Hi, Science Issue II (Winter 2023)

Hi, Science.

ISSUE II WINTER 2023

The scientific mind, first and foremost, is one of curiosity.

Hi, Science.

Winter 2023

Copyright © Hi, Science, 2023

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WINTER 2023

OUR TEAM

Our Team Renee Cai, Founder & Editor in Chief Cecilia Cary, Managing Editor Jack Hurewitz, Deputy Managing Editor Mya Cahana, Editor Valentina Ménager, Editor Arely Peckham, Editor Reece Davidoff, Chief of Staff Kylan Huang, Deputy Chief of Staff Oceane Siegell-Gori, Creative Director Eleonora Ziehler, Director of Finance Charvik Arora, Contributor Navya Arora, Contributor Carolina Bortoni, Contributor Sarah Chen, Contributor Kyla Guimaraes, Contributor Layla Kluth, Contributor Maya Inaltong, Contributor Matthew Lee, Contributor Ximena López, Contributor Noe Matthew, Contributor Ace Meltzer, Contributor Valentina Ménager, Contributor Ayah Orynbay, Contributor Zenchang Sun, Contributor Zenchi Sun, Contributor

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EDITOR’S NOTE

HI, SCIENCE

A Note From the Editor in Chief Dear reader, What a year it’s been for Hi, Science. A small idea to bridge the gap between science and the humanities in a fun and engaging way has turned into a club involving over fty students. This publication is now o cially Avenues’ rst tri-campus magazine, and a part of the science curriculum at the São Paulo campus.

I look forward to seeing Hi, Science continue to grow within Avenues and beyond as a powerful and accessible vehicle for STEM education and literacy.

Happy reading! I hope you discover something new.

Renee Cai Editor in Chief

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WINTER 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents Kylan Huang

For Sea Turtles, There’s No Place Like Home

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Cecilia Cary

Can Statistics Find Your Soulmate?

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Ace Meltzer

Discovering the Gap in Your Vision

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Ximena López

The Marvelous World of Axolotls

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Reece Davido

Cosmic Helium: How the Moon Could Save Us

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Kyla Guimaraes

How Do Salamanders Regenerate Body Parts?

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Maya Inaltong

Uncovering Hidden Sequences in Nature

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Zenchi Sun

The Smelly Secret to Deep Sea Survival

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Ayah Orynbay

Could Another You Exist in a Parallel Universe?

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Mya Cahana

Are Our Genetics Set in Stone?

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Valentina Ménager

The Tomb of King Tutankhamun

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Carolina Bortoni

Protecting Our Planet One Whale at a Time

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Noe Matthew

TRAPPIST-1: The Most Habitable Exoplanet

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Navya Arora

Why We Can’t Resist Grooving

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Matthew Lee

Aphantasia: Living Without a Mind’s Eye

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Charvik Arora

Who Shaves the Barber? A Famous Paradox

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Sarah Chen

Is Social Media Slowly Shaping Our Minds?

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Layla Kluth

Magnetoreception: The Sixth Sense of Birds

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Zenchang Sun

The Truth Behind Recycling Plastic

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KYLAN HUANG

GRADE 9, AVENUES NY

For Sea Turtles, There’s No Place Like Home Picture this: A newly hatched baby sea turtle digs its way out of its egg, ghts the waves lapping onto the beach, and crawls into the ocean. The beach is pretty ordinary—you wouldn't even remember it after a few days—but years later, this little turtle will nd its way back and lay its own eggs on the very same beach.

How in the world do these sea turtles nd their way back home? It seems like a wild feat, considering humans have a hard time even remembering what they ate for dinner the previous night. Well, studies done on loggerhead sea turtles have shown that these turtles have their own memory superpower: geomagnetic imprinting.

Scientists have hypothesized that these turtles use the Earth’s magnetic eld to nd their way back home. Our planet’s magnetic eld is like a magnet, with lines running from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere (below and above the equator, respectively). The vertical ring-like shapes cover less distance around the magnetic equator, and they become larger around the poles. The shape of each “ring” can be predicted for di erent locations.

Similar to how humans use latitude and longitude coordinates to navigate, turtles use this magnetic eld.

This explains the “geomagnetic” part. But what does “imprinting” mean? Imprinting is a speci c type of learning done over a short period of time with long-lasting results. It occurs when an animal needs to learn something that will be critically important for them in the future. For example, birds recognize the rst thing they see as their mother, whether that’s you, a set of car keys, or even a math textbook, as one study found. Scientists believe that sea turtles, after being born, are able to learn the magnetic signature of the beach they were born on—essentially, the mixture of minerals in the beach’s soil that can be used to uniquely pinpoint the beach—and use those results to nd their way home.

One of the most fascinating cases of geomagnetic imprinting is green sea turtles navigating their way through the Indian Ocean. They often need to readjust their course to compensate for errors of hundreds of miles—but the turtles always arrive at their home beach. The magnetic eld also experiences constant change, but scientists have noticed that even as the magnetic eld of the Earth shifts, Florida turtles return to the shifted beach location. Incredible!

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CECILIA CARY

GRADE 12, AVENUES NY

Can Statistics Find Your Soulmate?

So you’re looking for love. But the whole soulmate thing is taking too long—you want somebody perfect, and you're growing impatient. Have no fear, for statistics might have an answer to your dilemma.

Picture this: You’re a CEO and a big company-wide deadline is approaching. But uh oh—your head secretary just quit. You need someone great and you need someone fast. How in the world can you nd this person?

Statisticians called this The Secretary Problem. You must interview n applicants, immediately deciding to either hire or deny them. If you deny them, they’re gone forever. Interviewing all n applicants would take too long, so you need to understand when to stop looking and just pick someone. But where is that line?

The book Algorithms To Live By o ers an answer: the 37% rule. The 37% rule says that in order to have the highest chance of success (hiring the best candidate), you must divide your interview process into “looking” and “leaping.” When looking, you are interviewing applicants and simply gathering information about each one (think credentials, special qualities, etc.) without thinking about hiring.

When leaping, you are interviewing applicants with the understanding that you must make your nal choice of who to hire.

With n applicants, the best place to draw the line between looking and leaping is at 37%. This is to say that you should be "looking" throughout the rst 37% of applicants. After you have interviewed these applicants, you must "leap" and hire the next candidate you nd that is better than everybody in that rst 37%. As the applicant pool grows, this optimal strategy gives you the highest chance of selecting the best candidate.

Well, we can apply the same rule to love. Say you have n dates lined up and 6 months to nd a partner.

Just apply the 37% rule here and you’ve got a match! Sure, whether sparks y or not is entirely independent of mathematics—but after your 5th mediocre date in a row, this may be an interesting strategy to consider!

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ACE MELTZER

GRADE 11, AVENUES NY

Discovering the Gap in Your Vision Close your right eye and stare at the small white square. Hold this page around a foot away from you. Without moving your eye, slowly move this page towards you. At some point, the large blue circle should fall behind your blind spot and disappear completely from view! Indeed, the circle should become part of the yellow background, a visual process known as lling in. Neat, right? You’ve just found your elusive blind spot, an area devoid of light receptors smack dab in the middle of your vision eld.

To understand your blind spot, you must rst understand how you see. The process starts with light passing into your pupil, the black dot in the center of your eye. As light passes through, the clear layer at the outermost part of your eye, the cornea, focuses the light so you can see clearly. The colored ring around it, the iris, has muscles that expand and contract to control the amount of light that enters the pupil, which helps you see even more clearly. Once light has entered your pupil, it passes through the lens of the eye, which focuses the light completely. After passing through the lens, light will hit the retina, the “wall” at the back of your eye. Photoreceptors, a speci c kind of cell, absorb the light and transform it into electrical signals. These signals travel through the optic nerve and into your brain.

Your brain then translates these signals into the images you see.

On the diagram, do you see the little spot of lighter color on the eye diagram, right between the optic nerve and the vitreous? That is your blind spot, where your eye needs to have a clearing for the nerve to pass through. As such, there are no receptors there, which means these light-detecting cells will not send signals to your brain—and no image is formed!

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XIMENA LÓPEZ

GRADE 11, AVENUES AON

The Fascinating World of Axolotls Axolotls are marvelous and adorable creatures that have become increasingly popular in recent years, making appearances in games like Minecraft. But how much do we really know about them?

Axolotls are sometimes called “walking sh,” but this name is misleading. They are actually a species of salamander, native to the lakes of Xochimilco in Mexico City. Their name comes from Nahuatl, an Aztec language. They are named after the Mexica deity of Xólotl, who, according to legend, disguised himself as a salamander to avoid being sacri ced by his brothers.

Axolotls can live up to 25 years and measure up to 25 centimeters. They feed on mollusks, worms, crustaceans, insect larvae, and even certain kinds of sh. They come in all shades, including brown, black, and pink. Axolotls aren’t actually born with legs, only developing them at a week old. They can also breathe in three di erent ways: through their gills, lungs or skin. In particular, their gills provide them with oxygen to breathe underwater. Axolotls di er from most other salamanders in that they live permanently in the water; in extremely rare cases, an axolotl will progress to maturity and emerge from the water, but in general, they are content to remain on the bottom of the lakes and canals of Xochimilco.

Scientists are amazed by axolotls for many reasons. Unlike most salamanders who undergo metamorphosis, an axolotl retains its larval characteristics for most of its life, which accounts for unique tadpole features, like feathery gills and a long, thin dorsal n (located on its back). Axolotls also have the ability to heal and regenerate any part of their bodies without leaving a scar. When an axolotl su ers an injury, its body is able to regenerate the injured body part, whether that be an entire limb, a spine, or even the brain or heart. This miraculous process only takes a couple of months. These creatures can also accept organ transplants from other salamanders, a trait that makes them intriguing in the eld of medical research.

Unfortunately, these incredible creatures are currently in critical danger of extinction. They are threatened by the introduction of invasive species to the lakes of Xochimilco, the overexploitation of the natural resources in their habitat, and the general water and air pollution of Mexico City. In 2019, there were only an estimated 50 to 1000 axolotls left in the wild. If we continue to treat axolotls the way we do now, we may only have ten years before they go extinct.

Is there still salvation for this little animal that has been the protagonist of Mexican legends? Maybe, but only if we take steps to respect and restore their natural habitat, like ltering the polluted lakes of Xochimilco and preventing the introduction of invasive sh to their native waters.

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REECE DAVIDOFF

GRADE 11, AVENUES NY

Cosmic Helium: How the Moon Could Save Us For years, scientists working on sustainability and climate change issues on Earth have stared up at the Sun, the holy grail of energy production, in envy. The Sun seemed to laugh at our dinky little turbines while it e ortlessly generated almost in nite amounts of clean energy. Since the very beginning, all we have been able to do is look—but now, with a little help from our friend the Moon, we could also have that clean, limitless power.

We rst need to understand how the Sun pulls o this in nite-energy magic trick. The short answer is: it cheats. The Sun generates energy through nuclear fusion, a process by which atoms fuse and release unimaginable amounts of power. However, this only happens at temperatures upwards of one hundred million degrees, which the Sun reaches using its massive gravitational force. This force essentially squeezes everything in its core together super tightly until it gets hot enough for fusion.

Since the 1950s, the energy world has been drooling over this chemical process. But in addition to guring out how to create these temperatures on Earth without gravity helping us out, it turns out that type of fuel we need is di cult to nd, and dangerous to handle.

The general consensus is that fusion reactors would use deuterium and tritium, two di erent isotopes (or cousins, if you will) of hydrogen. Each plant would use about 125 kilograms of each substance per year. Deuterium is not an issue—it can easily be harvested from seawater, making it a ordable at $13 a gram. Tritium, on the other hand, only occurs when cosmic rays strike nitrogen molecules. Thankfully, the Earth has a big shield called the atmosphere which protects us from these rays, but the atmosphere, unfortunately, also protects these nitrogen molecules. This means tritium is extremely rare on Earth. If you were to try and get your hands on some, you would have to pay $30,000 for one gram—the mere weight of a paperclip. To top it all o , tritium is also highly radioactive, making it dangerous to any living thing.

However, there is an alternative: helium-3, a non-radioactive cousin of helium that could be used instead of tritium. At rst, it seems like helium-3 will have a similar issue to tritium: it is only found in cosmic solar dust, and our atmosphere protects us from most of it. But the Moon, which lacks an atmosphere, has been bombarded by this dust for billions of years, and is covered in helium-3. So all we have to do (to avoid the imminent danger our planet faces) is get a nice cozy room up to one hundred million degrees, mine some space dust from the Moon, and fuse it with ocean water hydrogen. Seems easy, right?

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KYLA GUIMARAES

GRADE 10, AVENUES NY

How Do Salamanders Regenerate Body Parts?

Salamanders have a superpower that sounds like it’s straight out of a movie: body part regeneration. When a salamander experiences the loss or amputation of a body part, they have the unique ability to regenerate it through a process called epimorphic regeneration.

Epimorphic regeneration does appear in other species such as deer (antler regeneration), zebra sh ( n/organ regeneration), and humans (we can regenerate the very tip of our ngers), but salamanders are one of the only species that can regenerate nearly all parts of their bodies, including complex structures such as their nervous system. How can they do this? To best understand epimorphic regeneration, take the example of a salamander’s tail being amputated.

Within a few hours after the injury, skin cells will cover the surface of the wound, acting as an initial protective barrier to keep the injury from getting infected. The rate of skin regeneration in salamanders is much faster than that of mammals, including humans—salamanders can create a new skin layer in as little as 10 hours, compared to 48-72 hours for mammals!

Next comes the cell proliferation and blastema cell phase. During this period, multiple blastemas gather at the site of injury. A blastema is a mass of cells with the ability to turn into an organ, limb, or even a missing salamander tail. The process of turning blastema into the tail is called morphogenesis, in which the movement of cells develops an overall image of what the nal regrown tail should look like.

The blastema will grow following this newly established shape, and individual cells will di erentiate and take on their new speci c cell types to grow the missing tail. The blastema will continue to increase in number due to cell proliferation (increase in cells due to growth and division), and slowly, the missing tail will regenerate.

The tail will continue to grow over time as more blastema reach the site of injury until it is fully regrown. This process can take anywhere from 40 days to a year depending on the age of the salamander, as regenerative abilities weaken with age. The success of regeneration will also change depending on the amount of times the same body part has regrown. Ultimately, whether it be a tail, limb, organ, heart, or something else, the salamander can regenerate it! (scar-free, too!)

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MAYA INALTONG

GRADE 11, AVENUES NY

Uncovering Hidden Sequences in Nature There are many beautiful patterns in mathematics, some of which can be observed outside a textbook and found in unexpected places in nature.

One such famous pattern is The Fibonacci Sequence, which was rst discovered over 2000 years ago by the ancient Indian poet and mathematician Acharya Pingala. Pingala came across the sequence when working with patterns in the classical language Sanskrit. However, the sequence got its name from Leonardo of Pisa, an Italian mathematician—later called Fibonacci—who introduced the sequence to the Western world.

Each new term in the in nite Fibonacci Sequence is made from the sum of the two previous terms.

The rst ten terms of the sequence look like this: {0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34} and these terms can be de ned with the formula: 𝑥𝑛+2 = 𝑥𝑛+1 + 𝑥𝑛.

This sequence can be observed in many natural aspects of the universe. One famous example is the sun ower, where the sequence can be observed within its seeds. When counting the spirals of seeds in di erent directions, the spirals going in one direction add up to 21, the other direction 34, and the other direction 55, all numbers in the Fibonacci Sequence. Beyond sun owers, this sequence can be observed in spiral leaf growth, pinecones, and many other plants.

The sequence can be used to draw the Golden Spiral, a geometric pattern that is governed by the terms of the Fibonacci sequence. The spiral begins with two 1x1 squares that border a 2x2 square. Each square borders another square with the dimension of the sum of the two previous squares. So the next square would be a 3x3 square. And the next would be a 5x5 square, then an 8x8 square, and so on.

The Fibonacci Sequence appears in many parts of the universe, from the seeds in sun owers to the cells in organs and even in the formation of hurricanes and galaxies. The Golden Spiral is also a special tool for designers and artists, in uencing many profound pieces of art and architecture such as Dali’s Sacrament of the Last Supper.

The Fibonacci sequence can truly appear in the most unexpected places. The next time you observe a spiral or any aspect of nature, try to see if you can nd the Fibonacci Sequence within it. You will be surprised at how many times you will nd it!

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ZENCHI SUN

GRADE 9, AVENUES NY

The Smelly Secret to Deep Sea Survival If you have ever gone scuba diving, your ears start to feel like they're going to burst once you reach a depth of 20 meters. Go down for a while longer and your lungs will collapse, instantly killing you. So how do some sh travel to depths of 8,200 meters (a staggering 10 times the height of the Burj Khalifa)? The answer to their miraculous survival may lie in a smelly chemical named trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO).

Pressures at these deep depths are similar to 1,600 elephants standing on your head. Because of this tremendous pressure, water molecules get shoved against proteins such as lactate dehydrogenase, a protein essential for energy production. This shatters the important proteins and leads to the inability to repair and create new cells, resulting in death. TMAO changes all of this. It bonds with and stabilizes the water molecules, keeping the proteins from being damaged. The further down you go, the more TMAO you need to stay alive—so the deepest sea creatures have the highest levels of this fascinating chemical.

TMAO also happens to be the reason why sh get stinkier after being out of water for a while. When they are not swimming, the sh have less TMAO and more trimethylamine (TMA), a more pungent substance that is responsible for the “ shy” smell. TMA continuously turns into TMAO in the presence of water, so when the sh is out of the water, the reaction stops, and the TMA remains unchanged.

TMAO is already being used in the medical eld to treat diseases caused by high pressure, such as glaucoma (high pressure in the eye) and cystic brosis (high lung pressure). Recent research has also shown that TMAO may have helped prevent death in rats with heart failure. All in all, TMAO injections are a possible treatment—although you may walk around smelling like a rotting sh for a little while.

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AYAH ORYNBAY

GRADE 11, AVENUES AON

Could Another You Exist in a Parallel Universe?

Imagine if there was another universe where you decided to dye your hair pink or neon green.

According to quantum physics theories about human existence, this version of you could be real.

The concept of the multiverse has been around since 1954, when physicist Hugh Everett III brought up the idea of the universe constantly splitting based on our decisions. He coined the “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics, which theorizes that the in nite amount of parallel universes is determined by the in nite amount of ways matter could be organized. In other words, every time you make a decision—whether that be eating cereal for breakfast instead of toast or studying instead of procrastinating—another universe is created where you make the alternate decision.

But where are these universes? In the Level III multiverse (also called the “quantum multiverse”) theory formulated by MIT professor Max Tegmark, universes overlap in dimensions we can’t access, but all obey the same laws of physics. In contrast, another theory known as in ationary cosmology describes a Level II multiverse where the laws of physics can be di erent across universes. This conjecture involves the theory of the big bang, which states that around 13.8 billion years ago, our universe was an in nitely small singularity that suddenly burst, expanding into the universe we now recognize as home in less than a second. This exponential expansion at the beginning of the universe is known as cosmic in ation. This phenomena has led many scientists to believe that cosmic in ation occurred multiple times and created multiple universes. According to theoretical physicist Alexander Vilenkin, this in ation only ended for everything we can detect from Earth 13.8 billion years ago, but continues in other places, creating new universes as a result. This is also known as the theory of eternal in ation.

The theory suggests that when in ation ends in one place, a new universe bubble forms. Since all of the bubbles are expanding at speeds faster than light, we will never be able to reach another universe aside from our own.

There is currently no concrete evidence of other universes existing. There is also no way to disprove the theory. We can not see farther outside of our universe, which creates tons of possibilities for what might be out there. But is it really worth the hassle to give credence to a theory if there is no way to test it? That is for you to decide.

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MYA CAHANA

GRADE 11, AVENUES NY

Are Our Genetics Set in Stone?

It may seem tempting to think that our genetics are determined from the moment we are born. The eld of psychology and genetics, called epigenetics, challenges this idea.

Epigenetics is the study of how your environment impacts your genetics. Outside factors such as culture, community, home life, and trauma may all play a role in the way your DNA is read. These factors can change your likelihood of developing addictions, mental illnesses, your reaction to stress, your behavior, and more.

Epigenetic changes are not permanent. Your environment and experiences don’t actually change your genes themselves, rather the way your body reads and interprets them. DNA methylation is one of the main examples of how epigenetics work. In this process, a group of molecules called a methyl group attach themselves onto a DNA sequence, inhibiting certain proteins that convert DNA into RNA. RNA is essentially a messenger: it sends genetic information to our cells so they can create proteins to complete their necessary processes. When this conversion does not happen, the gene cannot “turn on” and express itself. This process allows our genes to be expressed (turned on and o ) in certain ways only when needed.

Epigenetics help us understand how addiction and mental illnesses develop, and how we can prevent them. Previously, it was thought that our likelihood of inheriting addiction and mental health issues depended only on our genetics and predispositions (basically, if it runs in your family), as the genes associated with these issues can be passed down through generations. However, epigenetics opens up another way of developing or avoiding mental health conditions and addiction issues: upbringing and exposure. Even if you have a predisposition for alcohol abuse, your upbringing and lack of exposure to alcohol matters. If you don’t drink alcohol, there is no opportunity for your “alcoholism gene” to express itself. On the ip side, even if you do not have a genetic marker for alcohol abuse, addiction can develop if you have constant exposure to alcohol.

Overall, epigenetics helps us understand that we can defy our predispositions by making healthy choices. Our genes themselves may be ‘set in stone,’ but we have in uence over the way we live!

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VALENTINA MÉNAGER

GRADE 11, AVENUES NY

The Tomb of King Tutankhamun “I fear the Valley of Tombs is now exhausted,” wrote retired lawyer Theodore Davis, commenting on the circulating rumors of untouched burial sites in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. But Davis could not have been more wrong.

Archaeologist Howard Carter was determined to discover the tomb of King Tutankhamun. He believed it would be located in the central oor of the valley, then covered by ancient ood debris. He eventually convinced George Herbert, the rich Earl of Carnavon, to purchase the excavation rights. Carter dug for eight years, just to discover thirteen vases in the process. It was only through a clue given by Herbert Winlock, an Egyptologist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that the mystery of the tomb was revealed. Winlock had studied debris- lled jars inscribed with Tutankhamun’s name in an unmarked tomb, and by comparing the debris with previous discoveries, Winlock realized what the debris really was—materials used in Tutankhamun’s embalming.

He realized that the debris must have come from the pharaoh's tomb.

Equipped with a better sense of the location of the tomb, Howard Carter began a nal round of excavations to nd King Tut on November 1, 1922. On Saturday, November 4th, a sunken staircase was discovered. The next day, a door. The door was made of rough stone, and at the very bottom were impressions of a basket, a scarab beetle, and the Sun’s disk, the emblem of none other than Tutankhamun himself. Carter described seeing Tutankhamun’s emblem as “a thrilling moment.”

Finally, after eight long years, he had struck gold.

Carter proceeded to break through a corner of the door and discover that the entrance was sealed with stones and rubble, proof that the last people to have entered the tomb were the priests who had sealed it. A few weeks later on November 26th, the archaeologists blasted through the nal two doors to the tomb. They came face-to-face with two large ebony statues of a king with gold sta s, along with mountains of treasure. The tomb transformed into something like a village, with chemists, historians, and archaeologists setting up camp in the damp narrow hallways between chambers, all trying to carefully move objects out of the way to be able to see the king himself. Carter nally was able to uncover the king himself on February 12th, 1924, as the team lifted a 2,500 pound stone o the seven foot sarcophagus made of wood and covered in gold. The contents of the tomb would amount to more than ve thousand items over the next eight years, making it one of the most shocking and rich historical discoveries to date.

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CAROLINA BORTONI

GRADE 9, AVENUES SP

Protecting Our Planet One Whale at a Time According to the rst law of ecology as written by the eminent ecologist Barry Commoner, “everything is connected to everything else.” Whales are a perfect example of this—these marvelous animals haven’t just been the biggest and heaviest animals on Earth for the past 4.5 million years, they have also been essential for our survival.

Whales have been hunted throughout history, and the population of certain species has been reduced by a staggering 90%. Hunting happened for several motives. A primary motive was whale oil, which was used to fuel lamps, lubricate machines, and even to produce bombs in both World Wars. Whale killing was turned into an industry, and hundreds of whales were killed quickly and without second thought.

However, killing whales causes something called a trophic cascade, an ecological phenomenon that destroys the balance of an ecosystem. These animals are essential to maintaining stability in the sea, mainly because of their movement and feces. For example, movements caused by whales in the sea are responsible for bringing sinking plankton back to the surface of the ocean, where the plankton can receive direct sunlight required to live and grow. Whales also provide a primary source of nutrition for plankton. When they go to the surface of the ocean to breathe, whales release feces that are rich in iron and nitrogen, two elements essential for plankton that also happen to be scarce at the surface. This special way that whales help support plankton by releasing feces is aptly called the “whale pump.”

That’s not all. Plankton is the primary source of oxygen in the world, supplying more oxygen than any forest. These microscopic underwater organisms provide an estimated 85% of our world’s oxygen. By helping plankton thrive, it is estimated that each great whale helps to withdraw 33 tons of CO2 from the ocean surface in their lifetime, a huge step towards combating climate change.

These mighty animals make quite the positive impact—let’s do our best to protect them, and our world!

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NOE MATHEW

GRADE 9, AVENUES NY

TRAPPIST-1: The Most Habitable Exoplanet For decades, scientists have been discussing what other planets might be habitable to humans. Because of recent concerns over climate change, the search for a new, healthy planet has drastically increased in relevance and magnitude. So far, scientists have found around 59 habitable exoplanets. But which one is the most habitable? The answer to this question may lie in TRAPPIST-1.

Discovered in February 2017, TRAPPIST-1 is a star system 40 light years away from Earth (around 240 trillion miles or 386 trillion kilometers). It has existed for 7.6 billion years, around three billion years longer than our solar system. The system centers around a cool red dwarf star. The surface temperature of this star is around 2,500 Kelvin, less than half the temperature of our sun. For a star system like ours, the red dwarf wouldn’t have enough heat for the planets to be habitable. However, TRAPPIST-1’s planets are close enough to the star that they still have similar temperatures to the planets in our solar system.

What truly distinguishes TRAPPIST-1 is that the star system contains not one, but seven Earth-like planets: TRAPPIST-1b, -1c, -1d, -1e, -1f, -1g, and -1h. So which one is the most habitable? At the center of the system is TRAPPIST-1b and 1c, the planets closest to the red dwarf star. Both planets exhibit similar mass, terrain, and atmosphere to Earth, but their close proximity to the star causes the planets to be very hot, making them uninhabitable. What about the planets on the outer edge of the star system, then? Well, TRAPPIST-1f, -1g, and -1h are also similar to Earth, but the cold temperatures make them uninhabitable. We’re now left with the planets in the middle: TRAPPIST-1d and TRAPPIST-1e. These planets exist in “the habitable zone.” They have lots of liquid water on them, possibly more than the Earth’s oceans! But which one is more habitable? Well, TRAPPIST-1d’s atmosphere may be too thin. So we have our winner: TRAPPIST-1e!

There’s one catch, though. We have to consider the tidal lock of TRAPPIST-1e. A tidal lock is when an object orbiting a bigger object gets trapped in that bigger object's gravitational pull, causing the smaller object only to show one face to the bigger object. If this is the case for TRAPPIST-1e and the red dwarf star, the side of the planet facing the star would be much hotter than the part that is not, and the other side would be much colder. Depending on how drastic this e ect is, there may only be a small sliver of habitable area on this planet. This sliver is called the terminator line, an area where the cold and hot zones of the planet meet. This would be the place most suitable for life on the planet. So, the most habitable place in the universe, other than Earth, may be a tiny sliver of a small planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system!

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NAVYA ARORA

GRADE 11, AVENUES NY

Why We Can’t Resist Grooving Why is it that when we hear certain songs, we nd it impossible not to move? Even from the moment we are born, we naturally clap our hands to the rhythm of our favorite tunes. Research has shown that dancing to music has an e ect on your brain unlike any other.

A recent study showed a fascinating correlation between our walking tempo and our instinctive movements as a reaction to a song. The average walking tempo of humans is about 120 steps per minute, and the study showed that 120 beats per minute (BPM) was the tempo that induced the most micromovements, or subtle body movements, in the majority of its participants. Many participants couldn’t help but move to various other songs with di ering rhythms, but 120 BPM was associated with the most micromovements. It was also shown that pulse clarity and rhythm had a signi cant e ect on whether or not participants displayed involuntary movement as a reaction to music. A strong, clear rhythm was most likely to make people move, more so than the lyrics or instruments in the song.

Another major factor was anticipation: when you hear the rst few seconds of a song your brain already knows it likes, it produces an early release of dopamine.

The combination of music and movement, often executed through dance, constitutes a “pleasure double play” in your brain. Music stimulates your brain’s reward centers, while movement simultaneously activates your sensory and motor circuits. The result is the rare production of 4 feel-good chemicals: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, collectively known as DOSE, all from just one simple activity.

This type of mental stimulation has shown to help reduce the risk of dementia in elderly individuals, perhaps even more than the mental stimulation required for any other typical leisure activity. Dance was also shown to be therapeutic for people with Parkinson’s disease, which is associated with the loss of cells that produce dopamine. So, the next time you catch yourself moving to your favorite song, don’t be afraid or embarrassed! Dancing to your favorite song is not only fun in the moment, but it may also be bene cial for your future health and wellbeing!

14

MATTHEW LEE

GRADE 10, AVENUES NY

Aphantasia: Living Without a Mind’s Eye Imagine that it is a warm summer day and you are sitting on the side of a swimming pool. The sun is shining, and children are laughing and splashing in the water. What images do you see as you think about this scene? If you are unable to visualize anything, you may have aphantasia.

Aphantasia is the inability to visualize imagery. Aphantasia is believed to be rare, a ecting only 1% to 3% of the population. People with aphantasia cannot conjure an image of a scene or a face in their minds. It may be congenital—present from birth—or it may appear later in life as a result of a brain injury or psychological issues.

The term aphantasia was created in 2015, but records date its existence back to Aristotle, who described the ability to ‘imagine’ as phantasia. The cause of aphantasia is not yet fully understood, but research suggests that it may be linked to under activity in the brain regions responsible for visual imagery. When a brain region is underactive, there is a reduced blood and oxygen ow to the region, suggesting a decrease in neural activity. In the case of people with aphantasia, the reduction in blood and oxygen is consistent in regions like the parietal and occipital lobes, which process sensory and visual information and allow us to generate and manipulate mental images. These regions are responsible for our ability to imagine, remember, and plan for the future.

Aphantasia may cause lower sensory sensitivity and di culties with facial recognition. It can also a ect a person’s creativity, but it may help develop other ways to experience learning. For example, people with aphantasia may use verbal descriptions or written notes to aid them in understanding and remembering information. It is important to understand that a person with aphantasia still has the capacity to remember and describe their memories, they just simply cannot visualize them.

There may be some bene ts. People with aphantasia have been shown to have higher levels of IQ, and are more resilient against trauma. They may also be better at focusing on the present, as opposed to daydreaming about the past or future.

15

CHARVIK ARORA

GRADE 10, AVENUES NY

Who Shaves the Barber? A Famous Paradox You’re in need of a trim, and when you arrive at the local barbershop, you notice a strange set of rules nailed to the wall: 1. The barber shaves everyone who does not shave themselves.

2. The barber can only shave those who do not shave themselves.

We can more concisely de ne the barber as one who shaves all who do not shave themselves. But let’s assume the barber does not shave himself. According to the rule, the barber must shave himself, as the barber shaves everyone who does not shave themselves. So does the barber shave himself or not shave himself? In other words, who shaves the barber?

This paradox nds its roots in the late 1800s, when mathematicians like Cantor and Dedekind laid the foundations of set theory, a branch of mathematics that looks at math through the lens of sets. Sets are collections of mathematical objects, such as numbers, or anything that can be formally de ned in our mathematical system. These collections are created by de ning a common property. For example, we can call all rational numbers that do not contain a fraction a set of integers.

Set theory has a deceptively simple premise, but it’s a place where intuitive ideas result in quite unintuitive paradoxes. While it at rst may seem natural to be able to create a set from any given property—this is called the unrestricted comprehension principle—mathematician Bertrand Russell discovered a paradox by creating what he calls a Russell set. A Russell set contains all sets that do not contain themselves, much like our situation with the barbershop rules. So, does the Russell set contain itself?

If the Russell set does not contain itself, it must be a part of the Russell set because it is now a set that does not contain itself. But, if it contains itself, it can no longer be a part of the Russell set as it now would be a set that contains itself. So we’re trapped in a paradox! Like Russell, we are forced to confront the axioms that make asking such a question possible. After all, mathematicians and logicians loathe contradictions in their systems. We must make it impossible to construct the Russell set in the rst place. We do this by replacing the unrestricted comprehension principle with the separation axiom. The separation axiom restricts what can be a set and introduces the idea of classes. A class is simply a collection of elements that follows a rule and can be empty—thus, all sets are classes. But not all classes are sets, as some classes do not ful ll the rules laid out by the separation axiom—these are called proper classes. These proper classes can not be a part of other classes. So, the Russell set is not a set at all, but a proper class, and as classes only sort sets, it does not have to sort itself! It seems you found yourself in a barbershop that is so absurd, it simply cannot exist!

16

SARAH CHEN

GRADE 9, AVENUES NY

Is Social Media Slowly Shaping Our Minds?

Social media is, without a doubt, one of the pillars of modern day society. It is also eerily similar to an idea that is 2400 years old: Plato's Cave.

Plato’s Cave is an allegory presented by the Greek philosopher Plato. In his allegory, a select number of people have been imprisoned in a cave from childhood, but not from birth. The prisoners are forced to face the cave wall and are chained so they cannot look around the cave, nor at each other. Directly behind the prisoners is a brick wall and a re, where people walk carrying objects and puppets of living things. The prisoners are unable to see anyone or anything behind them, seeing only the shadows cast by the puppets. The voices of the people echo o the walls, causing the prisoners to believe these voices come from the shadows. The few prisoners that have escaped are the ones in charge of making the shadows.

Suppose one prisoner is freed. The prisoner looks around and spots the re. He is blinded by the bright light and is unable to see the objects casting the shadow on the wall. It hurts his eyes, and he opts to return to the shadows. But somebody drags the prisoner out of the cave, refusing to stop until they reach the light of the sun. They tell the prisoner that everything out there is real. The prisoner is angry.

Slowly, however, the prisoner adjusts himself to the bright, natural light, and sees the people and the objects themselves. Eventually, he looks up at the stars and the moon, and later on, even at the sun.

Only after he sees the sun is he able to have reason.

We can draw parallels from Plato’s Cave to modern day social media. Like imprisonment in the cave, social media is not implemented from birth: certain social norms slowly ease you into it. In some places you are expected to have a phone, and when meeting a new person, it becomes a convention to ask for their Instagram or their Snapchat. Every time you view a post or story, your brain is triggered to release dopamine, a feel-good chemical, resulting in a neurological “high” and eventual addiction. Pop-ups and noti cations ensure that users are as distracted as they can be and shrink the parts of the brain responsible to maintain concentration, like the prefrontal cortex.

When we view too much social media, we are hyper-focused on the false shadows on the cave wall. Not all teenagers have a perfect face and a perfect life. Not all 18 year olds are earning $100k a year from dropshipping. Social media is only what those who have escaped the cave want you to see. When it is taken away from us, we become angry from the lack of dopamine, and we are forced out into the real world. Perhaps, though, once you escape the cave, you realize that the world is not what you believe it is.

17

LAYLA KLUTH

GRADE 9, AVENUES NY

Magnetoreception: The Sixth Sense of Birds Every year, billions of birds migrate over our heads, many traveling on a long journey between Canada and South America. Yet the question remains: how are they able to navigate so successfully? Some navigation methods include following landmarks (like the Hudson River), using the sun, and possibly using smell. While this feat of navigation is already impressive, it’s now believed that birds may even have a sixth sense that helps with their way nding—magnetoreception, which allows them to detect and utilize Earth’s magnetic eld.

In 1978, Biophysicist Klaus Schulten proposed a revolutionary idea that magnetically-initiated chemical reactions are the basis of magnetoreception. Like many scientists who were skeptical, you may be thinking that the magnetic eld is not nearly powerful enough to a ect chemical composition—the amount of energy it takes to break apart bonds must be too great. However, a radical pair actually makes this hypothesis possible.

Later investigation suggests that a protein called cryptochrome acts as the magnetoreceptor in a bird’s eye. The sun emits all colors of visible light, and when blue light from the sun hits the protein, two molecules with unpaired electrons are formed simultaneously. This is called a radical pair. Electrons have a magnetic eld, since they have charge and they spin (either spinning up or down) which produces electric current. The unpaired electrons go into a special “waltz” where they rapidly switch between two spin states, spinning in the opposite direction and spinning in the same direction. The magnetic eld can a ect which state dominates. Once a ected by the magnetic eld, the radicals experience chemical change, and signals are sent to the brain.

Phew. While the concept of magnetoreception may seem complex, it's worth remembering that even our most basic senses can be di cult to describe to those who have never experienced them. How exactly would you describe sight to a person who has never seen before? It’s hard to put into words what exactly sight is without using a concept that a slightless person would not understand. In the case of birds, their sense of direction is simply a part of their innate ability to navigate the world around them.

18

ZENCHANG SUN

GRADE 11, AVENUES NY

The Truth Behind Recycling Plastic Have you ever wondered what actually happens when you throw your plastic water bottle in the recycling bin? While recycling is often thought of as a way to repurpose materials for environmental bene t, the reality is not as simple.

The journey of a recycled plastic water bottle begins with collection at recycling facilities. At a facility, the bottle is cleaned, to remove any contaminants such as food residue or other non-plastic materials.

After cleaning, the plastic bottle is chopped into small akes or pellets. These akes are then heated and molded into new products, such as new plastic bottles, or other plastic products like plastic lumber or plastic furniture.

This is the ideal image of recycling. But this does not always happen. Most of the time, your water bottle might end up in a land ll instead. According to Nature.com, the United States does not have the infrastructure to recycle or reuse all of our waste, with only 11% of recycled materials being reused!

Additionally, the U.S. exported much of its plastic waste to China for recycling, but China recently banned imports of plastic garbage due to an increase in waste. This has led to even more plastic waste here.

In some cases, it may even be more environmentally friendly to dispose of recyclable materials in land lls, rather than recycling them. Factoring in the carbon emissions from recycling treatment facilities and transportation, as well as the low percentage of recycled materials that are actually repurposed, recycling plastic may even have a negative impact on the environment.

To address this recycling crisis, we should focus on reducing waste overall, rather than relying on recycling as a solution. So next time, consider using a reusable water bottle instead!

19

WINTER 2023

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