Himalayas proves that the yeti is a living Neanderthal.

7 nobelprize.org: “Each year the respective Nobel Committees send individual invitations to thousands of members of academies, university professors, scientists from numerous countries, previous Nobel Laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies and others, asking them to submit candidates for the Nobel Prizes for the coming year. These nominators are chosen in such a way that as many countries and universities as possible are represented over time.”

22

The Butrous Foundation

While Murphy’s Law holds that something will always go wrong, what can be called the Science Principle holds the opposite: something will always go right. Cancer, AIDS, pollution, on and on: scientists will find cures or solutions eventually. That’s another of Science’s beauties, its optimism. Related to this is the beautiful spirit of Science, which animates its practitioners: those who are committed to making this world a better place in ways great and small. Since there will always be those whose agendas make the world a worse place, scientists as a global group are this world’s last, best hope.

But I personally believe that one of the most beautiful things about Science is its disregard of age—a practising scientist can be 97 or 7, because no age group has a monopoly on scientific thinking: the habit of keen observation; an analytical mind; and the desire to make the world a better place. The Young Scientists Journal demonstrates this particular beauty perfectly.

The Young Scientists Journal When Professor Butrous in January of 2006 first shared with me his vision—of a free online publication that would be the world’s firstever scientific journal of, by, and for young scientists anywhere in the world—I was thrilled, both as a scientist and as a singer. Though my field is Physics, I do love to sing, and the idea of such a journal made perfect sense according to these two rules of thumb: one learns to sing by actually singing; and the point of learning to sing is not merely to sound better in the shower. Learning by doing; and performing for a very large audience: these would be the priceless gifts of The Young Scientists Journal—the means by which young scientists would learn science writing by actually writing scientific articles, which would then be read by young scientists worldwide.

As the advisor for the YSJ, I am very proud of the work that our team at King’s has achieved, amid all their schoolwork, since starting with the idea in January ’06. I am also very proud of the young scientists in other countries who have joined the YSJ team in the past four years. We are, now, truly a global publication.

Our YSJ website is at present available not only in English but also in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, and French. Our Chief Editor for the 2010-2011 school year attends a high school in New Mexico USA. Our Editorial Team consists of students in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and

Young Scientist Journeys

23

Mexico, with Special Editors in Hong Kong and Denmark; our Publicity Team has enjoyed input from Ireland; and our International Advisory Board, which I chair, has members from around the world (including a number of the authors of chapters in this book, I am pleased to point out).

However, despite how far we’ve come since ’06, we all feel that we are only just at the beginning of something which can grow and grow. You, Young Scientist, would be most welcome to help us grow by joining us, and I hope you will visit our website (www.ysjournal.com) and do so.

In the meantime, please have a look at the topics of all the articles we’ve published to date, at the back of this book (pages 237-241).

“Though those authors and their readers were all at that one school (this being ages before anyone ever heard the word ‘Internet’), the intent of those young scientists in the 1960s was precisely our intent today.”

Thanks to the “worldwide web,” The Young Scientists Journal is indeed the world’s first scientific publication of and by young (that is, highschool age) scientists, and for, literally, the young scientists of the entire world. But as ancient sources tell us, “What has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.”

That bit of wisdom came to mind when I learned, in April of 2010, that what I was doing at King’s had been done more than 40 years previously by a Science teacher named Phil Reeves, at the International School in Bangkok, Thailand (ISB). The teenagers in the club for which he was the advisor—the “Science Club,” later renamed the “Student Science Society”—did in fact create their own splendid scientific journal, The Student Science Society Bulletin. Though those authors and their readers were all at that one school (this being ages before anyone ever heard the word “Internet”), the intent of those young scientists in the 1960s was precisely our intent today. A Latin motto phrases it nicely: “Your knowledge is nothing when no one else knows that you know it.” 8 It is to let you, Young Scientist, know what they have learned since they left Bangkok, that these young scientists of the past have 8

Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter.

24

The Butrous Foundation

written this book, Young Scientists Journeys, for which I have had the honor of serving as co-editor.

PHOTOGRAPH BY R.K.G. COOKE

About the Author

Christina Astin MA (Cantab), MInstP, CPhys, LTCL, is Head of Science at The King’s School, Canterbury.

Since its founding in 2006, she has been advisor to the student editors of The Young Scientists Journal, and she chairs the journal’s International Advisory Board. Her own publications include “Helping Young Scientists Speak for Themselves” (Nature, 460, 683 [6 August 2006]), and “Teaching Relativity to 10-Year-Olds” (School Science Review, March 2005, p. 34).

Young Scientist Journeys

25

Chapter 3

The Long Journey to This Book Paul Soderberg

The journey that led to this book began half a century ago when a new Science teacher arrived in Bangkok, his destination after a long journey by car, bus and train from Marshfield, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, from there by slow freighter to Hong Kong, then by prop plane to the Thai capital, where work elephants wandered along the sleepy avenues and bug-eyed little lizards clung to the ceilings and walls of every home awaiting mosquitoes. His name was Phil Reeves.

When he arrived in “the Venice of the East,” he was 32 years old.

The International School Bangkok, ISB, was a K-12 school for the children of foreigners working in Thailand. Now and then in those days, kids had to shoo away slobbery horses. As the school newspaper put it in 1956, “Perhaps you’ve never had a cold clammy feeling go up your back. Perhaps you have never been concentrating on a test and had a wet nose touch and drool on your arm, causing you to make a scene . . . Horses are running all over the place with little men running after them, brandishing switches.”9 Likewise back then, Science wandered the campus, sometimes touching students.

There was no real club for young scientists. All students were required to join a club, and the choices were Home Economics, Debate, Science, and “Dramatics.” Inspired—and alarmed—by the Soviets’ launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, an ISB Rocket Club was formed in 1958. Before they disbanded the following year, the members built themselves a 26-in. telescope. Tongue-in-cheek, the school paper reported, “President Bill Washburn claims with the aid of this telescope 9 Story in the 12 July 1956 issue of The Center Sentinel. At that time the school was still the ICC, the International Children’s Center, its name since it opened on 1 May 1951. The name was changed to the International School Bangkok, ISB, on 26 August 1957. The name of the school newspaper changed many times—first The Bamboo Telegraph, then The Center Sentinel, then The Chinchook, then El Periódico de ISB, then, then, then, and finally The International.

26

The Butrous Foundation

they have been studying the moon. Bill says they have sighted a strange object sailing over this familiar heavenly body. It looked like a cow, but he couldn’t be sure.” 10 Certainly there were individual students who were vitally interested in Science and who truly were “young scientists” (including William Washburn). But Science was, essentially, a class that everyone had to take, like English. And at ISB, there had never been a Science fair.

All that changed, rapidly and dramatically (and permanently), after Mr. Reeves showed up. He arrived in Bangkok on 5 July 1960.

Four months later, the school newspaper ran a story with this headline: “Mr. Philip Reeves Helps Put ISB on the Map.” 11 Three months after that article, ISB had both its first true Science club and its firstever Science fair, both of them thanks to Mr. Reeves. At that first fair, there were 30 entries; by the time the seventh annual Science Fair was held, there were ten times that many—305 entries.12 The club Mr. Reeves organized in 1961 had four divisions—Biology, Chemistry, Astronomy, and Electronics—and five elected officers: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Sergeant-at-Arms.

Club membership was now entirely voluntary, so the only students who joined were young scientists. Annual dues were 20 baht.13 That was the Science Club to which most of the chapter authors of this book belonged. One of them, Andy Bernay-Roman (who wrote Chapter 5 in this book), was Treasurer in 1965. At the club meeting on 2 November that year, Andy proposed a name change: to be “a sophisticated, looked-up-to organization,” we should call ourselves the Student Science Society. From then on, we were the SSS. To the fun of a club had been added the seriousness of a society.

We still had a monthly party. Mr. Reeves contributed 100 baht from his own pocket for each month’s get-together. At one, held at the Ladds’ home, we all “studied” the science of making ice cream.14 Our field trips were also fun, especially the one on 21 May 1963, when we set off from school to go across town to the Nondburi Science Museum, got lost, and ended up in the compound of the Nondburi Prison. But between parties and adventures that were either hair-raising or sidesplitting, we practiced science seriously.

10

The Chinchook, 19 December 1958.

Jody Burnett article in El Periódico de ISB, November 1960.

The 1st fair: 17-18 February 1961; the 7th fair: 2-4 February 1967.

13 During the 1960s, US$1.00 equaled 20.8 baht.

14 See Ann Ladd Ferencz’s article in Chapter 10.

11 12

Young Scientist Journeys

27

One of the things we did was to construct our own weather station on top of the school. We (Jon Tomasic, Gary Haughney, Paul Huang, Gary Philips, and Paul Newbry) built it from spare lumber plus 300 baht of new lumber, and filled it with gadgets. Mr. Reeves insured the whole station with the New Zealand Insurance Company. Each morning, club members would take readings, compile the data, and scurry all over school posting on every bulletin board that day’s expected maximum and minimum temperatures, the relative humidity, the chance of rain, the cloud cover, the kinds of high and low clouds, the speed and direction of the wind, the barometric pressure, and the visibility, plus forecasts for the following day.

Then we did something that stunned most everyone when they first saw it: we published our own scientific journal.

I had proposed the idea during our 21 February 1966 meeting, and was promptly elected to a new SSS office, Editor-in-Chief. The model I followed was The Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society, and so it was decided to call our new journal The SSS Bulletin. On 24 March 1966, Science Department Chair Dorothy Woodbury told the school newspaper, The International, “Few secondary schools anywhere have ever attempted the publishing of a purely scientific bulletin.”

The first issue of The SSS Bulletin, dated April 1966, was printed a few days late, on 3 May 1966. After seeing a copy, Rosco V. Crowell, the high-school principal, sent Mrs. Woodbury this memo: “It is almost impossible to believe this caliber of work could be accomplished by high school students. This Bulletin is excellent!”

A Student Science Society get-together in 1966.

The first issue was 56 pages, and its table of contents is shown on page 230 of this book.

Young Scientist Journeys

165

Chapter 16

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Kwon Ping Ho

The line comes from a Chinese classic written in the 6th Century BC: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”148 I’m in that business, journeys. Travel, tourism, and hospitality are my interlocking fields. Indeed, I personally travel so frequently that I can honestly say that my one real hobby these days is watching in-flight movies. At any rate, I would like to talk to you, Young Scientist, about the very special journey that you yourself will soon be taking. Your destination will be a better world. The journey that takes you there will be what you yourself do to make the world a better place. And the crucial first step of your journey will be deciding what you want to do.

My family and I have a company called Banyan Tree Holdings Ltd.149 Our brand is high-end luxury hotels and resorts. We now have a string of destinations like a necklace of jewels around the globe, from Phuket Island to the Seychelles to China and the United Arab Emirates and Greece and Mexico and Brazil and on around the world. If I do say so myself, they all are exquisite and enchanting places, each resort not only a feast for the eyes but also a banquet for all the other senses, and spiritually scrumptious. At any Banyan Tree location, travelers experience magical moments of romance and nostalgia. In fact, a Banyan Tree resort is, as a destination, literally, a better world.

So I’d like to share with you some things I’ve learned over the years about better worlds and journeys and crucial first steps, and I’ll start with the day my dad showed me his passport.

148 Laozi (old spelling: Lao Tzu), Daodejing (Tao Te Ching), 6th Century BC, Section 64 (original text: “A journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath one’s feet”).

149 Banyan Tree Holdings Ltd.: Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, Angsana Hotels and Resorts, Colours of Angsana, Banyan Tree Spa, Banyan Tree Gallery, Banyan Tree Residences, Banyan Tree Private Collection, Architrave Design and Planning. My wife and I love trees, so we named our ventures after the banyan (Ficus benghalensis), which is the national tree of India, and the angsana (Pterocarpus indicus), which is the national tree of the Philippines and the official tree of two provinces in Thailand, Chonburi and Phuket. In Hinduism, the banyan is called kalpavriksha, “wish-fulfilling divine tree.”

166

The Butrous Foundation

My Long Journey Home—for the First Time I remember the day when I was 13 years old, playing in the garden of our home in Bangkok, and my father came home and showed me his brand-new bright red passport. I remember how proudly he then said that he was no longer a British subject or a Malaysian citizen, but a Singaporean, from the now sovereign city where he and four generations of his forefathers had worked and lived. And I remember my own pride every morning for the next four years, when my father was Singapore’s Ambassador to Thailand, and I raised and lowered our national flag on the flagpole hastily erected in our garden, which by default had become the Singapore embassy residence.150 It is said that immigrants feel more passionate about their adopted home because they do not take their citizenship for granted. That was certainly the case with me. Neither born nor bred in Singapore, and naturalized as a citizen only by a technicality—by virtue of technically living on Singapore soil since our home in Bangkok was the Singapore embassy residence—I never personally experienced my own country until I was 20, when I returned from my studies at Stanford University in California, in 1972.

The reason for my “homegoing” (can’t have a “homecoming” if you’ve never lived there before) was to do my mandatory two and a half years of NS, my national service. Meeting my country was a wonderful shock, but the army was the biggest cultural shock of my life. There I was, a long-haired quasi-Hippie, a bellbottom-jeans-wearing quasi-student radical with a strong American accent, transformed overnight into a near-bald, totally terrified army recruit. But it was those two years of national service, as a combat engineer, that bonded me to my homeland.

After NS, I read voraciously about Singapore’s history, and, as a somewhat anti-government rebel, I particularly sought out the alternative versions of that history. Through my reading of the passionate writings of 150 The Republic of Singapore is one of the world’s last three city-states, the other two being Vatican City and Monaco. Its 274.2 square miles (710.2 sq. km.) makes it a bit less than ten times the size of Manhattan (which is 33.77 sq. mi. or 87.46 sq. km.). Singapore (from the Sanskrit and Malay singapura, “Lion City”) began in 1819 as a trading post of the British Empire, and achieved independence from Britain in 1963. That year, “Malaysia” was formed as a federation of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore; but after less than two years (9 August 1965) Singapore seceded from the federation, declared itself an independent republic, and was admitted to the UN about six weeks later (21 September).

Young Scientist Journeys

167

both the PAP and anti-PAP figures of our history (PAP being the People’s Action Party, which had ruled the city since 1959), Singapore’s history became alive and real to me. And of course, not only reading about the Internal Security Act but also having been imprisoned because of it, helped to make it all more realistic.

I was accused of endangering national security and put into solitary confinement for two months. The year was 1977, and my offense was writing articles that questioned the government’s integrity. When that happened, I was 24 years old. But I actually had been writing articles questioning accepted truisms since age 16, back in high school. My very first published article was on exactly that topic, Humanism, the belief in reason and the scientific method as the key tools for doing good and living well in a way that leaves the world a better place for everyone. I wrote it when I was a member of the Student Science Society at ISB. Here’s an excerpt: Man’s duty and destiny is to promote the maximum fulfillment of the evolutionary process, including his own inherent possibilities.

Consequently there are two ultimate goals of evolutionary humanism which are instrumental to a full realization of human possibilities: individual fulfillment and satisfaction on an aesthetic and personal basis; and long-term realization of the values of an ever-evolving society. The individual is a vital element in the progress of human destiny. In individual acts of comprehension, of love, of beauty, and of creative achievement, each man is increasing the universe of human possibilities, and has added to his whole species’ destiny.151

Now here we are, 42 years later, and here I am, writing to you, Young Scientist, what I hope will be a less turgid chapter about exactly that last sentence: your individual acts of comprehension, love, beauty, and creative achievement that will lead to a better world for everyone.

Packing for Your Journey Just like you prepare yourself for a long physical journey by getting shots and a visa and packing, so your “journey of a thousand miles” to a better world for everyone requires you to first prepare yourself to travel. So imagine that your Self is a suitcase. What should you pack 151 Kwon Ping Ho, “The Concept of a Developed Religion Through Natural Reason and Scientific Perception,” vol. 3, no. 2 (May 1968), p. 143.

Young Scientist Journeys

185

Chapter 17

The Two Keys to Making a Better World: How-Do and Can-Do Walter Anthony “Tony” Grady Jr.

Scientists make the world a better place by asking how-do questions and by having the can-do attitude. Questions like, “How do we measure subatomic particles?” and “How do butterflies navigate?” and “How do we put a person on Mars?” The can-do attitude is the product of confidence plus persistence—great self-confidence coupled with the refusal to give up.

Traditionally, how-do questions were asked by “theoretical” scientists, and the can-do attitude characterized “applied” scientists. But as we point out in Volume 2 of the Journeys Trilogy (in “Science and Politics”), more and more scientists today are doing both in order to make the world a better place, first asking the questions and then using the can-do attitude to apply the answers in humanitarian projects.

I should point out that the can-do attitude is certainly not restricted to scientists. It’s what enabled great achievements by college dropouts like Tom Hanks, Bill Gates, and Steven Spielberg. My own all-time favorite example of the power of the can-do attitude is the case of a man who was born in Kentucky the day after Robert Fulton patented the steamboat on 11 February 1809. While the boat was a great success, the boy seemed completely unfit to survive, never mind succeed in life. But he had the can-do attitude.

He was dirt-poor, so backward he didn’t even have a middle name, and, frankly, he was ugly. Worse, in his entire life, he went to school for a total of 18 months. If he had continued in school, he definitely would have been voted “Most Likely to Fail.” And throughout his life he did fail, over and over. He went through something like 44 different jobs (shopkeeper, farmer, boatman, Army scout, attorney, etc.), failing miserably at each one. Eventually he went into politics, and at first he kept losing elections. But then he succeeded, in his final job,

186

The Butrous Foundation

President of the United States: Abraham Lincoln.161 Since I’m a businessman today, I also want to stress that scientists certainly aren’t the only ones who have the goal of making the world a better place. As Forbes magazine said so well about the criteria for induction into the National Business Hall of Fame, “It is not enough to amass great wealth. It is not enough to lead great enterprises. It is not enough to be seen at White House dinners. The men and women who are inducted into the National Business Hall of Fame must be more than wealthy, powerful, or prominent—or a combination of all three. They must have changed the world around them for the better.”162

Landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

B-2s today cost “only” $1.98 billion each.

PHOTO BY PERMISSION OF LT. COL. TONY GRADY

From Paper Planes to $4-Billion Planes The Stealth Bomber was introduced to the US Air Force in 1997 after one last test flight on April 24, for which my friend Don Weiss and I were the pilots. At the time, I was Commander of the 420th Flight Test Squadron, the squadron that carried out the developmental testing and certification for the B-2 Stealth Bomber. My journey to the cockpit of that $4-billion airplane began in Thailand, when I was a student at the International School Bangkok, throwing paper airplanes out a classroom window.

161 Lincoln was “ugly”? In a political debate, Honest Abe was once accused by his opponent of being two-faced, and he responded, “If the good Lord had given me two faces, do you really think I'd be wearing this one?”

162 Peter Nulty, “The National Business Hall of Fame,” CNNMoney.com, 11 March 1991.

Young Scientist Journeys

187

As I describe in Volume 2 (“The Power of Math, the Language of Science”), I knew I wanted to be a pilot long before I knew my ABCs. But my love of airplanes really blossomed after I asked myself this question: “How do I make a paper airplane that will fly really, really, really far?” The answer came to me in Mrs. McCue’s Algebra II class— when she wasn’t in the classroom.

Mrs. McCue was a good teacher. Her reserved manner and soft voice set the stage for the seriousness of the class. So, naturally, my friends and I had to save our goofing off until she was out of the room. Which she was the day we decided to see who could fly a paper airplane the farthest. So we folded our pieces of paper and tossed them out that third-floor window. Mine lost. But none of them flew very far. That’s when the activity stopped being goofing off for me and my friends and became a serious exercise in how-do and can-do.

Eagerly, the night before at home, we would think of new and innovative shapes to test-fly the next day. Then one day it happened: I built my “ultimate paper airplane.” I had seen a design for a paper airplane that looked like a cylinder cut in half diagonally from top to bottom. In the My "ultimate paper airvery front, the wings joined together like a plane," flown out of my Algebra 2 class window at circle. The body of the plane extended from ISB in 1972. the circle, resembling an open cone on top that eventually blended to a point at the tail. The day I brought this plane to our lunchtime competition, it flew for so long that we never saw where it landed. It flew out of sight.

Wonderful!

Following high school I attended the United States Air Force Academy, which is nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains called the Rampart Range, just outside the picturesque city of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The campus was beautiful—and so was one of the assignments in Aerodynamics class: building airplanes out of balsa wood, and seeing whose flew farthest.163 It was during this course that I thought back to high school and the long flight of my paper airplane from Mrs. McCue’s classroom window, and finally realized why it had flown so far. I’ll spare you the technical explanation because this is the point I want to make: 163

Aerodynamics: the science of how airplanes move through the air.

188

The Butrous Foundation

this was an important how-do revelation for me because I finally could actually explain the aerodynamics of my paper airplane in mathematical equations.

The balsawood plane I made taught me another thing that I’d like to share with you. The day before the assignment was due, I built the airplane and verified that it would fly the way that I intended it to fly.

However, the next day when I flew it, something was wrong. It kind of flew the way it had the day before, but it flew with some strange gyrations. After close inspection I discovered that one of the wings was warped. I’d placed the airplane too close to the heating vent in my room the night before. Heat exposure had caused the airplane’s thin balsa wood wing to warp. So here’s my commonsensical but easily overlooked tip for you, Young Scientist: After you spend a significant amount of time designing and building a project, protect it.

Your Single Greatest Science Project You yourself are your single greatest Science project. You design and build yourself using how-do questions and the can-do attitude. How it works is this. Just like airplanes use a special fuel (“av gas”), both the questions and the attitude have special fuels. How-do questions are fueled by knowledge and wisdom. The can-do attitude is fueled by your vision, your dream. Your dream guides the direction of your questions, and answering them generates new knowledge and wisdom for more advanced how-do questions.

When a project goes wrong, it’s usually because you used the wrong fuel for your questions—rather than knowledge and wisdom, you used beliefs or assumptions or even rumors. For example, about a week out from an ISB Science Fair, I got the bright idea to make glass. That would be a really cool project, I believed, and it seemed very simple: if I heated up sand hot enough, it would turn into glass. So I made a charcoal fire in my mom’s hibachi pot, placed a pan on top of it, poured about a cup of sand into the pan, and watched as it heated up. I just knew that at any moment I was going to see glass appear.

After about an hour and a half, I noticed that the sand pile in the pan was shrinking. I thought that glass was forming. As I looked a little closer, I saw that the fire had burned a hole in the middle of the pan and the sand was falling through the hole, into the fire.

I could have saved myself lots of time (and a good scolding) by first fueling my mind with this knowledge: sand melts at 4,200°F (2,316°C).

Young Scientist Journeys

189

It’s Never Too Soon to Start When Thomas Edison was 7 years old, he went downstairs into his home’s cellar (this was in Michigan) and built himself a chemistry laboratory. There was only one problem: he had no money to buy chemicals. But he had a huge helping of the can-do attitude. So he got himself a job selling newspapers on the train that ran between Port Huron and Detroit. With his newspaper money, he then bought vegetables, butter, and berries from farmers’ wives along the rail line.

With the profits he made from those produce and dairy sales he was finally able to purchase all the chemicals he needed, and that’s how his incredible career began, Edison ultimately giving the world nearly 2,000 inventions, including the electric light bulb.

His can-do attitude empowered and guided his entire long life (84 years). While trying to invent the light bulb, he couldn’t find a suitable filament. When he had experienced failure number 700, a reporter asked him if he was going to give up, since he obviously had failed.

Edison remarked that on the contrary he now knew of 700 things that would not work, which had moved him closer to finding one that would work.

So anyway, he started when he was 7, which shows that it’s never too soon to start using the two keys to making a better world. Besides, everything they teach you from First Grade through your Senior year in high school is redundant or irrelevant—according to a former ditchdigger, singing cowboy, and teacher who wrote a book called All I Really Need to Know I Leaned in Kindergarten.164 But in all seriousness, Young Scientist, everything you learn now becomes fuel for your future.

You Never Know When You never know when something you learn from a how-do question will result in a discovery. It is said that French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes was once lying in bed and watching a fly walk along the ceiling above him. He wondered how he might describe the fly’s exact location at any given point in time. Years later, his thinking process that day led to what we call the X and Y 164 Robert Fulghum’s great little book was first published in 1986. He was also an IBM salesperson, a painter, and a sculptor.

Young Scientist Journeys

195

Chapter 18

Becoming a Scientist Through the Secrets of Plants Ellen (Jones) Maxon

Once upon a time, a scientist in India decided to find out whether roses have feelings.

His name was Jagadish Chandra Bose, and he was a distant relative of Amar Bose, whose sound systems are called the best in the world (especially the Bose 901). Jagadish was also distantly related to Satyendranath Bose, who was a good friend of Albert Einstein. 169 Anyway, Jagadish Bose loved plants like I always have, and like Amar he was a brilliant inventor, so he decided to find a way to measure roses’ responses to various stimuli.

This was a long time ago, incidentally. Jagadish had been born, in Bengal, in 1858. When Bose was born on November 30 of that year, Theodore Roosevelt, who would grow up to become America’s 26th President, was all of 33 days old.170 So: long ago. On the other hand, Jagadish Bose was 60 years ahead of his time, according to the scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977.171 As one example, Bose was the first scientist ever to demonstrate that signals can be transmitted wirelessly across a distance—he did that, demonstrated electromagnetic waves, well before Guglielmo Marconi’s more famous wireless signaling experiments (which is why Bose is now called “the Unsung Hero of Radio Communications”).

So anyway, this distinguished Indian scientist, Sir Jagadish Bose (he was knighted in 1917), invented the crescograph, an ingenious device that used clockwork gears and a smoked-glass plate to demonstrate that indeed plants respond, second by second, to various stimuli. Thus, he 169 The boson, a subatomic particle, was named for Satyendranath Bose, who worked with Einstein to develop the “Einstein-Bose condensate” (a state of matter for gases) and “Bose-Einstein statistics” (also called B-E statistics: used in statistical mechanics).

Satyendranath’s early Science teacher was his distant relative Jagadish, who loved roses.

Jagadish’s own Science teachers included Francis Darwin, Charles Darwin's son.

170 Teddy Roosevelt (who gave his name to the teddy bear) was born 27 October 1858.

171 Neville Mott.

196

The Butrous Foundation

concluded from his data, roses do in fact feel pain, they understand affection, et cetera.

The feelings of plants have been studied ever since. If you’re interested, here are two sources that both mention Bose and his crescograph, the first one easy (and exciting) to read and the second one pretty technical: Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (New York: Harper & Row, 1973); and D.C. Wildon et al.,172 “Electrical Signaling and Systemic Proteinase Inhibitor Induction in the Wounded Plant,” Nature, 360 (1992), pp. 62-65.

Just two years ago or so (April 2008), in Switzerland, the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) published a report titled The Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants: Moral Consideration of Plants for Their Own Sake.173 Speaking of feelings, on arriving in Bangkok, when I was 13, I totally fell in love with the gluay mhai, Thai for orchid. I had always loved plants, but Thailand was a treasure trove of orchids. In all of North America, there are about 25 genera of orchid; in tropical Asia, there are more than 300 genera. In addition to being amazed by their profusion in Thailand, I was entranced by their shapes and colors, fascinated by orchids’ ability to flourish without soil, and enchanted by their almost magical secret lives.

Most orchid species are pollinated by a single species of insect, and they fight off, scare away, trick or neutralize all other insect species.

If one of the correct species of insect approaches, the orchid holds perfectly still. If the insect is not of the correct species, then the orchid waves its petals, shooing that bug away. Unlike almost all other kinds of flowers, orchids hate bees, which can’t be waved off. So if a bee lands on it, the orchid releases a chemical that knocks bees out—the sleeping bee then falls to the ground. Many orchids do like wasps, though. Those that don’t, use the wasp sex drive to drive wasps away: sensing the approach of a wasp, the orchid releases a compound that smells exactly like a female wasp, which makes female wasps ignore 172 In publications, “et al.” means “and other authors.” The other authors who wrote this article with D.C. Wildon were J.F. Thain, P.E.H. Minchin, I.R. Gubb, A.J. Reilly, Y.D. Skipper, H.M. Doherty, P.J. O'Donnell, and D.J. Bowles. Citing publications with 3 or more authors, you usually use “et al.,” the second word with a period because it’s the abbreviation of alii, Latin for “others.”

173 You can download a pdf of the 24-page Swiss report at: <www.ekah.admin.ch/en/ documentation/ publications/index.html>.

Young Scientist Journeys

197

it and fly on, and makes male wasps try to mate with it instead of steal its pollen.174

PHOTO BY PERMISSION OF BIGFOTO.COM

My favorite plants since my teen years in Thailand: orchids—of which there are some 25,000 species worldwide, plus more than four times that many hybrids.

So as a young scientist I fell in love with orchids. But I’d always been fascinated by all plants, not just the beautiful or exotic ones. So, for example, I ended up doing my PhD dissertation on how grain sorghum, a kind of grass, responds to a fungus called Colletotrichum graminicola.175 But here’s the interesting thing: the more I learned about plant life, the better I understood human life. And today, looking back on more than half a century of learning, I can assure you, Young Scientist, that the secrets of plants can teach you how to succeed as a scientist.

Maybe the single most important thing about being a scientist is 174 Please note that not all orchid species employ all of those defense strategies. There is in fact a great diversity of behaviors in the Orchidaceae, the orchid family, which happens to be the largest family of flowering plants in the world. Interesting trivia: the word orchid came from orkhis, the Ancient Greek word for “testicle.”

175 The 30 or so different species of sorghum are used around the world for grain, animal feed, and even bio-fuels. The most common one, Sorghum bicolor, is the one I studied. The grains of that species can be popped just like popcorn.

198

The Butrous Foundation

having an insatiable thirst for knowledge—just like plants have an insatiable thirst for water. A nonscientist gets the information she wants and then stops looking, but a scientist never stops. For example, in the Arizona desert (which I visit every year), a nonscientist just sees a generic bee and a generic flower, but seeing that same sight, the scientist sees one of Southern Arizona’s 1,200 species of bee pollinating one of Arizona’s 3,900 species of plant.176 So always try to ask yourself “What am I actually seeing?” and then “Why are things this way?” Attempt to find the most accurate answers.

Don’t accept the general answer, the easy way. Have a thirst for knowledge that will keep you asking those questions, and finding out for yourself. Others can provide invaluable assistance, such as teachers or practicing scientists—or even your little brother or sister, who might help you find an answer. Just keep a questioning mind all your life.

And keep in mind how plants get water—if one way doesn’t work, they try another. Some orchids, for example, have very spongy roots that are able to draw moisture from mist.

While you hunt for knowledge, you eventually will find your passion, meaning the Science niche that suits you best because it interests you the most. Orchids again illustrate the point perfectly: most live on trees (and so are called epiphytes), but some live in the cracks in rocks (lithophytes), others live on the ground, and a few live entirely underground.

How do you find your passion? Actually, it finds you. It could be that an interest in Medicine comes from the broken arm you had as a kid. Or an interest in Astronomy could start with seeing a comet or just using a telescope.

Your general interest in Science will expand and at the same time narrow, or focus, into a passion, if you feed your interest with field trips, read as much as you can on the subject, and talk to others. Pursue your interest and don’t let other things distract you from always learning more.

Like plants thrive through symbiosis, find friends who share your passion and who will encourage you. My own interest in Science was triggered by my great teacher in Eighth Grade, Mr. Reeves, who was also a great friend. His passion for the entire natural world challenged me to find my own narrower passion, for those members of the natural 176 Paul Soderberg and Lisa Wojna, Weird, Wacky and Wild Arizona Trivia (Edmonton: Blue Bike Books, 2008), pp. 51 and 162.

Young Scientist Journeys

199

world that have leaves and flowers. Also, my father was an engineer who had earned his PhD and who never settled for less than my best effort in school. So I had a lot of cheerleaders. Your passion likewise needs cheerleaders—especially people who love the same Science niche you do. If you don’t have such people right now, my best advice is for you to join a Science Club.

It is very important to hang onto your passion even when others don’t support you. And that’s likely to happen, because having a passion for any science is, actually, a relatively rare thing among people. Sadly, many people your age, possibly even some members of your own family, will not understand your passion for a science. Some of your peers will put you down for it. Just remember that a great many people who share your great interest are waiting for you later in your career. As you become a botanist, for example, you will eventually find yourself happily surrounded by botanists—people who, when you use words like “chlorophyll” and “photosynthesis,” won’t stare at you like a cow at a cattle-guard.

The point of symbiosis is that collaboration is more important than competitiveness. Two heads are better than one—that’s a true statement as long as the two are working with each other, not against each other.

Competition has its place to urge people to work hard, of course. But since no two people think exactly the same, the joyous process of symbiosis occurs when people work together, so that the impact of their work is greater than the sum of their individual contributions.

Know the threats. Like that fungus that attacks sorghum, there are things that can threaten the survival of your great interest, and so jeopardize your entire scientific career. In addition to the possibility of initial isolation or loneliness, there might be threats in your personal situation. Don’t let your family background stop you. For instance, are you the first in your family to go to college? Consider that you honor your family by working hard and achieving in school. Don’t let any naysayers put you off your dream.

Another real threat is mediocrity. So seek the best education you can find. Seek knowledge from many sources, not just the classroom.

Your own hard work will be necessary to make your education fruitful. If you work hard, schools will open their doors to you. Don’t fixate on money—if you love what you do, the money will be there for you to study.

Focus—but keep perspective. In other words, always try to understand the big picture—the forest as well as the trees. It is easy to

200

The Butrous Foundation

focus on your small area of research, but you do a better job if you periodically step back and see how your area fits into the bigger picture. For instance, if you are a biologist studying sage grouse in Nevada, ask yourself how your research fits into the picture of the sage habitat, sage grouse predators, human activity in rural Nevada, and the impacts of listing the sage grouse as an endangered species. By seeing the big picture, you may find other ways to use your research for wider purposes.

In a storm, bamboo bends and survives, but oak trees, rigid, fall down and die. In the very same way, a successful scientist stays flexible.

The fact is, your scientific studies will almost certainly lead you in any number of directions you don’t expect. As an example, I’ll tell you about my own journey.

As you know, my interest had always been plants, so during middle and high school I worked hard on my grades so I could get into a good college and study plants. At Stanford, I majored in Biology but took as many plant science courses as possible, including Botany, Plant Identification and Taxonomy, and Plant Physiology.177 Along the way in college I became interested in genetics, and then found to my delight that I could continue my studies in Plant Genetics. It turns out that there is an entire field of study having to do with plant breeding for agricultural crops. I was so excited by this that I sent off a string of graduate school applications to colleges across America, to study in a field I didn’t yet know much about. Then I was even more excited when several schools offered to pay me to attend! So I accepted a research assistantship at Purdue University and began graduate school in 1975.178 In addition to changes in your specific interest, you might find, when you have a career path all mapped out, that life itself gets in the way. But if you’re flexible, you’ll find a way to use your scientific training. Again, that’s what happened to me: while I was trained as a plant geneticist, I found it impossible to find a job in my field, due to where I lived because of my spouse’s job. So I took stock of my skills, and was able to find a job in research statistics. Health-care, teaching, writing, research, exploration, or starting your own technology company: these are just a few of the directions your career may take. Just think 177 If you’d like to know more about taxonomy, the science of names, that’s what “The Power of Names” in Volume 2 in the Journeys Trilogy is all about.

178 Stanford University is located in Stanford, California, and Purdue University is in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Young Scientist Journeys

201

about Einstein: his path, from the Swiss patent office to world fame after his theories were published, gave his career new twists that led him to work with that scientist from India, Satyendranath Bose, and that eventually landed him in Princeton, New Jersey, a long way from Switzerland—he could predict the universe accurately, but he could never have predicted his own life path!

There are now about 25,000 species of orchid—and more than 100,000 different orchid hybrids. (Coincidentally, the very first orchid hybrid was created in 1858, the year Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was born.) Anyway, the best scientist you can be is a hybrid scientist. By that I mean this, Young Scientist: be interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary means having knowledge and skills in a wide variety of areas. For instance, instead of being “a chemist,” be a chemist who is interested in Biology and Pharmacology so that you can find life-saving plant chemicals in the wild, or so you can build an enzyme to catalyze a biological process in the test tube to increase the production of a compound such as insulin. To be interdisciplinary means you can see opportunities in more than one narrow scientific field. In today’s world, where change is going on all the time, being agile and resilient—i.e., flexible—is more important than ever.

Fortunately, one of the things now less important than ever is your gender. Happily, although gender bias remains real, women in Science have things a lot better these days. There are a lot more women studying the sciences now, and higher proportions now attend graduate school than back in the 1970s. This means not only that there are more female students your own age, but also that there are a lot more female scientist mentors for you. So find yourself a female teacher who will help you one-on-one—ideally in middle school or high school. Such a teacher will inspire you and give you courage to keep your dream.

Then, if you major in a science in college, try to find university teachers who are women in your field of study, women you admire and can emulate. Also, if you attend graduate school, pick a school where there are women on the faculty, and again, if at all possible, find yourself a mentor. These women faculty members have had years of study and understand the issues women face as scientists in universities— they can be a big help.

Speaking of women mentors being a big help, don’t forget that the very best mentor of them all, for either gender and any science, is female, sort of: Mother Nature.

202

The Butrous Foundation

Also speaking of women being helpful, I hope I’ve helped you in this article, and I thank you for considering my thoughts on the importance to you for all your future journeys of having an insatiable thirst for knowledge, finding your passion, gathering friends, symbiosis, cooperation versus competition, defending against threats, focusing but keeping perspective, remaining flexible, and being a hybrid scientist.

“Maybe the single most important thing about being a scientist is having an insatiable thirst for knowledge, just like plants have an insatiable thirst for water . . .

While you hunt for knowledge, you eventually will find your passion.”

About the Author

Ellen was born in Champaign, Illinois, and raised as an Army brat in Illinois, New Jersey, California, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Because of her father's assignments in Thailand and Vietnam, she moved to Thailand when she was 13, and she was in Bangkok from 1966 to 1971. Today Ellen lives with her family (two children in college, and one a college graduate) in Reno, Nevada, where she works as a statistical consultant for a software company that makes statistical analysis software. Her hobbies are fishing, kayaking, and gardening, and she enjoys the American West— she and her family make an annual trip to Southern Arizona over the Christmas holidays, and an annual fishing trip to Montana each summer.

Ellen (Jones) Maxon’s high-school publications at the International School Bangkok (ISB), in the journal of the Student Science Society, The SSS Bulletin, were: “News and Notes: The Nakorn Nayok Field Trip Three Years Ago in the Bulletin,” vol.

4, January 1969, no. 1 & 2, p. 67; “News and Notes,” vol. 4, March 1969, no. 3, p.

149; and “News and Notes,” vol. 4, May 1969, no. 4, p. 239.

Young Scientist Journeys 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide, 103 8MK radio (Detroit, Mich.), 35 9 to 5 jobs, 213 9/11 proved how far we still have to go, 74; see also TAMs 9ZN (amateur radio station), 191 17-year cicadas, 126 24-7 coverage of MWWS, 72 34th Street (Chicago), 40 37 Geminorum (star), 74 77 Sunset Strip (TV show), 250 420th Flight Test Squadron, 186 1802 Zhang Heng (astroid), 39f

A A Journey of a Thousand Miles, 165184 A-10 (aircraft, a.k.a. Thunderbolt II a.k.a. Hog), 109, 111 (photo), 112, 115; collision of two, 114 Aaron (Eva buddy), 224, 244 Abbreviations, 5 abcNEWS, 76f Abrams, Jeanne, 236 academic advisor, 143 Academy Award, nominated for an, 220f accessibility (an eternal truth of Science), 20 accident investigation school, USAF, 115 accuracy (an eternal truth of Science), 19 achieving a better world at gunpoint, 38 Acinetobacter (genus) infections, 213 Acknowledgements, 243-246 acoustic guitar (started learning at age 51), 98 Acronyms and Abbreviations, 5 activists for all manner of special interests, 12 acts of God didn’t stop us, 132; acts of kindness, 151 Adopt-A-Pilot program, 107 Advanced Placement college-level classes, 55 Adventures in Science (radio program), 35

275

advertising agent, 68; Advertising for Dummies (2001), 57f; advertising industry, the, 12; advertising, invented an entirely new form of, 191 Advice to a Young Scientist (1979), 13 advisor, project, 145 Aelita Award, presented by Russia, 250 aerator, revolutionary new wastewater, patented by HM King Bhumibol, 7 aerodynamic control, 108 Aerodynamics, 187 and 187f affection for the human family, 225 Afghanistan, 14; raised in, 81 Africa, 15; Africa, 60% of medicines are knockoffs with no medicinal value, 77 African forest (and disease transmission), 162 African-American family, 146; teacher, amazed by a, 130 Agam, Yaacov, 215 and 216f, 244 agar, plated on, 213 Age of Flight (began in 1903), 78; Age of the Automobile (began in 1903), 78, 208; Age, The Pleasant Paradox of, 97; age, disregard of (an eternal truth of Science), 22 agenda-driven scientists, 77 agricultural education, 101; adviser, 105 Agriculture, 105 aid to earthquake victims, timely, 39 AIDS deaths and TB, 44; AIDS cure will be found, 22 air and water pollution, 101; air pollution, Americans once loved, 35-36 airborne filth (US cities), 208 airplanes flown into buildings, 192 airship, 32 Ajiboye, R.M., 228f Albany, NY US, 145 Albert, Todd, 231 Alcmene (theater), 218f Aley United Methodist Church (Ohio), 193 Algebra, 55; class, 65; II, 187; see also Boolean Algebra Alhazen (a.k.a. Ali ibn al-Haytham), 38f Ali ibn al-Haytham (a.k.a. Alhazen), 38f Ali, Salim (“the Birdman of India”), 37

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

276

The Butrous Foundation

Alien (and Aliens and Aliens 3), 250; Alien Nation, 250 All I Really Need to Know I Leaned in Kindergarten (1986), 189 and 189f Allen, Alex, 237 allergic response sensed, 39 alphabet of my profession (Michelangelo), 65 Amazon.com, 209f, 226 (The Family of Man) ambassador of goodwill by living abroad, essay on serving as an, 55; Ambassador to Thailand, Singapore’s, 166 America, 171, and passim; as center of universe (figurative), 68; in 2010 same as in 1609, problems in, 192 America’s original preserved wilderness (Yosemite), 118 American (human) thoroughbreds (Eugenics), 70; American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 145; American College of Physicians for Distinguished Contributions in Preventive Medicine, 163; American life span is 78 years, average, 63; American Realism (Art), 79; American scientists inspired Hitler, 69; American Society for Clinical Investigation, 163; American tourists who shout at natives to be understood, 68; American West, 202; AmericanHeritage.com, 208f Americans are superior (stereotype), 68; Americans once loved air pollution, 35-36 American-style education preferred, 129 Americas, the, 15 Amherst, Mass, US, 101 analytical mind, 22 Anatomy, 38 Ancient Egypt, 124; Ancient Greek time calculation (new day began at dusk), 79; Ancient World, 68 Andalusia, Spain, 218 Anderson, Daniel, 240 angsana (Pterocarpus indicus) 165f; Angsana Hotels and Resorts, 165f animal feed (sorghum used as), 197f

animation, Japanese (anime), 44f Anime (Japanese animation), 44f Animism, 249f Annalen der Physik, 20f Annan, Kofi, 7 Annapolis and became an admiral; went to, 80 ant as our test astronaut, 47 antelope (enjoyment of on hikes), 118 antenna, quad, 159 antibiotics, 50; susceptibility, 213; broad-spectrum tetracycline, 37 Anticipate (Banyan Tree acronym), 170 anti-Communist parents, 129; anti-G suit (jet fighter), 110; anti-PAP (People’s Action Party), 167; antiparticles, 46; anti-Vietnam War activists, 203; see also Vietnam War antidote to feeling alone (remember Gipsy Smith), 40 antihistamine released into the bloodstream, 39 antique store in Vermont, 150 ant-stronauts, 108 Apollo 8, 47 Apologetic Aside by author, 71 Apple Computer Inc., 31 appliances, old, 157 Applied Scientific Research Corporation of Thailand (ASRCT), 18; applied scientists, 185 appropriate medicine released into the bloodstream, 39 arbutus (flowers), 153 architect, England’s greatest-ever, 30 architecture, 155 Architrave Design and Planning, 165f, 172f Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 204f Argentina, 28, 161 aristocracy, criticizes the, 218 Aristotle, 12, 48 and 48f Arizona US, 81, 118, 120; desert, 115; species of plants and of bees, 198 Armenia, 14, 245 Armstrong, Neil, 108f Army brat, raised as an, 202; Army scout, 185

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

Young Scientist Journeys Arruda, S., 51f Arscott, Ralph, 238 Art, 15, 20, 155, 228; judging, 12; tools for any scientist, 78-79; art works, doing your own to become a better scientist, 79; art of Science, the (and the science of Art), 79; The Art Spirit (never out of print since 1923), 79; ArtTalk (newspaper), 78; Artist, 38; arts festival, 94-95; Artworks, Insects and, 121; artists use safer paints, 21 articles by young scientists, past and present, 229-241 artificial things, 76; rise of the artificial and fall of the real (key global problem), 76 asbestos-processing operations, 103 Asbury, Herbert, 40f Asia, 15; Western dominance in, 179; Asia’s “Collective is cool” versus Wall Street’s “Greed is good” 180; Asia’s largest integrated resort, 174 Asian Grill, 134; Asian headquarters of Digital (DEC), 133; Asian journalist (fictional), 68; Asian orchid genera, 196 Asimov, Isaac, 31, 75, 215 and 215f ASRCT: see Applied Scientific Research Corporation of Thailand assemblyman (in Brazil), 225 Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), 173f associations that will help you, 15 assumptions of inferiority, 146 asteroid, encounter with, 21 Astin, Christina, 5, 19-24, 24 (photo), 243, 244, 331 Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu), 44f Astrobiology, 11, 13; astrobiologist, 74 Astronautical Engineering, 193 Astronautics, Professor of, 246 astronomer, 30, 45f, 176 Astronomical Youth, The (Paris, France, high-school Science club in 1949), 28 Astronomy, 38, 100, 125, 135, 139, 141, 198, 212; Astronomy culture, 84; Astronomy Division of the first real Science Club at ISB, 26

277

astrophysicist, 171, 176 at, where you are (your personal GPS), 168 Atlanta, Ga. US, 49, 161f atom bomb, 60, 99 Atom Boy (spin-off cartoon), 73 Atomic Age, 73; The Atomic Cafe (1982 movie), 73; atomic structure, publishing a theory of, 66; Atomic Age, Einstein’s article enabled, 20f attack in a jet fighter (training flight) , 109-111 attention span, broad and precise, 213; attention spans, 37 attitudes that will make you a leader in any career, 80; see also can-do attitude attorney, 185 (19th Century) Atwater, Calif. US, 98, 120 Au, Miss (Burmese beauty), 130 audience, for a large, 22 Audubon Junior Club, 28, 32 Augustus Caesar, 138f Auschwitz, 70 austere beauty (Russell), 20 Australia, 14, 103, 250 Australian Institute of Science Technology, 250f Austria, 14, 62; Austrian philosophers, 48f authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual (Galileo), 67 Authors of Volume 1, 5 auto painting companies, 103 Automobile, Age of (began in 1903), 78 automobiles, self-starters for, 191 av gas (aviation), 188 average US life span (78 years), 63 awe and joy in exploring the world around us, a scientist feels, 99 Awortwi, Harry, 29 Aydlett, Linda, 233 Ayers, Chris, 70f Aztec Mexico, 204; Aztecs of Central Mexico, 150f; Aztecs, poinsettia sacred to the, 154f

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

278

The Butrous Foundation

B B-2 Stealth Bomber, 186 (photo) B-52 Stratofortress, 85 and 85f-86f baby stations didn’t exist, 214 baccalauréat exam, the scientific, 217 and 217f Bachen, Roger, 46, 245 bacillus as carbon source, 51 Baconian method (now called “the scientific method”), 30 bacteria, 50; linked to feces as ingredient in knockoff designer perfumes, 76 bacterial cells are living in your body right now, 50 bacterium’s peptides, 213 bad to worse, things always going from, 37f; bad vs. good (organization), 86 baht (Thai money), 26f bailing wire, 159 Baird, Lance, 39 baking soda, Royal brand, 68 bald eagles (enjoyment of on hikes), 118 Baldwin, Mrs. (ISB Biology teacher), 244 Balek, Harry, 246 Balfour, Frederik, 76f ballroom disaster, 207 balsawood airplane, 188 Baltimore, Md. US, 163, 192 Bamboo Telegraph, The (high-school newspaper), 25f; bamboo vipers, 132 Bang Tao (Phuket Island), 174 Bangkok, 243, 245, 246 Bangkok, Thailand, 2, 23, 49, 53, 62, 79, 81, 98, 114, 120, 127, 135, 141, 149, 153, 163, 166, 172f, 186, 192, 202; Bangkok became Thailand’s capital in 1768, 63; Bangkok sky, 140; Bangkok visits, 48 Bangpoo (Bangkok neighborhood), 132 Bangs on the Beach, 97-98 Bangsue (Bangkok neighborhood), 18 banker, 84 banned (Figaro), 218 banyan tree (Ficus benghalensis), 165f; Banyan Tree Bintan, 174; Banyan Tree Galleries, 165f, 176; Banyan Tree Holdings Ltd., 165 and 165f; Banyan

Tree Hotels and Resorts, 165f, 172f; Banyan Tree Maldives Marine Lab, 175; Banyan Tree Private Collection, 165f; Banyan Tree Residences, 165f; Banyan Tree Ringha, 172f, 176 and 176f; Banyan Tree Spa, 165f; Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru, 175; Banyan Tree Phuket, 184 (photo) Barber, Benjamin R., 76f Barclay, Charlie, 245 barn (timber-framing), 152 Barnard, Fred R., 68 and 68f barometric pressure, 27 barriers, economic and social, 146 Barry, Christopher “Chris,” 238, 239, 240, 245 basement (papermaking machine), 83, 86 (photo) Basra, Iraq, 38f basswood, 118 (photo) Bastille, the storming of the, 218f bathrooms from old yak stables, 176 Batman (TV show), 250 battle damage, survive (jet fighter), 115 battlegrounds (one was Science), 145 bawdy houses, 40 BBC, the, 160f, 79 ($2.4-million dead horse) be interdisciplinary (scientist secret), 201 B-E statistics: see Bose-Einstein statistics beach field trip, 132 (photo); Beach, Bangs on the, 97-98 Beaker Breakers, The (1949 Science club), 28 Beaubien, David, 234 Beaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin Caron de, 218 beauty (individual acts for global good), 167; Beauty of Science, The, 19-22; beauty and ugliness of, society, 218; of the human mind versus ugliness of bullets, 39; beauty of the mysterious (to Einstein), 60; beauty, austere (Russell), 20; beauty, the depth of: see Lunch Tree Hill Beavercreek, Ohio US, 193 Becoming a Scientist Through the Secrets of Plants, 195-202

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

Young Scientist Journeys beehive hairdo, 130 bees versus orchids, 196 Beeson, Debra, 245 beetle, new subspecies of, 41; 350,000 species of beetle, 123 befriend a TB bacillus (comic book), 44 behavior of gases, 30 Being Skeptical, 72 Belgian violinist, 206 Belgium, 228 belief that conventional wisdom is always wrong, 41 bellbottom jeans, 166 Bellefonte, Penn. US, 105 Bengal, India, 195 Benkoski, Jason, 39 Bennett, Bill, 111 (photo) Bennett, Lucile “Lu,” 245, 246 Bennett, Mary, 118 (photo), 120, 245 Bennett, Mike, 5, 47, 56 (photo), 57, 97, 98, 107-120, 118 (photo), 230, 245 Bennett, Murielle, 94, 95, 246 Bennett, Vince B., Jr., 5, 47, 57, 83-98, 144, 230, 245, 246 Bennett, Vince, Sr., 245, 246 benzene molecule,, discovered the ring shape of the, 55 Berg, R., 50f Berkeley, George, 48 and 48f Berkeley: see also University of California Berkeley Bernay-Roman, Andy, 5, 47, 55-62, 56 (photo), 97, 230, 232, 243, 245 Bernay-Roman, Lynne, 62, 243 berries, selling (Edison), 189 beryllium, exposure to, 101 best human teachers will be those people who know Nature best, which is to say: scientists, 13; best invention of 2008, 39; Best Suite & Design Hotel, 172f better (defining what’s “better”), 39, 174; better place, making the world a, 22 and passim; better transportation engine, 38; better vaccine, 38; better world at gunpoint, achieving a, 38; better world despite eternal problems, 192; Better World, The Two Keys to Making a, 185-193

279

Bettmann Archive, the, 36f Bettmann, Otto L., 36f, 208f Beware of Stereotypes, 67 Bhumibol Adulyadej, His Majesty the King of Thailand, 7, 250 Bible College, established a, 250 Big Book of Halls of Fame, The (1977), 81, 37f, 207f; big business (when someone talks about), 86; Big Dipper, 136; big groups or institutions, 40; Big Payoff: Healthy, Happy People, The, 104 Bigger Pie (through Golden Rule), 95 biggest bombers ever, one of (B-52), 85f binoculars, 17 Bintan: see Banyan Tree Bintan biochemist, 14 biochemistry professor (Isaac Asimov), 215f bioethical violations, 20f bio-fuels(sorghum used as), 197f biological laws show that Nordics deteriorate (Eugenics), 69; biological sisters, 223; biological warfare weapons versus childhood vaccines, 44 Biology, 46, 55, 99, 101, 160, 200, 201, 244; Biology class, 55; Biology Division of the first real Science Club at ISB, 26; Biology lab, 36 (set up by Prof. Butrous when he was 14); Biology teacher, 45 Biopharm Research Laboratories, Inc. (Tokyo), 255 biostatistics, 101 Biotechnology, Professor of Theriogenology and, 19f Bi-Phy-Chem Club (Science club), 28 biplane speed (time moves at), 108 Birch (Susan Norlander and Joel McCarty daughter), 155 Bird, Christopher, 196 Birth Control Review (1920 journal), 70; birth weight, low, 215; birth-control pills in Brazil, completely ineffective, 76-77 bison (enjoyment of on hikes), 118 bitten by the flight bug, 107 bizarre plants and animals, 46 Biz-lip.com, 76f

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

280

The Butrous Foundation

Black, Edward, 69f Black, Helen-Beth, 236 Blackbird (SR-71), 113 and 113f Blanchard, Lowell: see Lowell Blanchard and the Valley Trio Blanford, Bill, 45, 57, 163, 230, 116 and 116f blast from the past, 85 blind pigs (illegal saloons), 40 blocking understanding, a wall, 113 blood of a sheep could be transfused into a man, 30; blood-sucking moth, 121 bloodstream infections, 213; bloodstream, appropriate medicine released into the, 39 Blount, Anna E. Blount, MD, 70 blubber (solution to a problem), 208 blue box (from The Science Service), 34; blue whale, 203 Blum, Cole, 241 Board of Directors of ISB Network, 209; board track, 208 boat, fruit/vegetable farm on a, 126 boatman, 185 Bobbsey Twins books, 31 body right now, bacterial cells are living in your, 50 Bolivia, 28 bomb versus reactor, 44; bombs, smart, 39; bomb: see also atom bomb, hydrogen bomb bombarded by instruction from the advertising industry and from the mass media and from vast legions of “experts,” 12 bombarding electrons and protons, 46 Bomfim, G., 51f bon-bons, 223 Book of Changes: see I Ching; The Book of the Courtier (1528), 37f; books versus study of nature (Agassiz), 12; books, extreme popularity of how-to, 20 and 209f; book, reading dusty Science, 20 booklet of experiments (from The Science Service), 34 Boolean Algebra, 159, 163 boot scraper, coconut grater misidentified as a, 150

boric acid used in knockoff medicine, 76 Bose 901 sound system, 195 Bose, Amar, 195 Bose, Satyendranath, 195 and 195f Bose, Sir Jagadish Chandra, 195, 196, 201 Bose-Einstein statistics (a.k.a. BoseEinstein statistics), 195f boson (subatomic particle), 195f Boston, Mass. US, 7, 139 Botanical Gardens, Wan Takrai, 136 botanist, 14, 154f, 199 Botany, 11, 100 bottle rockets, firecrackers, and sparklers (85,800 injuries to US children in 2006), 98 bottle-nose dolphin’s brain, 67 Bountiful, Utah US, 120 Bowen, Robbie, 97 Bowles, D.J., 196f boxer (Muhammad Ali), 47f Boyle, Robert, 30; Boyle’s Law for gases, 30 bracts (specialized leaves), 154f Bradbury, Ray, 215 and 216f brain sizes (men, women, Neanderthals, dolphins), 67; brain, I was a, 55; brainlock, go beyond, 61 brains than women, men have more, 67 Brando, Marlon, 68 Brasel, Bill, 80, 246 Bratislava, Czechoslovakia/Slovak Republic, 62 Braun, Andrea, 231 Braunberger, Mike, 245 Brazil, 28, 76, 165, 192, 212, 213, 227, 228; Brazil, northeast coast of, 225; Brazilian kids, 213 bread, cooking a loaf of, 17 breakfast (problem), 203 breaking the destructive cycle, 91 breastfeeding of animals by women, 214 breeding grounds (birds), 153; breeding, plant, 200 brevity (an eternal truth of Science), 20 Bridgford, Nelson, 240 Bright Side of Science (focus only on to show distrust), 71 brighten a person’s day, 94

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

281

Young Scientist Journeys Brin, Sergey (Google co-founder), 36 British Empire trading post (Singapore), 166; British rescue jumper, 115; a British subject (Singaporean), 166; British West Indies, the, 28, 34; British Literature, for a lifetime’s achievement, 19f; British writer Doris May Lessing, 19 and 19f broadcasting, 183 broad-spectrum tetracycline antibiotics, 37 Bronze Age book, 177 brothels, 40 brutal nasty job, 90 Bryant, John H., 191f BS in Chemical Engineering, 85 Buchanan Brothers, the, released “Atomic Power” (1946 song), 73 Buddha, 63 Buddhism, 96, 182, 249 BUFF (big ugly fat fellow: B-52 Stratofortress), 86f buffer solution, 213 buffet in the stick, 110 bug-collecting (unusual hobby for a girl), 121; bugs rule this planet’s dry land, 123 builders versus users (aircraft), 113 bullets versus beauty, 39 bungalows were commandeered to be an officers’ club (original ISB), 134f Bunnag, Mrs. (ISB 7th Grade teacher), 244 Bunsen burners, 17, 130 Buñuel, Luis, 220f Burdick, Eugene, 68 Bureau, Louis Édouard, 31 Buri, Katherine “Katie,” 246 Burma, 133 Burmese-Chinese beauty (Miss Au), 130 burned out, getting, 90 Burnett, Jody, 26f burns and other injuries from firecrackers, bottle rockets and even sparklers (85,800 in 2006), 98 Burton, Charles, 236 business analyst, 209 Business, 15, 20; Business degree, honorary Doctorate of, 184; business ethics, 191; Business Hall of Fame,

National, 186, 191; Business leaders, 80; businessweek.com, 7 February 2005 (15 December 2006); BusinessWeek.online, 76f businessman, 14; businessman who popularized Science, 33; businessman who thought scientists were ridiculous, 33 Butrous Foundation, The, 2, 11, 14, 19, 244, 245 Butrous, Ghazwan, 5, 11-15, 15 (photo), 22, 36, 243, 244, 246, 331 (box) Butrous, Mouna, 14, 244 butter, selling (Edison), 189 butterflies, 46, 56, 66; butterflies, catching, 131; butterflies, still collecting, 36; butterflies of Thailand, 64; butterfly cartoon, 136; butterfly gardens: see Schmetterlingsgarten; butterfly lives are short (compared to stars), 135; butterfly net, 17, 18; butterfly, 135 (photo) byproduct, a better world as a byproduct (not a goal), 38

C cable television reporters, breathless, 72 Cairo, Egypt, 38f calculator, $1, 160 Calculus, 46, 55; Calculus teacher, 245 calendars, different cultures’, 79 California US, 33, 98, 117, 118, 120, 134, 166, 183, 186, 193, 202, 209; California advertising executive (Pet Rocks), 57f; California businessman who smoked 50 cigars a day and held scientists in contempt, 31; California sterilized 60,000 men and women, 70; The California Woodpecker and I, 32; California’s 1909 eugenics law to forcibly sterilize any man or woman who was “unfit,” 70 call me a dreamer, 52 Calyptra eustrigata (vampire moth), 121 Cambodian-Thai border, 161 Cambridge Illustrated History of China, The (2006), 183f Cambridge, Mass. US, 7

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

282

The Butrous Foundation

camels giving rides at birthday parties, 49 Camm, Sir Sydney, 250 Camm. Jeffry “Jeff,” 249, 250 camping trips, 117 camshft inventors, 250 Canada, 14, 22, 28, 110-112, 245; Canadian forest, 109; Canadian tourists, 81 cancer cure will be found, 22; cancer: see also lung cancer Cancun, Yucatan, 162 candle-maker from England, 87f; candles, 20,000 men, women, and children holding, 40 can-do attitude, 185 Cannes, prize at, 220f canoe, I built my own, 118 (photo) Canopus (star), 136 Canterbury, England, title page, 2, 15 Cape Town area, 29 capillary wedge pressure of the circulatory system, 58 Capitalism, 178, Communitarian Capitalism, 180; capitalism, competing “species” of, 179 capitalizations in this book, 16 Capone, Al, 40 carbon needed to supply energy, 51; carbon source, bacillus as, 51; carbon source, M. tuberculosis can grow on just about any, 52; carbon monoxide from a forklift exhaust, headaches and nausea caused by the, 103 carbonate rocks, 57 cardboard and plywood huts, 49 cardiac arrest through fear of snakes, 74 career, fascinating and fulfilling, 103; career, true to the data versus true to your, 89; careers, health, marriages damaged or destroyed, 92 Carnegie Corporation, 145 Carpe diem, 138 and 138f Cartesian Plane, 190 Cartography, 39f cartoon butterfly, 136 Casanueva, E., 215f Castiglione, Baldesar, 37f Catholic French and Jewish Tunisian, 223

cats (pets), 122 cattle, people viewed as horses or, 69 Caucasian toddler holding a package of Royal, 68 CBS radio profiled high-school students’ achievements in science (1942-1958), 35 CDC, 161; see also Centers for Disease Control cedar wood, 118 (photo) Celebes, 7th pandemic in the, 158 and 158f cell membrane construction and energy storage, 51f-52f; cell wall, 51; cells, mammalian, 51 censure the present, 37f Center Sentinel, The (high-school newspaper), 25f Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 49, 160 CEO of the Year (Singapore Corporate Awards), 184; CEO, the celebrity, 179 ceramic rain barrel, giant, 57 cesspool of humanity (Chicago), 40 Cézanne, Paul, 12, 217f Chairatana, Mr. (ISB Chemistry teacher), 244 Challenge of Slums, The (2003), 49f challenging so-called scientific norms, 13 Chambers, Steven, 245 Champaign, Ill. US, 202 Chan, Jeffrey, 245 Chan, Kwok Bun, 183 Chandler, Harry (Los Angeles publisher who praised Hitler), 70 Chang Heng: see Zhang Heng Chang, Helena, 234, 236, 237 change the world, to (chuan-shih), 182 Changing Demographics, 177; Changing Economics, 180; changing the script, 94; Changing World, The, 176 Changsa Restaurant (Banyan Tree Ringha), 176f chaperones ever to accompany Mr. Reeves and the Science Club on a field trip, first 127 charming to others (becoming), 222 Chatuchak Park (Bangkok), 150f

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

Young Scientist Journeys cheap imitation versus the real thing, 12 cheating in Olympic Games, 37 Cheerio! (mynah bird greeting), 123 cheerleaders (figurative), 199 chefs, cooks and, 21 chemical and petroleum production plants, 103; chemical engineer, 14; Chemical Engineering, 83, 85; Chemical Engineering language, the Papermaking Chemical Engineering dialect of the, 84 chemicals harmful to bacteria, natural, 50 chemist, 21, 201 Chemistry, 16, 46, 83, 85f, 125; Chemistry Division of Science Fair at ISB, 153f-154f; Chemistry Division of the first real Science Club at ISB, 26; chemistry project in Bangkok, a statefunded, 55; see also Nobel Prize for Chemistry Cheng, Chih-Ming, 231 Cheng, Gao Peng, 237 Cheng, Katherine, 240 Cherish Clubs of Two, 138 Chevreul, Eugene, 37 Chiang, Claire, 165f, 173, 175, 176, 183, 184, 245 Chicago, Ill. US, 139, 191, 192; crime and corruption in Chicago in 1900, 40; Chicago suburb (Park Forest), 141 chicken-processing plants, 103 Chicopee, Mass. US, 120 Chief Editor, Young Scientists Journal, 22; Chief Scientific Officer at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, 15 Chiengmai, Thailand, 48 child of Science, oh-so-cheerful (Japanese cartoon character), 73 childhood vaccines versus biological warfare weapons, 44 childlike enthusiasm, 46 children know, as all, 48; children under age 19 treated in emergency rooms for burns and other injuries from firecrackers, bottle rockets and even sparklers (85,800 in 2006), 98; children’s books, New Jersey writer of, 31; Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, 215

283

Chile, 28 China, 11, 28, 29, 39, 103, 133, 165, 171, 172f, 176, 178 (GDP), 179, 180, 181 (Song Dynasty), 212, 245; China Hotel Investment Summit, 184; Science News subscribers in China, 35 Chinatown Bangkok, 129 chinchook (Thai lizard), 18, 122 and 122f, 124; The Chinchook (high-school newspaper), 25f, 26f Chinese are all brilliant (stereotype), 68; Chinese classic of 6th Century BC, 165; Chinese concept of “virtuous man,” 168; Chinese folklore traditions, 150f; Chinese language, 22; Chinese language lessons, 130; Chinese Proverb (advertising gimmick in 1921), 68f; Chinese-language edition of Science News, 35 chlorophyll, 199 choir director, 94 cholera, 162; epidemics, 158; in refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border, 161 Chonburi Province (Thailand) official tree, 165f Chonnobut Torrussup (Royal Project), 250 Chow, Renee, 234 Christensen, Vagn Bylling, 29 Christianity, 96, 249 Christoff, Kalina, 168f chronological ages, 64 Chrysopelea ornata (flying snake), 121 and 121f Chu Hsi (old spelling: Zhu Xi), 143 and 143f, 182f Chulalongkorn University, 68 Church of Christ in Thailand, 155 cicadas (insects, a.k.a. locusts), 126 cigars, smoked 50 per day, 31 Cincinnati, Ohio US, 87f, 98 circles (on new copier), 88; circles, a lot of walking around in (in my own life journey), 172 circuit board manufacturing, 103 circular stadium (solution to a problem), 208

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

284

The Butrous Foundation

circulatory system, capillary wedge pressure of the, 58 circumstances that call us back to our origins, 219 citation, OSHA, 105 civic affairs, active in, 155 Civil Rights movement, 145, 146; Civil War (US), 32 civilization, essential for the progress of human, 15; civilizations, paradigm shift in relationships between, 179 clarification, an important (assessing corporations), 86 clarity of mind (essential tool for any scientist), 169 Clark (friend of Mike), 118 (photo) Clarke, Abigail, 239 Clash of the Titans, 250 class of drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of coronary heart disease, 15 classic films, 134; Classical music, 134 clean energy endlessly, 52; clean up our environment, we can, 52 Clervaux, Luxembourg, 226 Clinical Infectious Diseases, 228f clinician, 49 clock, pendulum, 30 cloned M. tuberculosis gene, 50 cloning, human, 19 clouds, looking at (while higher-order thinking), 168; â&#x20AC;&#x153;South of the Cloudsâ&#x20AC;?

(Yunnan, China), 176 clubhouse, a real, 157 Clubs of Two, Cherish, 138 cluster of 13 related genes that control fatty acid uptake by the bacillus as its carbon source, 51 CNNMoney.com, 186f cobras of Thailand, 64 cockroaches as status symbol, 124-125 and 125f Coconut Grater, Learning from Thai, 150 coercion, use of, 38 Cognitive Neuroscience of Thought Laboratory (Canada), 168f Cohen Prize: see David Cohen Prize Cold War versus science for peace, 44

collaborative approach to research, 113f collecting art glass, 98; collecting information, 80; collective intelligence (of the Science Club), 117 collection sites, documenting butterfly, 246 Collective is Cool, Greed is Good versus, 180 college (view it as a world of possibilities), 227; college dropouts, 185; College of William and Mary (Va. US), 101 Colletotrichum graminicola (fungus), 197 Collins, Betsy, 238 Colombia, 14, 76, 101, 105 Colon, Ana Victoria, 240 colonizes our intestine, 51 Colorado Springs, Colo. US, 187 Colorado State University, 105 Colorado US, 187 color-blindness, 66 Colours of Angsana, 165f Columbus, Christopher, 63, 141 columnist, 96, 249f combat engineer, 166 comic books (manga) I read growing up in Japan, 44 Commander of 420th Flight Test Squadron, 186 commercial pilot, 14 common goal (determinant of a family), 211 Commonwealth novels, the (Foster), 250 communicating your message clearly to real people, 80 Communication Engineering, 250f; communication satellites versus spy satellites, 44; Communication Save Lives, Knowledge and, 112; communication with dolphins in their own language, 11 Communism, 21, 178 Communists sterilized in Germany, 70 Communitarian Capitalism, 180 community leader Harry Awortwi, 29; Community participation/responsibility (Learning from Science Fairs), 150; community-acquired infections, 228f

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

Young Scientist Journeys compassion, 48 compassionate people perceived as idiots, 91 competition versus symbiosis, 199; competitions, fairs and (The Science Service), 34; competition, success defined in terms of, 20 compleat scientist (meaning perfect), 100 compliance by everyone on Earth required, 38 comprehension (individual acts for global good), 167 computer evolution, 203; Computer Science, 100; computer scientists, 37; computer, home-built, 45; computers, 163; computers, early, 159 Conard, Russell B., 240 concert pianist (figurative), 173 Cones, Harold N., 191f conference organizer, 145 Confucian scholar Chu Hsi, 143 and 143f Confucianism, 96, 182 Confucius, 68, 182 congestive heart failure diagnosis, 58 Connections with the natural world, curiosity and observation (Learning from Tadpoles), 150 conservation of wildlife, wonders of, 28 constellations, 135 consultant in pharmaceutical research and development, independent, 15 Contempt of Freedom, The (1975), 78 Continental Divide, the, 118 continuity (eternal truth of Science), 21 contributed to Science even after his death, 66 Contributing Authors, 5 controlled explosion, flight through a, 108 conventional teachers in schools, 12; conventional wisdom is always wrong, the core belief that 41; conventional wisdom versus youth, 36; conventional wisdom, 40; conventional wisdom, questioning, 36 cooks and chefs, 21 Coolidge, (US Vice President) Calvin on racial purity, 69

285

Copenhagen, Denmark, 29, 192 Copernicus, 13 copy-machine, brand-new, 88 coral reef educational kits distributed to Science club members, 29; coral reefs, exceedingly fragile, 175; coral reefs, spectacular, 118 coral snakes, 65 cordite, smell of (jet fighter), 110 core belief that conventional wisdom is always wrong, 41; core of meaning, to get to the, 20 cornerstone of the future (innovative ideas), 13 coronary heart disease, treatment of, 15 corporate attorney in Florida, 80; corporate communications, 141; corporate identities, rise of (global problem), 75 corruption and crime in Chicago, 40 counterfeit experts, 12; counterfeits, 76 Counterfeiting Exposed: Protecting Your Brand and Customers (2003), 76f, 77f; counterfeiting has become as profitable as trading illegal narcotics, and is a lot less risky (article quote), 76f Country-Western duo (The Buchanan Brothers) released “Atomic Power” (1946 song), 73 coup d’état (Guatemala), 219 courage (essential tool for scientist), 169 covered bridge (timber-framing), 152 cow jumped over the moon, 26 cowries of Thailand, 45 Coyne, Tom, 236 Cracking the Coconut, 134 craft of timber-framing, 152; crafts, to protect local, 176 Craig, Timothy J., 73f crater on the Moon, 39f Crayola crayons invented, 78 crazy (stereotype), 99; put my crazy ideas into practice, 45 creative achievement (individual acts for global good), 167; Creative Families, 215; Creative Writing teacher, 130 creativity (tool from Art that benefits any scientist), 79 credit (money) in 13th Century China, 182

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

286

The Butrous Foundation

crescograph (device to measure roses’ feelings), 195, 196 Crichton, Michael, 71f Crick, Francis, 20 and 20f crime and corruption in Chicago, 40; crime lord (Al Capone), 40 criminal fraud and embezzlement, 19 crimson bracts (specialized leaves), 154f criticizes the aristocracy, 218 Croatia, 192 Crockett, Jan, 232 crocodile farm (Bangkok), 131 Cronkite, Walter, 96f cross-cultural appreciation (essential tool to help you prepare for the future), 79 Crouch, Linda, 245 Crowell, Rosco V., 27 cruelty (things that ravage one’s humanity), 225 crushed to death on opening night, 218 crying, health of, 59-60 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, 209 Csikszentmihalyi (“cheek-sent-me-hiee”), Mihaly, 144f Csillag, Claudio, 77f Cuba, 28 culling undesirable stock (human), 69 cultivator of science in general, 38 Cultural Anthropology, 79; cultural identities, fall of (key global problem), 75; cultural traditions being driven extinct, 176; Cultural understanding and respect (Learning from a Thai Coconut Grater), 150; culture shock of my life, the biggest, 166 cunning, but for good ends (Nature), 12 cures will be found, 22 Curie, Marie, 41, 65, 67, 78, 80 (you might be the next) Curiosity Club (high-school Science club in 1949), 28 curiosity, a natural, 61 curriculum writer, 145 cyberspace (SSP branches into), 35; cyberspace like real life: mountains of information, much of it nonsense, 66 cycle, breaking the destructive, 91 Czechoslovakia, 62f

D da Vinci, Leonardo, 38f, 203 dachshund (Willie), 58-59 Dahl, Gary (Pet Rock fad), 57f dairy goats producing milk rich with spider-silk protein, 125 Dallas, Tex. US, 160f Dalton, John, 36, 66 Daltonism (color blindness), 66 damage or destroy careers, health, marriages, 92 damn lies, and statistics (Mark Twain), 89 damsel treatment, full (Journalism), 72 Dan, Andrei, 240 Daodejing (Tao Te Ching), 165f Daoism, 182; Daoist teaching (old spelling: Taoist), 174 Dark Side of Science, The, 69-71 Darwin, Charles, 65, 69-70, 195f; Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species, 69; Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, 69 Darwin, Francis (son of Charles), 195f Darwinian ethos, 181 Das Kapital, 178 data versus true to your career, true to the, 89 David Cohen Prize, 19f Davidsonville, Maryland US, 105 daydreaming, great value of, 168 Dayton, Ohio US, 190 Daytona, Fla. US, 208 de Ségur, Countess, 216f dead-ends (in my own life journey), 172 death in the workplace, unknown causes of, 103 Debate Club at ISB, 25 Debroy, C., 228f Debye, Peter, 38 decorticating Rimbaud’s poems, 217 Deep Feeling, Deep Healing: The Heart, Mind, and Soul of Getting Well (2001), 61f, 62 deep sky objects, 135f deer (enjoyment of on hikes), 118 deficiency, diseases of, 48 degenerate offspring (Eugenics), 69

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

Young Scientist Journeys DeGering, David, 231 democracy, focus on, 145 Demographics, Changing, 177 Demography, 177 demystification of leprosy, 225 Denmark, 14, 23, 29, 192, 244, 245 dentists, 37 Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid, 20f Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) School of Medicine, 163; Department of Psychology, University of BC, 168f Deruelle, Marie-Christine, 220, 221, 244 Descartes, RenĂŠ, 48 and 48f, 189 Design for Asia Grand Award, 172f design specifications, meets, 113 designer babies (modern-day Eugenics), 71; designer handbags (knockoffs), 76; designers ignored the human dimension, 88 desire to make world a better place, 22 destroy careers, health, marriages, 92 destructive cycle, breaking the, 91 detours (in my own life journey), 172 Detroit News, The, 33 Detroit, Mich. US, 35, 189 Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1623), 224f diabetes, 48 diagram of ultimate power (yin/yang), 174 dialect of the Chemical Engineering language, 84 diamond, Science is like a, 19; diamonds on Science club lathe, 190 diapers, changing, 223 diarrhea, 161 dichlorobenzene, 123 Dickensian England, 179 Different, The Joy of Being, 223 Digital (DEC), 133 dignity and respect, 64; dignity of every human being, the essential, 219; Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants: Moral Consideration of Plants for Their Own Sake, The (Swiss report), 196 Diller, Leonard, 204f

287

Dillinger, John, 78 Dilts, Michael, 233 dimension, the human, 88; see also ethical dimension, human dimension dinosaurs going extinct (figurative), 21 diploma in French, 183 diplomat soldier and (first Royal Society President), 30; diplomat with SEATO, 62 Dirac Paul (co-founder of Quantum Mechanics), 38 dirt, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s air is (Kipling on Chicago), 208; dirt-poor, 185 disappearance of a man, or of a woman of color, can generate a brief flurry, but never the full damsel treatment, 72 disarmed M. tuberculosis, 52 discovering something wonderful, 141 Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge (joined SSP), 34; Discovery channel, 123 and 123f; Discovery Communications Inc. (joined SSP), 34 disease control centre director, 14; disease: see also coronary heart disease, tuberculosis, leprosy, etc.; diseases of deficiency, 48; diseases of excess, 48; diseases, emergence of new, 161 disparity, 49 disregard of age (an eternal truth of Science), 22 ditch-digger, 189 diversity, celebrating the opposite of, 224 Diversity, Embrace All Kinds of, 138 Division of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology in the School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, 228 dizzy from a metallic odor, 103 DNA, double helical structure of, 20; DNA-typing, 21 docent, 127 doctor knows best (stereotype), 67; doctor of French society (figurative), 217; doctors act like Supreme Being, 67 Doctorate of Business degree, honorary, 184 documenting butterfly collection sites, 246 dog eat dog, 96; eating dog meat, 133

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

288

The Butrous Foundation

Doggett, Lois, 245 Doha, UAE, 29f Doherty, H.M., 196f doing without doing: see wu wei; learning by doing, 22 dolphins in their own language, communication with, 11, 21 Donne, John, 224 and 224f dormancy, elucidating the mechanism of, 213 Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, The (1968), 160f; double helical structure of DNA, 20 doubling of knowledge, 177 Douglass, Frederick, 117 and 117f Downs, Libbet, 231 Draco (genus of flying lizards), 121 and 121f dragonflies, catching, 131 Drama Club at ISB, 144; drama of human suffering, the, 58; Dramatics Club at ISB, 25 Drawing and Painting at the Rye Art Center, 127 dreamer, call me a, 52 dreams of your youth (Schiller), 3 Drewry, June, 243 drinking, 48 drivers gambling, 131 dropouts, college, 185 drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of coronary heart disease, 15 Druid Peak (prominent peak in Yellowstone National Park), 118f; Druid Peak Pack (wolves), 118 Dubai, 172f Duchamp, Marcel, 216 Duggar, Benjamin Minge, 37 Duplicate Bridge Club, 55 Duracell batteries, knockoff, 76 Durrett, John C. Durrett, 246 Dutch graphic artist (Escher), 220f dystopias, 38; see also utopian ideals

e = mc2, 20, 36

E

E. coli community outbreaks, 213; E. coli O157:H7, 162; E. coli strains associated with illness related to hamburger, spinach, etc., 162f; E. coli, 51; see also Escherichia coli Early Triassic Age, late, 57 Earth, 173 (effortless effort, wu wei), 175; Earth as center of universe (figurative), 68 earthquake magnitude and epicenter, 39; earthquakes in distant parts of China, 39 easel paintings, 123 East Asia, 150f East Coast US, 126 eating, 48 Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, 182f eccentric friends, 223 eclipse as snake eating the sun, 204 ECNH: see Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology ecology, 162 economic and social barriers, 146; economic growth, dizzying, 181; Economic Officer with US Department of State, 209 Economics, 21; Economics Editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review, 183; Economics, Changing, 180 Edison, Thomas, 13, 36, 189, 209 (joke) Editorial Team, Young Scientists Journal, 22 Editor-in-Chief of SSS, 27 Education, 155; education theory and policy, 147; education, emphasizing the importance of (to 5th Graders), 107; Education: see also Paedagogica Historica educational psychology, 147 Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. US, 186 (photo), 193 effortless effort: see wu wei Egypt, 28; see also Ancient Egypt Ehrich, Nadine, 232 Einstein, Albert, 13, 15 and 15f, 20 and 20f, 36, 41, 43f, 60, 75, 80 (you might be the next), 195 and 195f; Einsteinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s revolutionary theory, 21; Einstein: His Life and Universe, 60f

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

297

Young Scientist Journeys hope, 48; hope, world’s last best (scientists), 22; hopes and dreams like everyone else, 105 Hopkins, David M., 76f, 77f Horace, 138f Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics, 69f horse dangled from the ceiling, dead (“sculpture” sold for $2.4 million at Sotheby’s), 78; horse pollution problems, 207-208; horses drooling, 25; horses in New York City (150,000 in 1900), 207; horses or cattle, people viewed as, 69; horse-size cats with teeth like sabers, 63 Horwitz, Howie, 250 Hospital Dom Rodrigo de Menezes (for Hansen’s disease), 225 hospitality (one of my fields), 165; Hospitality Lifetime Achievement Award (China Hotel Investment Summit), 184; hospitality school, world’s largest, 184 hospitals in Thailand, 48 (missionary, leper), 48 hostile neighbors (in US in 1609 and in 2010), 192 hot pot of yak meat, Tibetan, 176f Hotelier of the Year (Stylemaker Awards), 184 house (timber-framing), 152; house arrest for having committed the crime of stating that Earth was not the center of the universe, 66 housewife wiping up a spill, 90 Houston, Tex. US, 147, 193 How are you? (meaningless question), 93; how to ask questions and answer them through meticulous work, 215; how to think scientifically, 215; howdo questions, 185 Hsi: see Chu Hsi Hua Hin (Thailand), 46, 132, 246 Huang, Paul, 27, 234, 236 Hubble Space Telescope, 135 Hubble, Edwin, 65 hubris, danger of, 169 Hugo, Victor-Marie, 215 and 215f, 217

Huima-Byron, T., 51f human animal could be improved by careful breeding, 69; human behavior, focus on, 145; human beings are animals (Darwin), 69; human civilization, essential for the progress of, 15; human cloning, 19; Human Development Lifetime Achievement Award, UN’s firstever, 7; human development with a concentration in instructional leadership, 147; human development, study of, 155; human dimension, designers ignored the, 88; human dimension, the, 88; human family, the, 224; human knowledge doubles, 177; human origins and vulnerabilities, 219; human possibilities, 167; Human Settlements Programme, UN 49f; human stories versus statistics, 29; human stupidity is infinite (Einstein), 75 Humanism (topic of my first-ever article), 167 humanistic scientist, 61 humanitarian, a true, 100 humanity doesn’t obey political boundaries, 80; humanity living in squalor, 49; humanity, loss of, 226 humbling, mind-boggling and, 46 humidity, relative, 27 hummingbird’s bill (solution to a problem), 208 humor, unstoppable good, 149 Hungarian psychologist, 144f Hungary, 212 hut on stilts, 56 hybrids, orchid, 201 hydraulic fluid, 115; hydraulic pressure, 110; hydraulics, 58 hydrogen sulfide, exposure to, 101; hydrogen-bomb test in Pacific Ocean awakens prehistoric monster (Gojira/Godzilla), 73 hypertension, 48 hypotheses made and tested, 99

I I Ching (“Book of Changes”), 177 i.d.-ten-T errors (ID10T), 204

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

306

The Butrous Foundation

Mengele, Josef (funded by a major US corporation), 70 Mental Health Counseling, 61 Mentality, The Science Club, 112 mentor, Mr. Reeves as, 85; mentor, writing, 80; mentors, efforts/vision of, 146 Mercator.net, 70f Mercury, 45, 52; Mercury, plants on, 43 mercury, a lethal toxin that Duracell stopped using many years ago, 76; mercury spills, 104; mercury vapors above safe levels, 104 merge metal with rock (crash plane), 108-110 Merkl, Eldred D., 246 Merlin the Magician, 206; Merlin the Musician, 206 Merlin, Jean-Joseph, 206 metabolize fatty acids, E. coli can, 51 metallic odor, 103 metal-working operations, 103 meteor shower, Perseid, 139 Meteorology, 100 metric system, founder of, 30 Metropolitan Executive and Professional Registry (Australia), 250 Metso Corporation, 86 (photo) Mexico, 23, 28, 154f, 162, 165, 172f, 212, 224, 228, 245; Mexican immigrants, 220; Mexican meals, 215; Mexican pig, 161, 162; Mexico (Aztecs), 150f; Mexico of Aztecs, 204 mezzanines full of equipment (papermaking machine), 83, 86 (photo) Miami Beach, Fla. US, 28 mice, white, 143 Michael Polanyi Society, 78; Michael Polanyi: The Art of Knowing (2006), 78f Michelangelo, 65, 66; mindset, 66 Michelsen, Borge, 28f Michiels, Danielle “Dolphin Lady,” 246 Michigan US, 35, 189; Michigan State University, 145 micro view of Science clubs versus macro view, 29 microbes (comic book), 44; microbes “think,” 49; microbes on this planet

remain un-cultivatable or undetectable, a large proportion of all, 46 microbiological world, the totality of the, 47 microcosms of the Company’s ability to encourage positive change, 87 microorganisms, pathogenic, 161 micropaleontological study carbonate rocks, 57 microphone, tubular, 57 microscope, 17, 143 Microsoft founded (in New Mexico in 1975), 36, 116f microwave oven (invention of), 141 middle- and high-school Science teacher, 14 Middletown, Maryland, 28 Midthun, Karen, 235 Mighty Atom (Japanese cartoon character), 73 migrating (solution to a problem), 208 Military, 20; military dictators, rule of (Guatemala), 219; military flying career, 109; military prowess, 179 milk rich with spider-silk protein, dairy goats producing, 125 millions of lives saved by Dr. Endo’s discovery, 15 millipedes, massive horde of bright orange, 46 mimosa plants, 46 Minchin, P.E.H., 196f mind wandering (daydreaming), 168; mind, analytical, 22; mind-boggling and humbling, 46; mindlessness, rise of (key global problem), 75; mindnumbing nature of workers’ circumstances, 102; Mindset (in Banyan Tree acronym), 170; mindset for a better world, 38 mineral samples collected, 57 Minguet, Mr. (ISB Math teacher), 244 Ministering Beyond Engineering, 93; ministering mindset by which people are treated like human beings, not dehumanized and treated like machines, 83; Ministering to Yourself, 95 ministry defined, 83; Ministry,

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

315

Young Scientist Journeys with spider-silk, 125 protest march joined by 20,000 people, one-man, 40 protons, 46 psychologists, 144 Psychology, 139 psychotherapist, 14, 61 Pterocarpus indicus (angsana tree), 165f Pterodroma caribbaea (bird) driven extinct, 207 Public Administration Services, 141; public education, 143; public health and tropical medicine, 160f; Public Health Research Institute (PHRI), Mysore, India, 212f; public health, professor of, 14; public perception of scientists sometimes negative, 99 publication, world’s first online for young scientists, 22 Publicity Team, Young Scientists Journal, 22 publisher, newspaper, 33 Pujol, Raymond, 214, 244 Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute, 15 PUR program bringing clean water to underdeveloped areas in Africa and other parts of the world, 87 Purchase Campus (State Univ. of NY), 127 Purdue University, 200 PVC pipe, 159

Q quad antenna, 159 Quality Goes In Before Name Goes On, 191; quality-of-work-life issue, 90 quantum mechanics theory asserts, 61; Quantum Mechanics, 38 quarks, 46 quasi-Hippie, 166 Queensland, Australia, 250 questionable sources, proliferation of, 12 questioning conventional wisdom, 36 questions: see also how-do questions Quetzalcoatl (Aztec god), 150f quiet, be, 154, 155 quintessential scientist (Einstein), 60

R rabbit for grating coconut, 150; rabbit, chasing a (led to scientific career), 20; see also Jade Rabbit, Moon Rabbit Race for the Double Helix, The (1987 TV movie by the BBC), 160f racial jokes (invalidate the vision), 171 racing on circular stadium track, 208 radar tube, walked past, 141 Radcliffe, Anne, 231 radiation (a physical agent), 101 Radio News of the Week, 35; radio, amateur sideband, 158; radios required a license, to manufacture, 191 Rafizadeh, Sarah Christine: Raphaël, Sarah (Rafizadeh) railroad tracks, 46 rain (enjoyment of on hikes), 118; rain forest legends, 20; rainmaking innovation patented by HM King Bhumibol, 7 rainbow: see Lunch Tree Hill; rainbows (make time for), 228 Rajendra, Ernest, 244 Rampart Range (Colo. US), 187 Raphaël, David, 222, 244 Raphaël, Eva, 5, 211-228, 228 (photo), 228f, 245 Raphaël, Jessica, 244 Raphaël, Roxane, 244 Raphaël, Sarah (Rafizadeh), 214f, 222, 244 rapid (a relative term), 177 Rashap, Paul, 246 Rasmussen, Thomas, 240 Rath, Joseph F., 204f rationalism (eternal truth of Science), 20 rattlesnake, 18 species/subspecies of, 81 Raven (Susan Norlander and Joel McCarty daughter), 155 reactor versus bomb, 44 Read, Jackie, 235 reader, voracious, 32; reading, 228 real thing, cheap imitation versus the, 12; real world, in the, 88; real, fall of the, and rise of the artificial (key global problem), 76

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

316

The Butrous Foundation

Realism, American (Art), 79; Realist art (Manet), 221 and 221f rebel (Einstein), 60; rebel, anti-government (I was somewhat of an), 166 recoil, 10,000 lbs. of, 110 reconstruction of Japan, 44 recycling will generate energy, the very act of, 52 red-green color-blindness (Daltonism), 66 reduce the response time (to earthquakes), 39 Reeves, Philip A. “Phil” (“Mr. Reeves”), 7, 17-18, 23, 25, 26, 29, 34, 36, 45, 46, 55, 56, 57, 64, 66, 85, 97, 100, 104, 107, 114, 121, 122 and 122f, 124, 130, 132, 136, 137, 146, 149, 157, 158, 159, 183, 198, 230, 231, 232, 234, 235, 243246 passim, 332 Reeves, Vinij “Winnie,” 7, 246 reference collections, Natural History Museum in New York City, 66 reforesting deserts, 226 refugee camps along the ThaiCambodian border, cholera in, 161; refugees of the world, invisible, 49 regular jobs, 213 Reilly, A.J., 196f relationship of humans to animals and plants, 214 Relativity to 10-Year-Olds, Teaching, 24 relays, electromagnetic, 159 reliability and supreme importance of Nature as a teacher, 13 Religion, 15, 20, 158; religion and politics as forbidden topics, 30; Religion as second-worst offender in the misinterpretation of facts department, 72-73; religious rituals involved a great deal of bloodletting, 154f Rembrandt (figurative), 245 Renaissance in China, 182; renaissance of style (timber-framing), 152; Renaissance, Italian, 37f René Descartes: A Biography (1970), 190f Reno, Nev. US, 202 repellent ideas of Eugenics being promoted again, 71

reptiles and amphibians, discovered more than 900 new species of, 65 Republic of Maldives, the, 175 Republic of Singapore, 166f research (career direction), 200; research skills in molecular biology, 49; research statistics, 200 resentment (things that ravage one’s humanity), 225 residency, 49 resident marine biologist, 175 resins used in circuit board manufacturing, epoxy, 103 respect and affection, mutual (determinant of a family), 211; respect/dignity, 64; respect for human family, 225 response time (to earthquakes), reduce the, 39 retarded or physically handicapped people sterilized in Germany, 70 Retort Rumblers, The (high-school Science club in 1949), 28 revolutionary potential (an eternal truth of Science), 21 Revulsion to Reverence to Appreciation (bugs), 124 Reynold, Paul, 232 Rhacophorus (genus of flying frogs), 121 and 121f (genus) rheumatic heart disease, 225 Rich, Ben R., 113 Rights and Duties of Science (1939), 78 Riley Lab, the (Lee Riley’s), 212f, 213, 221, 225, 244 Riley, Emma, 43, 52 Riley, Jesse, 49 Riley, Lee, 5, 43-53, 53f (textbook), 56 (photo), 57, 97, 51f, 116, 158, 183, 205, 212, 226, 227, 228f, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 243, 244, 245, 255 Riley, Nicolas, 49 Riley, Samantha, 49 Riley Mad Scientists, The (high-school Science club in South Bend, Ind., in 1949), 28 Rimbaud, Jean Nicolas Arthur, 215 and 216f, 217 ring shape of the benzene molecule, 55

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

317

Young Scientist Journeys Ringha Valley, 176 rise of mindlessness (key global problem), 75 Rishon Letzion, Israel, 216f risks associated with substances used in the workplace, 101 Ritchie, Lannie, 232 Ritter, William Emerson, 32, 33, 34 Ritz-Carlton Millennia (Singapore), 177f RN (Registered Nurse), 63 Roaring Twenties, 190 Roberts, Kate, 237, 238 Robin Hood’s day, 207 Roche, Sue, 236 Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program, 70 Rocket Club at ISB, 25; rocket, homemade, 108; rocket, launch of homemade, 47; rockets, launching homemade, 97-98 Rocks, Pet, 57 and 57f; rocks, study of, 57 Rocky Mountains, 187 Rogers, Jonathan, 240, 244 Rolexes, knockoff, 12 roller skates, invention of, 207 Roman, Andy: see Bernay-Roman, Andy romance and nostalgia, magical moments of, 165 rooftop hangout (ISB Science Club), 56 Roosevelt, Theodore “Teddy,” 69 (on need for racial purity), 151, 195 Root, Tend to Your, 143 root, your (defined), 143 roses have feelings, do (experiment), 195 Rouse, Bob, 243 Rowan (Susan Norlander and Joel McCarty son), 155 Royal brand baking soda, 68; Royal Charter (England), 30; Royal Society (originally “the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge”), 30; Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge (now “the Royal Society”), 30; Royal Thai Cavalry Division, The, 127 rubber-stamp utterances, 67 rudder, input, 112

runabout, electric (car in Tom Swift book), 32 running shoe, the modern, 21 rural-to-urban migration, 178 Russell, Bertrand, 20 Russia, 212; Russian teenagers had participated in composing the six messages to extraterrestrial life, 74 Rye Art Center (NY), 127

S Sabah, 166f saber-tooth cat, 63 saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom (Asimov), 75 safe levels, mercury vapors above, 104; safer explosive (dynamite), 39; safer gear for firefighters, 21 Safire, William, 96f Sagan, Carl, 45f, 65 sage grouse, 200 Salerno, Nick, 246 salinity, 17 salmon swimming, 214 Salmonella poona in Seattle, 161; Salmonella strains, 228f saloons, 40 Saluja, Carolyn,46, 85, 244, 245, 246 Salvador, Brazil, 225 Sam’s Club, 94 samlor (Thai motor tricycle), 243 Sample, Jennifer, 39 Sams, Georgia, 231 San Diego, Calif. US, 33, 134; San Diego businessman who thought scientists were ridiculous, 33; San Diego reunion (ISB), 97 San Francisco, Calif. US, 48, 220, 228; San Francisco Chronicle, 69f; San Francisco, female reproductive health in, 213 sand, melting point of, 188 Sandburg, Carl, 226 sandhill cranes, 119 Sanskrit and Malay singapura, “Lion City,” 166f Santa Claus on back of elephant, 49

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

318

The Butrous Foundation

Santafianos, Wendy, 105 sap, white, 153 Sarawak, 166f Sartre, Jean Paul, 48 and 48f SAT scores, 55 Satan’s Mile (Chicagp), 40 Saudi Arabia, 14, 79 (year is 1431) savannah, 17 Save Lives, Knowledge and Communication, 112 Saving Lives With Science, 99-105 Sawyer, Craig, 237, 238 SBY Snake-Collecting Club, 246 Scalesse, Carlie, 239 scarabs, 124 scary as a king cobra, to me, 75 scat, using counts of, 17 Schiller, Friedrich, 3 Schilling, Mark, 73f Schlenoff, Philip, 241 Schlereth, Thomas J., 208f Schmetterlingsgarten (German “butterfly gardens”), 18 School Board of ISB, 155; school for accident investigation, USAF, 115; School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, 228; school superintendent outraged (ISB), 159; school when he was 12, opened his own, 66; School Science Review, 24; school: see also hospitality school, medical school Schopenhauer, Arthur, 48 and 48f Schuett, Laura, 245 Science, 12; Science, evidence-based, 14; Science, Faith and Society (1946), 78; Science, Father of Modern (Galileo), 67; Science, oh-so-cheerful child of (Japanese cartoon character), 73; Science, one of the battlegrounds was, 145; Science, The Beauty of, 19-22; Science, The Dark Side of, 69-71; Science, Use, 139; Science (journal), 20f, 51f; science “in the field,” 56; Science “to the bone,” 57; science and technology to heal Japan’s wounded confidence in (Osamu), 73; Science Barge, the (Hudson River NY), 126; Science can be intimidating, 99;

Science Castle, the, 31; Science-crazed teenagers wrote more than 40 years ago, why should any teen today read anything, 52; Science class at ISB, 136 Science club, the world’s first, 30; Science Clubs of America (sponsored the SSP), 34; Science Club at ISB, 23, 25 (1950s), 45, 47, 55, 63, 80, 85, 107, 112, 129, 133; Science Club at ISB, first-ever member (Kim Pao Yu), 134; Science Club friends, 48; Science Club Mentality, The, 112 Science derives its power and its glory from its truths, 19; Science does not operate on polls or numbers (Douglass), 117 Science Fairs, Learning from, 151; Science Fair at ISB, 49, 116, 123, 138; Science Fair at ISB, my first, 45; Science Fair at ISB, the first, 26 science fiction books, 216f; science fiction manga books, 45; science fiction, painted with a little (Jimi Hendrix), 44; science fiction, writer of fantasy and, 48f science for peace versus Cold War, 44; Science intersecting with humanity, 58; Science issues (in Vol. 2 of the foundation’s Journeys Trilogy), 14; Science News (originally Science NewsLetter), 35; Science News for Kids (program launched by SSP), 35; Science News-Letter, 35, 35f; science obeys no political boundaries, 79; Science Odyssey: Eugenics, WGBH Educational Foundation, 69f science of Art and art of Science,79; science of flight, basic, 107; science of living peoples (Cultural Anthropology), 79; science of old people, 37 science patents held by HM King Bhumibol, 7; Science Principle (something will always go right), 22; Science prizes, world’s most prestigious, 39; Science Really Is, What, 99; Science Service, The (original name of The Society for Science & the Public, SSP), 34-35;

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

Young Scientist Journeys science staffs (periodicals), 35; Science Talent Search (The Science Service), 34 Science teacher (Reeves), 23; Science teacher, middle- and high-school, 14; Science writer, 45f; science writers (periodicals), 35 Science’s Great Gifts, 80; Science’s rationalism, 20 scientific baccalauréat exam, 217 and 217f; scientific conferences, journeys to, 11; Scientific Establishment threatened by originality, 13; scientific knowledge doubles, 177; scientific method, the (originally called “the Baconian method”), 30; scientific method, the, 99; scientific papers, the two most influential, 20 scientist, 37-38 (definition of the word), 38 (the word was coined in 1840); scientist in the broadest sense of all men and women of Science, not just men and women with Science or Engineering degrees, 83f; scientist is a real person, 100; scientist journey, five major influences of my (Vince), 84-85; scientist journey, my, 83; scientist stereotype, 67, 143; Scientist Through the Secrets of Plants, Becoming a, 195-202; Scientist, The Families of a, 211-228 scientists as highly educated monsters, 71; scientists deriving facts from theories instead of theories from facts, 77; Scientists Greater Than Einstein: The Biggest Lifesavers of the Twentieth Century (2008), 15f; scientists oblivious to everyday life, 31; scientists who discover exactly the findings they are paid to discover, 77; scientists who falsify their data, 77; scientists who have a warped sense of right and wrong, 77; scientists who were greater than Einstein, 15, 252; scientists whose life goals are money and power, 77; scientists with heart stand out, 60; scientists, theoretical versus applied, 185 sci-fi novels, 216f; see also science fiction Scorpio, 136 scorpions, 4-in.-long, 56

319

Scott, Rachel, 101 Scoutmaster for Troop 71 (Ohio US), 193 Scranton, Penn., US, 147 Scripps Institution of Oceanography (originally the Marine Biological Association of San Diego), 33 Scripps, Edward Willis “E.W.,” 33-34 Scripps, Ellen (inventor of the feature story), 33 Scripps, James, 33 script, changing the, 94 sculptor, 189f sculpture sold for $2.4 million (a dead horse dangled from the ceiling), 78 sea cobras, deadly, 56; sea cucumbers, 132; sea snakes, 63 SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organization), 62 Seattle, Wash. US, 161, 192 Secret Life of Plants, The (1973), 196; secret of industrialized countries (socalled), 29; Secret of Life, The, 203209; Secret of Solutions, The, 207; Secrets of Plants, Becoming a Scientist Through the, 195-202 seeds of knowledge (college), 228 seismograph invented in China in AD 132, 39; seismograph, the first in Europe, 39f select club (figurative), 139 self, knowledge of, 152; self-expression, effective writing is not about, 80; selfstarters for automobiles, 191; selfsufficient (becoming), 222 selfishness (things that ravage one’s humanity), 225 senior consultant (nuclear power), 134; senior IT executives, 137 seniors, first Science contest for highschool (in 1942), 34 sensationalism, Science reporting without, 34 sentenced to death, 217 Seoul, South Korea, 192f; Seoul Central District Court, 20f; Seoul National University, 19f serendipity (an eternal truth of Science), 20; Serendipity, Plan on, 141

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

320

The Butrous Foundation

Serfdom and Social Control in Russia (1986), 125f Sergeant-at-Arms (high-school Science Club), 26 Serizawa, Dr. Daisuke (character in 1954 movie Gojira/Godzilla), 73 serotype designation for E. coli strains (O157:H7), 162f Serpents of Thailand and Adjacent Waters, The, 65 sex drive of wasps, 196; sex-selective abortion (modern-day Eugenics), 71 Seychelles, the, 166 Shakespeare, William, 215 and 215f shamans, according to (stereotype), 68 shame, monument to, 37 Shanghai, China, 29, 172f Shannon, Claude (founder of Information Theory), 38 share knowledge (“sibling” family role), 212 shareholder-driven versus stakeholderdriven capitalism, 180 Sharon Hill, Penn. US, 28 sheep could be transfused into a man, blood of a, 30 sheets flying through the air at 30 mph, 83 Shelley, Mary, 65 Sherr, Rose Lynn, 204f shih, “to change the world,” 182 Shirley, Mass. US, 120 shocked by my first sight of factory workers on the job, 102 shoe, the modern running, 21 shopkeeper, 185 short story, one of the inventors of the modern, 221f shoulders of Giants, on the, 21 shower, singing in the (figurative), 22 shrink themselves to size of microbes (comic book), 44 Siah, Y., 131, 246 Siam Society, The, 27, 65; Siam: see also Thailand Siddhartha (Buddha), 3; see also Buddha sideband amateur radio, 158; side-view mirror warning applies to history, 63

Sierra Nevada Mountains, 117 silica, exposure to, 101 silk, spider, 125 Silver Spring, Md. US, 62 Simon, Dvorah, 204f Simpsons, The Philosophy of the, (college class), 228 sing, I love to, 94; singing cowboy,189; singing with community chorale, 209; singing, science like, 22 Singapore, 14, 172f, 192; Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 183; Singapore Corporate Awards, 184; Singapore Institute of Architects Gold Medal, 172f; Singapore Management University, 184; Singapore soil (in Bangkok), 166; Singapore’s Ambassador to Thailand, 166 singapura, “Lion City,” 166f Singha beer, 97 Siphonorhis americanus (bird) driven extinct, 207 Siricha (Thai beach) field trip, 132 Sirius (star), 136 sister Science clubs, 28 skepticism, 140; skepticism as your most essential tool, 71 skew the data (temptation to), 89 skills that will make you a leader in any career, 80; skills, molecular biology research, 49 Skipper, Y.D., 196f skunk works (slang for any small group within an organization charged with completing a secret project and given great autonomy to accomplish it), 113f Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed (1996), 113 and 113f Slaney, Chris, 240 slobbery horses, 25 Slovak Republic, the, 14, 62 slum health, 49; slums defined, 49 slumber parties, 121 smart bombs, 39; smart polymer invented, 39; Smartest People in the World (scientists viewed themselves as), 31; smartest people, world’s (stereotype), 67

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

Young Scientist Journeys Smetinand, Tem, 246 Smidre, Inese, 238 Smith, Douglas, 119f Smith, Kim, 238 Smith, Rodney “Gipsy,” 40 Smith-Corona typewriter, 43 Smithsonian Institution, 20, 116, 154f smoke equated to prosperity, 36; smoking, 48 smuggled from South America, baby anaconda, 132 snake eating the sun (eclipse), 204; snake lungs, 74; snake-collecting buddies, 80; snakes, “too many,” 207; snakes, 57, 79; snakes, water, 131 snow (enjoyment of on hikes), 118 snuk (Thai for “interesting and fun”), 130, 133 soap-maker from Ireland, 87f Soares, Andréia Azevedo, 245 social barriers, economic and, 146; Social Science, 143; social scientist, 14; social sector, 175 Society Against Family Violence (Singapore), 173f; Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind (Eugenics), 70; society, beauty and ugliness of, 218 sociologist, research (Claire Chiang), 173 Soderberg, Betty, 63, 64 (photo), 127, 243, 246 Soderberg, Geoffrey Richmond, 245 Soderberg, Paul, 5, 25-41, 45, 46, 37f, 57, 63-81, 116 and 116f, 132, 152, 198f, 207f, 230, 231, 232, 234, 236, 243, 244, 245, 246, 332 (photo) software (knockoffs), 76; software company, 202 Soi 15 (Bangkok street), 134f; Soi 71, 127 solar system, 135 Solberg, O.D., 228f soldier and diplomat (first Royal Society President), 30 solidifying too soon, beware of, 61 solutions are always temporary, 207; solutions can cause disastrous new

321

problems, 206-207; Solutions, Secret of, The, 207 solve problems, I wanted to (start of a young scientist’s journey), 84 Somasundaram, Sentha, 235 Song Dynasty (China), 11, 181 songwriter/musician (John Lennon), 52f Sophie’s Misfortunes, 216f Sorbonne in Paris, the, 183 Sorensen, Claus Mazanti, 240 Sorghum bicolor, 197f; sorghum, grain, 197 Sotheby’s auction house in NYC, 78 souls stretch, our, 153 South Africa Institute of Physics, 29 South America, 132, 225 South Bend, Ind. US, 28 South Carolina US, 120, 154f South Korea, 192; see also Korea; South Korean scientist disgraced, 19 and 19f South of the Clouds (meaning of “Yunnan”), 176 Southeast Asia, 127; Southeast Asia war, 48; Southeast Asia’s 11 different elapids (cobra family), 64; Southeast Asian country never colonized by a European power, Thailand the only, 7 Southern Arizona, 202; Southern Cross, 136 Southwest Airlines, 107, 120 Soviet space launches, 25; Soviet Union, 47, 130f Space Age (began in 1903), 78; space probe, 52; Space Program, US, 146; space travel, 21 Spain (in 1778), 217; Spanish language, 22; Spanish, fluent in, 228 sparklers, firecrackers, and bottle rockets (85,800 injuries to US children in 2006), 98 sparrow hawk drawing, 81 Special Editors, Young Scientists Journal, 22; special interests, activists for all manner of, 12 species, every new, 11 specimen gathering trips, 56 speedboat taxis, 131f Spellsinger stories (Foster), 250 Spencer, Percy, 141 spending, Management resists, 89

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

322

The Butrous Foundation

spider silk, strength of, 125; spider-silk protein, dairy goats producing milk rich with, 125 Spielberg, Steven, 185 spinach, illness related to, 162f; spinach, organic and non-organic spinach, 213 spin-off cartoon, Atom Boy, 73 spirit of Science (an eternal truth of Science), 22; spirit, The (Learning to live in the Now), 150 spirits soar, our, 153 spiritual life, my own, 83 splitters versus lumpers (definition of “scientist”), 37 spontaneity (tool from Art that benefits any scientist), 79 Sports, 15, 20; sports (make time for), 228 spreadsheets, presentation, 206 Sputnik 1, 25; Sputnik launches (25 of them during 1957-63), 130 and 130f spy satellites versus communication satellites, 44 squares (on new copier), 88 squiggly lines (on new copier), 88 squirrels the size of spaniels, 121 SR-71 Blackbird, 113 and 113f Sri Lanka, 212; see also Burma SSP: see Society for Science & the Public SSS Bulletin, 23, 27 (pictured), 35, 41, 43, 53, 62, 81, 85, 105, 120, 122f, 134, 140, 141, 158, 163, 202, 230-237 (all tables of contents, 1966-1970); SSS: see Student Science Society St. Paul’s Cathedral, 30 stained glass art studios (lead exposure), 103 stakeholder-driven capitalism, shareholder-driven versus, 180 stall, high-speed, 112 Stallknecht, Christine, 231 Stanford University, 47, 48, 166, 183, 200 Stanford, Calif. US, 200f star most likely to have life in its vicinity, 74 Star Trek (2009), 250; Star Wars, 250; Starman, 250; stars’ lives are long

(compared to butterflies), 135 start-up defined, 91-92 starvation, 44 State University of New York: see SUNY statins, the discovery of, 251-271 statistical analysis software, 202; statistical consultant, 202; statistical mechanics, 195f statistics, 89 (Mark Twain); statistics versus human stories, 29 status quo, challenging the, 13; status symbol, cockroaches as, 124-125 and 125f stay flexible (scientist secret), 200 Stealth Bomber: see B-2 Stealth Bomber steamboat patented, 185 Steichen, Edward, 226 Stelling, Jim, 236 stem-cell research, 19f Stepping Out: The Making of Chinese Entrepreneurs (1994), 183 steps in problem-solving, three, 204 stereotype of scientists as cold, unfriendly, serious, nerdy, somewhat crazy, and perhaps even sinister, 99; Stereotypes, Beware of, 67 Stewart, Ruth, 232 stickiness of poinsettia sap, 153 still a high-school student while he had graduated from college the same year the Titanic sank, 65-66 still, be, 154, 155 Stillwell, Diane, 231 stilted bungalows, 132 stimulus for scientific discoveries and innovations, suffering as the, 39 stingrays, feeding friendly, 175 (photo) Stockholm, Sweden, 39f Stone Age of the Information Age, 203 Storey, Keith, 233 stories tall, three (papermaking machine), 83, 86 (photo) strategies for care and cure, 58 Stratemeyer, Edward, 31 Stratofortress, 85 and 85f-86f streamline flow (laminar), 112f streetcars, posters on, 68

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

323

Young Scientist Journeys Streptococcus throat infections, 225; Streptococcus throat samples, genotyping, 213 stressful things in any manufacturing company, one of the most, 91 String Lake, Wyo. US, 118 (photo) Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The, 138 student government (ISB), 144 Student Science Society (SSS), 23, 26 (named by Andy Roman-Bernay), 100, 245, and passim; see also Science Club at ISB Study nature, not books (Agassiz), 12; Study of Man, The (1960), 78; Study of Mathematics, The (1919), 20 stupid and dangerous (to believe that scientists are infallible), 68 stupidity is infinite, human (Einstein said), 75 Stylemaker Awards, 184 submarine boat, 32 subspecies of beetle, new 41 success defined in terms of competition, 20; success suffering (a.k.a. hubris), 169; successful career and a happy life, 14; successful organizations learn and grow, 87 suckling simian look-alike, I was a, 214 suffering as the inevitable end result of utopian schemes, 39; suffering as the stimulus for scientific discoveries and innovations, 39; suffering, memories of insanity and, 32; suffering, the drama of human 58 Sukhumvit (Bangkok street), 63, 129 Sultanate of Oman, the, 14 Sun (effortless effort, wu wei), 173; sun, nothing new under, 23; sun, snake eating the (eclipse), 204 Sunal, Dennis, 232 Sunday Market (Bangkok), 150 sunrises (enjoyment of on hikes), 118 sunsets (enjoyment of on hikes), 118; sunsets (make time for), 228 SUNY/Albany, 145; SUNY: see State University of New York superiority, nationalistic (invalidates the vision), 171

supermarkets (medical research), 213 supermen, American (Eugenics), 70 super-rich carbon sources, 52 supersonic advanced trainer, 109 supportive family simply cannot be exaggerated, 36 Supreme Being, doctors act like the, 67; supreme importance of Nature as a teacher, 13; supreme teacher, Nature as the, 12 surgeons, 37 surgical room internship, 55 survival of the fittest (phrase), 69 Suzuki, Satowa, 245, 255 Swaffer, Mathew, 238 Swartzberg, John, 244 Sweden, 39f, 212; Swedish FieldBiology Youth Group, 28 swine H1N1 influenza, 162 Swiss Army knife (figurative), 169; Swiss report on feelings of plants, 196f; Swiss scientist and Ice Age expert Jean Louis Agassiz, 12 Switzerland, 14, 103, 147, 196, 228 Sydney, Australia, 192 symbiosis, 198; versus competition, 199 Synchronicity, 140 Synerbotics, 190, 193 synthesize every conceivable product from these lipids that can now be made from petroleum, 53 syphilis, 221 systematic observation, 99 Systems, It’s All About (and People), 157

T T-37 (aircraft), 109 T-38 (aircraft), 109 Tacit Dimension, The (1966), 78 tadpole scientists, 64; Tadpoles, Learning from, 152 tai chi chuan, 174 taijitu (“diagram of ultimate power”), 174 tainted by legal standards (pilots’ accident investigation) , 116 Taiwan, 14, 183

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

324

The Butrous Foundation

Taken Trilogy, the (Foster), 250 Talent Search (The Science Service), 34 talkies (movies with sound that replaced silent movies), 7 TAMs (“Teen Age Messages”) sent into deep space in 2001, 74 Tanzania, 14 Tao Te Ching: see Daodejing Taoist: see Daoist Taser (acronym for “Tom A. Swift’s Electric Rifle”), 32 taxis, speedboat, 131f Taxonomy, 200 Taylor, Edward H., 65, 66, 80 Taylor, Rhonda, 236 TB bacillus, 51 (photo); TB: see also tuberculosis teacher, 145; teacher for a quartercentury of middle- and high-school Science, 14; teacher of Great Books, 246; teacher trainer, 145; teacher, good (defined), 187; teacher, Nature as the supreme, 12; teachers, explosion of knockoff, 12 teaching (career direction), 200 team of people working together (aircraft), 113 teardrop-shaped glass pieces (tektites), 57 Technical Process, The, 87; technical writing, 141 technological innovations that will make today’s cutting-edge marvels seem like blunt Stone Age implements, 11; technological prowess, 179 Technology, 21; technology award for coaching/mentoring/teaching (P&G), 98; technology company, starting your own (career direction), 200; technology, teen interest in (in 1910), 32; technology, to heal Japan’s wounded confidence in science and (Osamu), 73; technology-users dumber as technology smarter, 75 teddy bear, 78, 195f teen interest in technology (in 1910), 32; teenage imagination, a figment of, 43; teenager, none of its members was a, 31; teenagers composing a message

that will take 56.3 years to arrive, 75; teenagers in Science, no room for (in 1910), 32; teenagers, Science-crazed, 52 teething problems, Science clubs with (South Africa), 29 Teflon invented, 21 Tehran, Iran, 223 tektites, 45, 57 Telecommunications, 250 telegraph going extinct, 21 telemetry out at the nurses’ station, 59 telephone (invention of), 141 telescope guy (Edwin Hubble), 65 television detector (Tom Swift book), 32 temperature differentials, 58; temperatures, max. and min. , 27 Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Bangkok), 150f; temple, Japanese (timber-framing), 152 Temple, Robert, 39f temporary, solutions are always, 207 tenons and mortises (timber-framing), 152 tenors, veteran, 94 tentacles (on snake), 65 Terzian, Sevan G., 35f Tesla, Nikola, 99 test pilot, 14; The Test Tube Times (1949 Science club newspaper), 28 testicle, Ancient Greek word for, orkhis, gave “orchid,” 197f tetracycline antibiotics, broad-spectrum, 37 Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy, cartoon character), 44f, 73 Texas US, 127, 147, 193 textile mills, 103 Tezuka Osamu, 44 and 44f, 45 Thai Coconut Grater, Learning from a, 150; Thai folklore traditions, 150f; Thai food, 155; -Cambodian border, cholera in refugee camps along, 161 Thailand, 7, 14, 23, 45, 47, 48, 57, 68, 85, 97, 101, 103, 105, 112, 116f, 118, 127, 134, 136, 141, 150f, 155, 163, 176, 183, 186, 202, 209; Thailand, HM King of: see Bhumibol Adulyadej; Thai-style freedom, 7; Thailand,

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

Young Scientist Journeys natural, 56; Thailand, raised in, 81; Thailand, untamed, 118; Thailand occupied by Japan, 134f; Thailand official provincial trees, 165f; Thailand year is 2553, 79; Thailand: see also Siam Thain, J.F., 196f The Now, Learning to Live in, 154 theater, 228 theoretical engineer, 38; theoretical scientists, 185 theoreticians, 37 Theriogenology and Biotechnology, Professor of, 19f thermodynamics, 83, 88 thermometer plant, 104 Things of Science program (The Science Service), 34 thinking about the world, Science is really a way of, 99; thinking, stop, 154 thirst for life and desire for justice, 219 Thomsic, Jon, 230 thoroughbreds (human) in America (Eugenics), 70 Those Who Know (stereotype), 68; Those Who Know elite, 75 Thought Police enforcing Political Correctness, 75 threats, know the (scientist secret), 199 three freedoms, my search for, 107; The Tree Princes of Serendip, 141 throat samples, genotyping Streptococcus, 213 Thunderbolt II, 120; see also A-10, Hog Tibetan hot pot of yak meat, 176f tiger, silhouette of a, 132 Tilden, Mark, 232 Tillia (Susan Norlander and Joel McCarty granddaughter), 155 Timber Framers Guild, 155; timber framers, 152; timber-framing, 152 time calculation, Ancient Greek (new day began at dusk), 79 timeless, be, 154, 155 TimesOnline, 70f tin mining since 16th Century, 174 tipping point (population), 181 Tips from Your Big Sister, A Few Final, 227-228

325

tissue-grade paper, 88 Titanic (ship), 65 toads, catching, 131 toaster, lizards hiding in, then being shot up into the air, 122 toilet paper, 83 tokay (Thai lizard), 122, 124 Tokyo, 255-271 passim; Tokyo destroyed by monster (1954 movie (Gojira, in US: Godzilla), 73 Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout; or, The Speediest Car on the Road, 32; and His Motor Cycle, 32; and His Television Detector, 32 Tomasic, Jon, 27 Tompkins, Peter, 196 tools for your Science career, 15 Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, 250 Top Ten hit (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Atomic Power,â&#x20AC;? 1946 song), 73 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 221f tourism (one of my fields), 165; Tourism Authority of Thailand, 174f tourists (and disease transmission), 162; tourists who shout at natives to be understood, American, 68 toxic to rehabilitate, too, 174 Toxicology and Pharmacology (class), 221 toxin, powerful nervous system (inorganic mercury), 104 trade secrets, 221 training design and development, 141 transcontinental flights (and virus spread), 162 Transhumanism (modern-day Eugenics), 71 travel (make time for), 228; travel (one of my fields), 165; travel (shared passion for), 141; travel: see also space travel Traveler, The (Ariz. community college magazine), 120 treasure house of knowledge, Science is a, 20; treasure maps, 14; treasuring human differences, 223 tree growth (effortless effort, wu wei), 173; tree, wish-fulfilling divine tree (banyan in Hinduism), 165f; trees

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

326

The Butrous Foundation

versus forest view, 199; trees, love of, 165f Trends in Microbiology (journal), 50f triangles (on new copier), 88 triangular pillows, 176 trigger, red (jet fighter), 110 triglycerides, a subgroup of lipids, 52f tropical medicine, 160f true north (figurative), 137; true to the data versus true to your career, 89 Truely, Romare, 147 Truely, Walteen Grady, 5, 143-147, 183, 193, 233, 246 truths, Science derives its power and its glory from its, 19 Tsarist Russia, 124 Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin (started the Space Age in 1903), 78 Tsui, Mathew, 238 tsunami of 2004, 175 Tubb, Alan, 246 Tuberculosi (comic book), 44; tuberculosis from Earth, eradicate, 43; tuberculosis-screening test, 213; see also TB tubular microphone, 57 Tulane University, 160f, 163 Tunghai University (Taiwan), 183 Tunisia, 223 Tur, Kimi, 245 Turkey, 14 Turnage, Mark T., 76f, 77f Turnbull, Ann, 235 Turnbull, Carol, 232 Turnbull, Margaret, 74 turning points (defined), 173 TV movie, 160f; TV news, newspapers, et cetera, all claim to report news accurately and impartially, 72 Twain, Mark, 89 tweezers, 17 Twentieth Century starting, 31 Twitter, 139 Two, Cherish Clubs of, 138; two, families of, 221 typhoon, 132

U Udey, Kristen, 235 ugliness of bullets versus beauty of the human mind, 39; ugliness of society, beauty and, 218 ugly (Abraham Lincoln was), 185f; Ugly American, The (1958 novel), 68; The Ugly American (1963 movie), 68 UK, 244, 245; see also United Kingdom ultimate paper airplane, 187 ultimate power, diagram of (yin/yang), 174 UMB School of Public Health (University of Maryland, Baltimore), 163 UN, 166f; UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 7; UN: see also United Nations; UN’s first-ever Human Development Lifetime Achievement Award, 7;l United Nations Development Programme, 174f; United Nations Human Settlements Programme. 49f; United Nations International Labor Organization, 147, 193 uncertainty is certain, 71 undergrads (medical research lab), 212 underwater basket weaving, 227 UNESCO World Heritage Site, 136f; UNESCO-sponsored World Conference on Science, 28 Ungdommens naturvidenskabelige Forening (UNF): see Young People’s Union for the Study of Natural Sciences, 29 United Arab Emirates, the, 28, 29f, 165 United Kingdom, 22 United Press news service founded, 34 United States of America, 14, 22, 28, 212; United States was given atomic power by “the mighty hand of God” to punish the people of Japan “for their sins” (belief), 73 unity of life, the underlying, 60 universality (eternal truth of Science), 21 Université René Descartes (Paris), 214f University of Arizona (Tucson), 147; University of British Columbia, 168f;

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

327

Young Scientist Journeys University of California Berkeley, 32, 33, 53, 133, 134, 212, 226, 228, 255; University of California Press, 32; University of Chicago Manual of Style (12th edition), 16; University of Florida, Gainesville, 162, 163; University of Hong Kong, 183; University of Kansas, 209; University of Kent, Canterbury, 15; University of Maryland, 163; University of Massachusetts (Amherst), 101, 134; University of Pennsylvania, 146; University of Singapore, 183; University of Southern California, 114; University of Texas Southwestern (Dallas), 160f; University of Utah, 113f unknowns as constants in human life, 68 unlimited supply of energy, 52 unprecedented in 172-year history of company (award to Vince Bennett), 98 unstructured environment, highly (ideal), 157 Unsung Hero of Radio Communications (Bose), 195 un-vented ovens, 104 upstate New York, 31 urban myth (Mayan calendar), 66; Urban Planning, 147 urbanization (and disease transmission), 162; urbanization rush in 13th Century China, 181 urine, as ingredient in knockoff designer perfumes, 76; urine, horse (60,000 gal. daily in NYC), 208 US Air Force, 85, 87, 98, 186; US Air Force Academy, 187, 193, 246; US Air Force accident investigation school, 115; US Air Force Test Pilot School, 193; USAF fighter pilot, 108; USAF: United States Air Force US Agency for International Development (AID), 81, 141; US Army, 18; US Civil Service, 53; US Civil War, 63; US Department of Education, 145; US Department of State, 147 (Vietnam), 193, 209; US Embassy in Bangkok, 134f; US National Park Service created in 1916, 118

us versus them mindset, 20 USA, 244; USA Today, 72 Use Science, 139; using information, 80 USSR, the, 28; see also Soviet Utah, 120 utopian ideals, 38; see also dystopias; utopian world created through science in a novel, 30 U-turns (in my own life journey), 172

V V2 rocket, 108 Vabbinfaru Island (Maldives), 175 vaccine for TB, 213 Valdosta, Ga. US, 120 Valenti, Amy, 243 Valenti, Celeste, 243 Valenti, Corky, 5, 135-141, 230, 243, 244, 245 Valenti, Elaine, 243 Valenti, Gerry, 243 Valenti, Jasper, 243 Valenti, Joanne, 141 Valenti, Lisa, 243 Valenti, Michelle, 243 Valenti, Tim, 243 Valentin, Andreas, 233, 235, 237 valuing diversity, 224 vampire moth (Calyptra eustrigata), 121 Van Camp, Elisabeth, 231 Vatican City, 166f Veatch, Mrs. (ISB Math Analysis teacher), 245 vegetables, selling (Edison), 189 Venezuela, 28 Venice of the East, Bangkok called, 131 verifying information, 80 Vermont US, 150 Versailles, France, 216f, 228 Very Important People (scientists viewed themselves as), 31 veterinarian and researcher, 19f Veterinary Medicine, 20f Vibrio cholerae, 162; Vibrio parahaemolyticus, 162; Vibrio vulnificus, 162 Victorian America: Transformations in

f: footnote; passim: throughout the book; a.k.a.: also known as bold numbers: authored by the person

The Journeys Trilogy Young Scientist Journeys (Volume 1)

My Science Roadmaps (Volume 2)

Great Science Journeys (Volume 3)

The 20 authors were members of the Student Science Society in high school in Bangkok in the 1960s, and now, near their own 60s, they share the most important things they learned about science specifically and life generally during their own young scientist journeys.

The findings of journeys into key science issues, this volume is a veritable treasure map of “clues” that lead a young scientist to a successful and fulfilling career, presented within the context of the wisdom of the great gurus and teachers of the past in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

An elite gathering of wellknown scientists reflect on their own journeys that resulted not only in personal success but also in the enrichment of humanity, including biochemist Akira Endo of Japan, whose discovery as a young scientist of statins has saved countless millions of lives.

Thirty-one years ago, Sir Peter Medawar wrote Advice to a Young Scientist, a wonderful book directed to university students. The Butrous Foundation’s Journeys Trilogy is particularly for those aged 12 to 20 who are inspired to have careers in science or to use the path of science in other careers. This trilogy is also intended for educators and parents seeking to nourish scientific enquiry among younger students, as well as for adult readers intrigued by unusual life journeys.

Since 2006 The Butrous Foundation has published The Young Scientists Journal, the world’s first scientific journal of, by, and for all young scientists in the world.

T