Quanta Magazine Issue 1 2022

Quanta

Editors’ Note

None of us could expect the scale and ferocity of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only was our Bishop’s experience drastically different, but also our lives changed forever. Sporting and performing arts events were cancelled, science labs were online simulations, and classes made the difficult transition to be online. In a time of such uncertainty, it was hard to say what the immediate future looked like. For the case of Quanta, we, the newly appointed editors, were on our own, put into a difficult situation to navigate. We decided that in order to keep Quanta running through the year, we would use an online format for the magazine. Publishing online was the next best thing to continue to showcase students’ work and learn about different scientific curiosities. We are thrilled to release a printed issue this year.

The fact that we were even able to assemble this printed issue is incredible; it is a milestone that truly demonstrates the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if there is a problem, no matter how big or small, whether it’s finding treatment for various diseases and conditions, to reaching new frontiers, even to things right under our noses in our everyday lives, as long as there is perseverance, there is a solution, and there is bound to be a way to solve the problem. It won’t necessarily be easy, but it is worth a shot.

Navigating times like these, emerging through that light at the end of the tunnel, it is crucial to stay positive. As you read these articles, we want you to keep in mind that no matter how dark and desolate the situation is, there is hope. Don’t forget to keep breathing; you’ve got this.

From the entire team behind Quanta, we hope you enjoy these metic ulously written articles, and thank you for reading.

Grace Sun, Katy Silva, Emma Myer Class of 2023

Science of Sleep

By: Eddie Qiao

it’s from staying awake to the early hours of morning doing homework or studying for tests, most Bishop’s students are no strangers to sleep depriva tion. Fatigue often feels unpredictable. Sometimes you feel tired in the morning even when you slept well the night before; on the other hand, you might feel completely fine after nearly pulling an all-nighter. Although sleep cannot be modeled perfectly, there are models that use experimental data to get pretty close. One’s sleep sched ule can be described with a circadian rhythm. This is like an internal clock, and it cycles approximately every 24 hours.

Whether

Although it is most well known for controlling sleep, the circadian clock a controls alertness, grip strength, metabolism, and more. For example, one’s grip strength is strongest around 7 PM and lowest around 5 AM. Based on experimental data, the circadian rhythm can be visualized mathematically, but the model requires differential equations and is quite complicated. However, we can still see some properties of the circadian rhythm.

One property of the circadian rhythm is that it is a limit cycle oscillator. In the example of sleep, this means getting one bad night of sleep or travelling between time zones would not change the duration of the circadian clock. Although it may be shifted, the cycle is still around 24 hours. Another example of a limit oscillator would be walking. Even if a rock causes somebody to stumble, they can still maintain the same distance in each stride afterwards. On the other hand, if wind blows on a pendulum, the ball would oscillate with a different amplitude, so pendulums are not limit cycle oscillators.

Another property is the effect of various light exposures. As one probably ex pects, a brighter light would induce a bigger shift in the circadian cycle. Intriguingly, the color of light matters as well. In particular, blue or green light causes a bigger ef fect than red, which explains why it’s best to avoid blue light sources like computers in the hour or so leading up to bedtime. Lastly, the length of light exposure matters too.

With these different types of light exposures in mind, one can make many more observations about sleep. If you get a lot of light exposure right before bed time, your circadian rhythm will be pushed back, making it difficult to fall asleep. On the other hand, if you get a lot of exposure to light early in the morning, especially bright blue light from devices or the sun, your circadian rhythm will be pushed for ward, making you less sleepy. By extension, this logic provides a solution for jet lag as well. Consider a relatively tame example of moving from Boston to San Diego. Since Boston is three hours ahead of San Diego, you would have to delay your cir cadian rhythm by three hours. In particular, if the desired bedtime in San Diego is 11 PM, then this is equivalent to sleeping at 2 AM in Boston. Thus, around 9 PM Pacific Time, you would want to get a lot of bright blue light, which would delay your circa dian rhythm and allow you to adjust to the new time zone.

We now turn to an aspect of sleep that is often misunderstood, de priving oneself from sleep for an extended period of time (like a few days). A popular example of this is the creepypasta known as the Russian Sleep Experiment. The gist of the story is that in the 1940s, five test subjects in the Soviet Union were kept awake for 30 consecutive days. After two weeks or so, there was screaming and many other inhumane actions. In reality, al though not sleeping for a long time is definitely not good for your body, it is much better than chronic sleep deprivation, contrary to what many would ex pect. The record for the longest time without sleep is held by Randy Gardner, who was a teenager from San Diego doing an experiment for the science fair.

He stayed up for eleven days, and he was able to recover (though I’m not encouraging you to try this, nor am I saying everyone who stays up for eleven days can recover). Nonetheless, the results from staying up for a few nights is nowhere as bad as having five hours of sleep for months on end. There are many experiments tracking patients when they don’t sleep for many days in a row.

For example, there is an experiment of a few patients staying up for 205 hours. There were many observations from data in this experiment. First, note the 24-hour circadian cycle prominent in this graph. Even under severe sleep deprivation, it is interesting to note that the patients still demonstrate a 24-hour cycle. Next, we notice that there seems to be a linear decline in “tiredness” for the first four or five days, but it seems to level out, and they might even become slightly less tired. Furthermore, they had many hallucina tions, couldn’t think clearly, and more (so this isn’t the most efficient way to cram for a test).

Sleep is complicated. Lots of research is still being done on sleep, and mathematical models are not even close to being perfect. However, consistency with sleep has been shown to be very important, perhaps even more than getting eight hours of sleep a day. Next time you feel jetlag, I encourage you to think about light exposure and how you could try giving more exposure at times and less at others to help your circadian rhythm ad just.

A New Hope for Schizophrenia

By: Grace Sun ‘23

Formerly bright and spritely, she, in the grip of illness, neglected herself to the point of malnourishment and became certain that most members of our family were doubles replacing the people she knew. I spent my adolescence watching her deteriorate. So were the experiences of Marin Sardy, a writer for the New York Times who dealt with two cases of psy chosis in her brother and mother. Sardy described how psychosis, mainly schizo phrenia, was extremely hard to diag nose in her family because the patients’ symptoms covered a wide spectrum of possible diseases. As Sardy’s personal memoirs recall the painstaking amount of time it takes to take care of a psychotic loved one, more and more stories of sim ilar background have been emerging on the web of clinical health. All of those stories portray the patients getting more distant and less in touch with reality. Al though this may sound like a silent epi demic of the mind, there is good news. Recent research in the past 20 years have shown that there are breakthrough ideas that could eventually develop into feasible treatments to end schizophrenia once and for all.

Schizophrenia is a neurological disease that inhibits the brain’s ability to coherently perform daily functions and discern what is real from what is not. Common symptoms of schizophrenia are visual and auditory hallucinations, peripheral voices, paranoia, delusions,

apathy, and depression. Patients with more severe schizophrenia tend to make up outrageous scenarios and feel like they are being watched or monitored by higher beings. These are only the com mon symptoms, however; there are so many symptoms that they are often clas sified into 5 groups: behavioral, cogni tive, speech, mood, and psychological. This is one of the several reasons why schizophrenia is so hard to diagnose/ treat. There could also be substance abuse or other neurological disorders that produce the same symptoms and side-effects as schizophrenia that it’s of ten overlooked or misdiagnosed. This ailment is classified as “com mon”, as more than 200,000 people are afflicted with this ailment each year. Diagnosis includes a variety of tests that are based on an unofficial criteria that judges clarity of mind and speech as well as other factors. A combination of reme dies (psychotherapy and antipsychotics) may help lessen symptoms of schizo phrenia, but there is no drug/treatment at the moment to cure it. Group therapy , rehabilitation, cognitive therapy, and behavior therapy fall under the therapy category of treatments, whereas medi cation groups are much smaller; only a couple of drugs that are antipsychotic treatments and anti-tremor treatments are recommended for schizophrenia treat ment.

A recent dataset done by the Translational and Molecular Medicine at the University of Brescia on NCBI (National Institute of Health) determined that in testing 40 pa tients, 20 control and 20 psychotic, thyroid (gland in the front of the neck) hormones were found in crucial development of the brain, and fluctuations in the level of thy roid hormones during development could have an impact on psychiatric disease manifestation and response to treatment. In schizophrenia, the main issue is that there is common thyroid hormone deregulation in those patients. The thyroid hormone con trols the levels of dopamine and glutamate, which explains the mood swings and sud den changes in behavior of many schizo phrenic patients. If we could find a drug, or even make one, that would mean the

world to so many afflicted people and their parents. Although this idea is still in its infan cy, it holds a lot of potential. Current hypo thyroidism drugs such as Methimazole and Propylthiouracil could be helpful factors in new drug development for psychosis.

Along with therapy and consultation sessions, “someone to help schizophrenic patients talk through their experiences and come to terms with it” might help as well. In the future, public programs should be en acted to enable people, and others with schizophrenia, to participate in society rath er than be pushed to its fringes. Schizophre nia is a mysterious and challenging disease to combat, but the new frontier of drug de velopments and societal therapy could help end this once and for all.

To Craft a Tongue

By: Daniel Xu ‘23

Klingon. Sindarin. Quenya. Parseltongue (from the films, not the books). Dothraki.

These languages were not born nat urally from a hundred thousand years of growth and change. Rather, built by human hands, these constructed languages, or con langs, serve as both a little-known hobby and a beautiful tool for worldbuilding.

In order to conlang, though, we must know a lit tle about language. Let’s embark on a short tour through linguistics, the sci entific study of lan guage:

We begin at the most basic lev el, with sounds. Say aloud the sounds for “S” and “T”. Your tongue rests in the same spot for both sounds, although the airflow is a little more blocked for the latter. Now say aloud the sounds for “T” and “D”. For both sounds, the tongue stays at the same location and does the same thing. What then is the dif ference between the two? In “D”, your vocal cords vibrate; in “T”, they don’t. Despite be ing easy to distinguish, these two sounds are

remarkably similar!

Now put your hand close in front of your mouth, and say aloud “paper.” Believe it or not, the two p’s in “paper” are differ ent. Try it again––do you feel it? The first “p” releases a burst of air onto your palm; the second doesn’t. For fluent English speakers, miraculously, this vari ation is both com pletely unnoticeable and perfectly natu ral. When does “p” come with a burst of air, and when does it not? This is akin to some questions lin guists investigate. Our next step is to string sounds into words. How will these words be formed? Learners of French or Spanish will know that nouns can be classified as either masculine or feminine. Latin has another category: neuter. But let’s switch things up a bit. The Cree languages, Indigenous languages in Canada, use ani macy; they distinguish nouns as either “alive” or “dead.” For example, in Plains Cree, atim (dog) is animate, while astotin (hat) is inanimate.

The way plurals are formed then depends on whether the noun is animate or

astotina (hats) is the plural of astotin. Nouns in Dothraki similarly use animacy. Another surprisingly diverse aspect is how languages use pronouns. In Ojibwe, the pronoun niinwi means “we, but not you”; the pronoun kiin wi means “we, including you.” English nouns have two grammatical numbers: a singular form (one door) and a plural form (many doors). Inuktitut, a di alect spoken by the Inuit people, has a special form called the dual form for ex actly two of some thing: matu (door), matuuk (two doors), and matuit (three or more doors). Ancient Greek and Sanskrit have dual forms across verbs and adjectives as well. Quenya possesses a whopping four grammatical numbers, one of them being the dual form. How will your conlang arrange words into sentences? English uses a fairly common SVO structure: Subject-Verb-Object. In any sentence, the subject appears before the verb, which appears before the object. It’s “Mary

bakes cookies,” not “Mary cookies bakes” or “Bakes cookies Mary.” French, Spanish, Chi nese, and Dothraki are also generally SVO. Latin’s default is SOV. Klingon boasts the ex tremely rare OVS order, found in just 1% of languages, so it would say “Cookies bakes Mary.”

Now let’s hop into a time machine, starting somewhere in present-day Spain. Travel back to the 1800’s, walk around and talk to some peo ple. Then enter your time machine and travel to the 1600’s, and then the 1400’s, and so on, until you reach the Roman empire at about 200 A.D. At any step in your journey, the people you meet will be able to understand the people 200 years in the future, and those 200 years in the past. And yet, we have departed from Spanish and arrived at Latin. In the same way, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan––in fact, all of the Romance languages––diverged from vernac ular dialects of Latin like branches spread

“Linguistics, like all sciences, leaves behind itself a trail of open doors, each a labyrinth to be explored.

ing above a tree. Go back another 3,000 years, and you’ll find speakers of Proto-In do-European: the common ancestor of Latin, Greek, Hindi, Russian, Persian, German, and English; indeed, of much of the languages spoken from Europe to India. Naturally, one wonders if there was ever a common ances tor from which every language in the world once stemmed. It is one of the greatest, most alluring mysteries of the field known as histori cal linguistics––and one which may never be solved.

Similarly, the many Elvish languages in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the fantasy set ting of his novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, derive from a common ancestor. Primitive Quendian gave way to Quenya, the Avarin languages, and Common Eldarin, just as Latin evolved into the Romance languag es. In Primitive Quendian, the word kwendi, meaning “elves,” changed into quendi in Quenya, kindi, cuind, hwenti, windan, kinnlai in the Avarin languages, and persisted as kwendi into Common Eldarin. Later, Common Eldarin would give birth to Sindarin, Telerin, and Nandorin, as kwendi shifted to penidh, pendi, and cwenda.

Tolkien was both an avid conlanger and a philologist (meaning he studied language through historical sources). In fact, he built the realm of Middle-earth, not beginning with characters or stories, but as a conduit through which the languages he created could come to life. Tolkien first made languages, then a world where they could live, and at last a cast to populate that world with adventure. Tolkien himself said:

“The invention of languages is the foun dation. The ‘stories’ were made rather to pro vide a world for the languages than the re verse. To me a name comes first and the story follows.”

In his love of language, Tolkien invented laguages not merely to provide accessories

for his world, but as an inextricable piece of his mythology and world-building.

One step down from Tolkien’s linguistic obsession, regular shows which provide mas terful visual detail in costumes, effects, and CGI often must find a way to offer the same depth in audio. The magical incantations in the medieval English world of BBC Merlin (it’s on Netflix!) cannot simply sound like gibberish––so they write their spells using Old English, a language which fits best for their specific setting. The Dothraki in Game of Thrones can not spew random nonsense either––so make the Dothraki language. And in Star Trek, what should a brutal and ruthless alien race speak? The Klingon language, deliberately designed to sound alien, unusual, and full of guttural and harsh sounds.

You may experiment with this art––there are online communities for that. Perhaps cre ate a language with your favorite sounds. Try to capture that specific aesthetic. Or make a language for birds, just as Parseltongue was created for snakes. Base your language on the languages you already know, or research and combine the most ridiculous linguistic fea tures ever spoken by man. Or, for many, a trip down conlanging lane leads to a gateway to linguistics. How are different languages written? Can we decipher any as-yet-undeci phered ancient inscriptions? How is language processed or learned in the brain? What as pects are universal to all languages? What about sign languages? And what do we know about its use in society?

Linguistics, like all sciences, leaves be hind itself a trail of open doors, each a laby rinth to be explored. What remains is to enter them.

Biological Attraction Between People

By: Mia Bravo ‘24

Our literary history from Shakespeare to Hemingway is a cornucopia of treatises in favor of how the one we love smells as sweet as a rose. Just peruse the Romantic Comedy section on Netflix and you are bound to stumble into an epic love story in which the main characters swoon over how great the other person smells. However, two steps into any high school locker room is an eye-watering ex perience that snaps us back to reality. Po ets write about blossoming adolescence, blooming into adulthood, yet we do not all come out smelling like roses. Simply step into the locker room and your nose will write a different prose. The malodor ous changes associated with adulthood lead adolescents to experiment with de odorants, peruse soaps at Lush, and ad just hygiene routines. Though it might seem that this is merely another adjustment in this tumultuous transition, there is actually increasing research to suggest that body odor may have a direct influence on who finds you attractive, and in the bigger pic ture, the evolution of our species itself. Before you panic and make a beeline for the nearest Khiel’s, it is useful to fur ther explain the science behind smell. The association between odor and mat ing is not debated in many species of the animal kingdom. Studies on moths and

mice show conclusively that there are in deed smelly chemicals excreted to attract mates. For bull elephants in musth (real word, look it up), secreting elevated lev els of odorous ketones in their urine and in special glands in their face is as clear a sign that they are looking for a mate as the pushups guys do before posing for a selfie. In humans, there are 5000 years of history to support the significance of odor. Jars from antiquity have been discovered that were used for perfumes and fragranc es by numerous civilizations. While this might seem intuitive, it was only in the last 50 years that scientists gave a name to this chemical phenomenon - pheromones. Queen Nefertiti’s lavender poultice aside, the actual science of pheromones is still in its infancy.

There have yet to be any solid findings of specific “pheromones” in humans, much less universal mating pheromones as ad vertised by some sketchy online perfume sites, but there is a lot of promising re search. For example, recent studies delv ing into infants’ recognition of a hormone, possibly a pheromone, secreted by breast feeding mothers, have led to the hypoth esis that a specific molecule (or groups of molecules) secreted from the areolar glands induces a suckling reaction in in fants. The human infants in the study react

ed to olfactory stimulation with chemicals secreted from an unrelated breastfeeding mother’s areolar glands by sticking their tongues out and suckling. From an evolu tionary standpoint, this makes perfect sense. An infant’s survival is connected to its ability to suckle in the days after birth. The poten tial application of synthesizing a pheromone such as this would be to improve the chanc es of survival for premature infants, who are regularly born with a weak suckling re flex.

Circling back to the more scintil lating topic of how pher omones may affect our ability to attract a mate, German researcher Claus Wedekind conducted a study which found that participants prefered the smell of shirts worn by subjects that differed from them in genes that determine our immune response. This major histocompatibility com plex (MHC) is present in the cell membrane of all nucleated cells. It plays an essential role in the immune system’s ability to rec ognize self and non-self. When the body contacts a pathogen (like viruses and bacte ria), the MHC presents antigens (pieces of these pathogens) on the cell surface, which allows t-cells to identify and destroy the for eign invader. The MHC influences the type of bacteria allowed to flourish on the skin, and it should be noted that it is actually the bacteria (not the secretions) that produce the malodorous chemicals associated with body odor. It would seem logical that if hu

manity’s survival is dependent on our ability to adapt to the constantly changing threats of microorganisms, evolution would have a mechanism to ensure the diversity of the MHC.

Can attraction, then, be broken down to whether or not the other person’s immune system senses that two lovebirds will create increased biodiversity?

Can attraction, then, be broken down to whether or not the other person’s immune system senses that two lovebirds will create increased biodiversity? Increasing evidence suggests that just like that 90s Rom-Com you regret watch ing, the sto ry is not that simple. For further infor mation, we turn toward the world of modern ge nomics. The discovery of the ABCC11 genes suggests East Asians actually do not secrete the protein broken down by bacteria to produce axillary odor. This means that the smell we would associ ate with attraction would not be present in significant quantities. In addition, larger me ta-analyses demonstrate no significant asso ciation with odor preference, mate selection and MHC diversity when studying larger populations. However, the study concludes that more research is necessary in smaller more geographically isolated populations that may more accurately reflect human evo lutionary history.

While there is much to discover about the role of the MHC in humanity’s resistance to infection, there are studies that associate the major histocompatibility complex with offspring survival. Mates with a high degree of MHC similarity have reduced rates of em

-erging couples shared similarities in the MHC, there was an increased rate of pregnancy loss. There is an evolutionary advantage to maintaining genetic diversity. In the end, finding a prospective mate is a beautifully complex trick that na ture plays on us. As frustrating as it might be, it does add to the diversity of our life experience. Shakespeare would be much more bland if a rose, by any other name, was just a specific molecular equation designed to interact with your olfactory nerve. At the same time, like Shakespeare, we may debate the physical attributes and personality of prospective partners, but there is mounting evidence of a genet

ic and evolutionary influence beyond our conscious recognition. One approach for finding true love is relying on disclosing personal information online and swiping left through apps. Other dating services attempt to commercialize rudimentary stud ies and unsubstantiated claims that phero mones can determine our mate. One such service offers “pheromone parties”, which require its participants to smell each other’s unwashed t-shirts to find an optimal genetic match. With most studies inconclusive, this is all simply food for thought, or more ap propriately stated, a breath of not so fresh air.

Blackholes are some of the most fascinating yet mysterious objects with in our universe. Contrary to popular belief, a black hole is not just a giant hole in space. These bodies are a place where gravity is so strong that even light can’t es cape its immense gravitation al force. Black holes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and are found all over the universe. Black holes start with the death of a massive star. When a star collapses in on itself, it may form a black hole depending on its mass .

If a star has more than three solar masses (1 solar mass = 1.989e30kg; a unit used to measure weight of celestial bodies), it will instantly form a black hole upon collapsing. Another way a black hole is formed is through neutron stars. If enough additional matter falls onto a newborn neutron star, its mass may ex ceed the limit, therefore cre ating a black hole. To help visualize this, let’s say there is a room filled to maximum capacity with pure iron. With enough violence and energy,

Black Holes

By: Juni Raisinghani ‘23

it is possible to add a little bit more iron to this room , therefore exceeding the limit. When this occurs, a black hole is formed.

Although black holes are some of the most complex things in our universe, they really only have two or three parts to them: the singularity, the event horizon only if it’s not rotating, and the outer and inner horizon if it is rotating.

The first part is the outer event horizon which is what we might call “a point of no return”; If you pass this point, the escape velocity (the lowest velocity which a body must have in order to escape the gravitational at traction of a object) ex as ceeds the speed of light (the fastest in the universe), there fore making it impossible to escape. The inner event horizon is the second part of a black hole. This is where black holes be come bizarre. The inner event horizon, also known as the Cauchy horizon, is a place where the past no longer necessarily determines the fu ture, potentially making time

travel possible. As to why this occurs within the inner event horizon is unexplainable.

The third part of a ro tating black hole is the singu larity. The singularity is some thing born out of mathematics and may exist within black holes based solely on theo retical physics and research. Singularities are predicted to exist in black holes by Ein stein’s Theory of General Rel ativity. It is a point within the center of a black hole where matter is compressed to an infinitely small point and the point where time and space completely break down. The reason as to why the singular ity can’t exist in the real world is the fact that the concept of infinity doesn’t exist in the real world, deeming it impos sible for there to actually be a singularity that is infinitely small. We know that some thing must be at the center of a black hole but we are not sure as to what it is. This is how the concept of a singu larity came to be.

There are a few differ ent types of black holes that exist within the universe. The

are stellar-mass black holes. Stellar-mass black holes have masses less than 100 times that of the Sun (Sun = 1 solar mass). These mark the end point of high-mass stars and are also the result of a highmass star collapsing.

The second type of black holes are supermassive black holes. Supermassive black holes are what lies in the center of galaxies. These black holes can be a million to billions of solar masses. They become the center of galaxies by becoming so massive that they sink into the middle of them. When they are in the middle of gal axies, there is a lot of material to consume which enlarges them. Although scien tists are still not sure as to how they are initially created, there are a few theories. One the ory is that many black holes merge together to form these goliaths. Another theory is that the black hole consumes an enormous amount of mat ter allowing them to become “supermassive”.

es from 100 to 1,000,000 solar masses. As the name suggests, they are medium sized black holes. They are formed through the merging of two stellar black holes. Al though they could exist, evi dence of them is elusive and the hunt is on to find them.

“

The final and least un derstood type of black holes are primordial black holes.

plummets into the black hole, Person B will see Person A stretch and contort. Simulta neously, Person B will see Person A move slower and slower as Person A draws closer and closer to the event horizon. Once Person A ar rives at the event horizon, Person A will freeze from Per son B’s perspective. Person B will then see Person A get obliterated within seconds of entering the event horizon.

”

What would happen if a human were to fall into a black hole?

To best show what will occur, there needs to be two observers.

The third type of black holes are intermediate-mass black holes. These black holes have mass that rang

Just after the Big Bang, cer tain parts of the universe be came rich in energy. These tiny energetic points are what would theoretically cre ate primordial black holes. These black holes are small compared to others and have yet to be discovered but could exist.

What would happen if a human were to fall into a black hole? To best show what will occur, there needs to be two observers: Person A (the person entering the black hole) and Person B (the person who is viewing Person A enter). As Person A

From Person A’s perspective something absurd happens: nothing. The event horizon is something that the outside viewer sees but not some thing Person A sees. This is the point where the size of the black hole plays a huge role. If Per son A is entering a small black hole, the strength of the gravity on its feet is bigger than the gravity on its head. This essentially stretches Per son A out until they rip apart.

If Person A is entering a big black hole then everything changes. gateway to anoth er universe? Death?Wait a minute, didn’t Person B just see Person A get burnt to a crisp in the event horizon? Yes.

If Person B really wanted they could collect the remains of Person A. How is this possi ble? Well according to the law of physics, information cannot be destroyed — so every bit of Person A’s infor mation must remain on the outside on the event horizon. The laws of physics also dic tate that Person A should be able to enter the black hole without encountering the event horizon. It says that Per son A should be both inside and outside the black hole at the same time. This is known as the ‘Information Paradox’. Luckily in the 1990’s, it was solved. No one person can see Person A’s clone. Person A and Person B’s realities are different from each other and can never intersect, which

means there is no clone and the laws of physics are not broken.

In 2012, a thought exper iment took down this whole theory with the use of quan tum mechanics. To simplify it, let’s say you have A which is information (information in this context is the remains of Person A). A can be paired with either B or C (which are both information) but not both B and C. If it is paired with B then the theory of gen eral relativity is broken but if it is paired with C then the laws of quantum mechanics are broken. Going back to Person A and B, this means that both their realities are not true.

However, in 2013, it was discovered that to find out

which letter A was paired with, it would take way too long. By the time someone would be able to figure it out, the black hole will be gone. This technically? means that both realities will be true. This shows that the true reality still hasn’t been found and that black holes may be beyond our current understanding of physics.

Black holes are quite complex and we have bare ly scratched the surface of understanding them. Will black holes ever be fully un derstood? Who knows. But we will try our best to under stand as much as possible about these beautifully com plex structures in our endless pursuit of discovery.

The James Webb space Telescope:

picTuring our beginnings

By: Paulina Ai ‘24

lestial bodies, improving photo quality of certain objects. As a result, these benefits have incentiv ized scientists to create space based telescopes like the Hubble Space telescope. How did we get to the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST? The Hubble Space Telescope, named after Edwin Hubble, is the predecessor of the JWST and has served for over thirty years. The Hubble is a high-tech and complicated space telescope. While total costs of the Hubble came in at over 1 billion dollars, it helped prove the immense capabilities of space-based telescopes.

With its gigantic 7.8 feet primary mirror, the Hubble has helped us attain pic tures of bodies like black holes and supernovas. The Hubble had minor is sues when it first was sent to space in 1990, but because of its low orbit around Earth, astronauts were able to do a space

Florence, Italy

>> Photo by Claire Zhao ‘22

Where did the world come from? How did the Universe begin? Humans have sought to answer this question since they could gaze up at the night sky. To answer this question scientists have looked to the past. The opportuni ty to peek into our universe’s past is made possi ble by the technology of space telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope, launching this winter, is expected to help us peer farther and deeper into our universe’s past than ever before. Why send telescopes to space? Groundbased telescopes are incredibly useful, and have been utilized for much longer than space telescopes. On Earth, telescopes can be fixed easily, yet the process is much more complicated and costly with telescopes sent to the “final frontier” . So why even do it? The reason lies in the surplus of benefits of using space based telescopes that, in fact, severely outweigh the benefits of ground-based observatories. In space, the issue of light pollution (man-made light emitted by urban environments) can be wholly avoided, as well as the day and night system that keeps telescopes on Earth from work ing during certain hours. This means that space telescopes can not only avoid complications of man-made light but also operate 24/7 to get pictures of astronomical objects. In addition, be ing off of Earth brings the telescope closer to ce

walk and repair it. This convenience, however, would prove to be more harmful than beneficial in the long term. A big issue that Hubble’s lowEarth orbit presented was that at certain points of time, the Earth would be right in front of the telescope’s primary mirror. This plight caused Hubble to take obstructed photos and set a time limit on its operating hours. For the new James Webb Space Telescope, these problems will no longer be an issue.

The James Webb Space Telescope that launches in November of this year takes a turn from the Hubble, avoiding the issue of Earth obstructing its mirror by orbiting the sun in the “L2 zone” 1,500,000 kilometers from Earth and staying in line with Earth (not around it)—ultimately fixing the prob lem that the Hubble faced for 30 years. On the downside, this also means that the JWST will be so far away from Earth that it cannot be reached by humans to fix it if something were to break or malfunction. This constraint has led scientists and engi neers to painstakingly spend over 30 years and 8.8 billion dollars to meticulously craft and test the telescope. The JWST itself is 14 years be hind its original launch date, a testament to the effort be ing put into its necessary per fection. I had the privilege of talking to Faheem Chu nara, an Electrical Test Engi neer for the JWST. Chunara, who works at Northrop Grumman, says he loves the way he’s seen the telescope grow over the years. As I was informed by him, scientists have even tested the JWST for meteorite crashes, 185 degree fahrenheit, and -388 degrees fahrenheit temperatures. Returning to how the JWST differs from the Hubble, the width of the primary mirror of JWST is almost 3 times the size of Hubble’s, coming in at 6.5 meters across. The primary mirror in its scientific glory is made of beryllium hexagons lasered to fit together seamlessly, and is coated in solid gold. What makes this mirror so special and possibly the key to us understanding the beginnings of the universe, is that it can detect infrared light in space.

What makes the detection of infra red light the key and why was it chosen to

be used on the telescope? In the beginning of the universe, 370 thousand years after the Big Bang, primordial matter began to clump together, forming celestial bodies and emitting light rays. The distance be tween us and these first stars is growing (as the universe is expanding), so much so that the light rays that were first emitted by the stars (ones that once were at a cer tain length—visible to our naked eye) have stretched. The stretched light rays are red, or infrared, and although we are not able to see them, the hexagonal mirrors of the JWST can. In short, the JWST can provide us with imagery of some of the oldest bod ies in the universe— specifically what they looked like 13.5 billion years ago when the uni verse was in its in fancy. Something even more exciting can be found with the technology of infra red light: life. As noted by Chunara, infra red light picks up heat, meaning that the JWST could one day lead to the discovery of life on other planets—or as he says jok ingly—”little men with cardboard, signs, waving at us”. How does JWST detect the faint light emanating from so long ago? The infrared light that will be detected by the JWST will have been travelling for billions of light years, and that makes the rays very faint, meaning they will be hard to pick up. The rays are so faint in space that even the light of the sun interferes with picking them up. To hide the secondary mirror from the sun, a five layer shield the size of a tennis court was created to block out the sun at all times. According to Chunara, an inter esting parallel is that the mirror on one side of the shield—completely blocked from the

“the JWST could one day lead to the discovery of life on other planets”

sun— will sit in freezing -388 degrees fahr enheit temperature while the side opposite of the shield will sit in scathing 185 degrees fahrenheit temperatures: “fire and ice”. There were many decisions made in choos ing materials for the sun shield, specifically how well they could handle extreme heats, colds, and impacts. How should we keep track of the telescope? The telescope will hitch a ride on a European Ariane 5 rocket at the end of November. It is so massive that it actually had to be built to fold up inside the spaceship during the launch. A perfect example of the complexity of the telescope, 178 different release points will have fasteners such as bolts unscrewed, so that the telescope unscrewed, so that the telescope can fully unfold itself to start ful filling its mission. Chunara details that the actual working of the telescope won’t take place until 180 days after launch because the precise unfolding and initiation proce dures will take the utmost attention. Because the spaceship will soon go up carrying such a powerful tool, anticipation is building be tween scientists and normal civilians alike. If you would like to keep track of the journey JWST is on, Chunara suggests visiting NA SA’s personal page dedicated to updates and information on JWST. As for people who are interested in working on satellites or other space technologies, he recom mends starting early, as well as this piece of advice: “keep asking questions”.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has an entire website ded icated to the JWST with updates and lots of information: https://www.jwst.nasa. gov/. Special thanks to Faheem Chunara for agreeing to an interview about the tele scope.

Genetic Engineering

By Katy Silva ‘23

Have you heard of the 2018 sci ence-fiction movie “Annihilation?” For a brief summary, without revealing too much about the plot, the movie follows a team of female scientists as they venture into an ever expanding supernatural zone collec tively called “the Shimmer.” Their goal is to try and find the origin of this mysterious phenomenon after learning that anyone who gets sent in never gets out, except for one man. However, there is something interesting about the Shimmer: it acts as a sort of prism, constantly refracting light, sound, and other waves, scrapping any hope of outside communication. But most importantly, the Shimmer also refracts the physical DNA of living things, physically changing it, and therefore mutating the living being. While it is very highly unlike ly that an entity like the Shimmer would ever exist in real life, the concept behind it is interesting. How scientifically ac curate is the Shimmer, and how exactly does genetic modification work in reality? Genetic engineering is “the pro cess of using recombinant (to detach and recombine) DNA technology to alter the genetic makeup of an organism.” Before much more fine-tuned genetic engineer ing, controlled breeding was used to in directly change DNA without complicated technology, whereand people would just pick organisms that had the desirable traits that they wanted that organism to have. Nowadays, fFormal genetic engineering directly changes the DNA with special

technology. Most commonly, genes will be added into the DNA to obtain desir able traits. Genetic engineering began on a much smaller scale:e; recombinant DNA technology was at first only being used to clone pieces of DNA and grow them in bacteria. Now, the field is much larg er, where entire genomes can be cloned and moved from one cell to another. The first major breakthrough in tech nology for genetic engineering was in 1972, when the first recombinant DNA molecules were created by Paul Berg. Using his newly developed methods, in dividual genes could now be isolated and inserted into mammalian cells or even bacteria. They would be, individ ually studied, or be used for duplicating and manufacturing their proteins. This new possibility paved the way for events to fol low in 1973, when Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen developed the first actu al recombinant DNA technology, mean ing that this technology could physically break apart DNA and reattach it, show ing that genetically engineered DNA mol ecules could be cloned in foreign cells. In reality, there is no extra-terrestri al boundary that magically alters one’s genetic code. Instead, there are a few different techniques that can be per formed for genetic engineering. The most well known is the insertion of for eign genes into the plasmids, or small rings of DNA, inof laboratory bacteria.

By incorporating this foreign DNA into the bacteria, the result is an almost endless number of copies of the inserted gene. Even better, if the inserted gene is operative (if they contain code necessary to transcribe the DNA message of struc tural genes into mRNA), then the mod ified bacteria will be able to produce the protein of the foreign DNA. Another much more modern technique of genetic modification emerged in the 21st centu ry called gene editing. Gene editing is much more fine tuned, using technology to customize a living thing’s genetic code by making very specific changes to its DNA. The most well known gene editing tech nology is called CRISPR-CAs9.The most common usage for genetic engineering is for experimentation on living things, more specifically plants and animals; scientists are able to move selective genes between different plants and animals and vice ver sa. This process is different from selective

breeding because in this process, scientists can alienate one gene to implant instead of randomizing the traits through breeding. Plus, it decreases the chances of unwant ed traits. A well known example of genetic engineering on animals is Dolly the Sheep, who was part of a series of experiments at the Roslin Institute in Scotland with the end goal of trying to develop a better method of producing genetically modified livestock. Dolly was quite important, as she was liv ing proof that specialized cells could be used to create an exact copy of the ani mal they came from. Through genetic engi neering on animals and plants, end results could be food with higher natural nutritional value, less overall use of pesticides, fast er growing plants and animals, and other benefits. Although there has been concern expressed about GE foods, such as con cerns with lesser nutrition and potential un expected and harmful genetic mutations, so far none of the GE foods we eat today have caused any problems.

“The most common usage for genetic engineering is for experimentation on living things, more specifically plants and animals”

Science Behind Gelato

By: Emma Myer ‘23

Many describe gelato as “Italian ice cream” but it turns out that the science and composition behind gelato and ice cream makes them very different.The prima ry difference between gelato and ice cream is in the genetic makeup, the texture, and the nutritional value.

Although ice cream and gelato have their differences when it comes to the pro portions of its composition, they share three primary ingredients: air, dairy, and sugar. Dairy, which can be milk, cream, or both, are combined with sugar, mixed thoroughly, and pasteurized. Next the flavors are then folded in whether it be natural or artificial. Air is incorporated through churning the mix before freezing. Gelato has less air because it is churned at a slower rate. This occurs in order to incorporate small amounts of air which makes it denser than regular ice cream. When ice cream is churned at a harder and faster rate, it increases in volume due to the air incorporated into the ice cream by at least 25 and up to 90 percent. Ice cream also consists of more cream which renders to the high fat content. The low levels of fat in gelato allow for the principal flavor ingredi ent to shine through and have a strong flavor. Generally, gelato does not contain egg yolks whereas ice cream will. In gelato, extra milk is substituted for the egg yolk. The yol not only adds fat, it also acts as a stabilizer. The stabilizer binds the water and fat in the ice cream. Stabilizers also help avoid large ice crystals in the ice cream batter. On the oth er hand, when gelato melts, it forms small water puddles which when refrozen turn into ice crystals which can be unpleasant to eat which is why it’s important to not let gelato

melt if you intend on freezing it again. Another difference between gelato and ice cream lies in the texture. Gelato is served at a higher temperature (about 1015º higher) in order to give the gelato a silky and smoother consistency. If ice cream were to be served at a higher temperature, it would melt and quickly become soupy and melt. As mentioned previously, gelato is denser than ice cream which allows the principal flavor to dominante and shine through. Ice cream’s higher fat content makes the texture softer and fluffier. Its airiness and its butterfat cause it to be less flavorful. This happens because the butterfat creates a layer which coats the tongue, interestingly causing it to take longer for the taste buds to taste the flavor. Finally, another difference between gelato and ice cream is in the nutritional val ue. The Food and Drug Administration de fines ice cream as “a dairy product with at least 10% of its calories derived from fat.”

However, a typical ice cream is made up of as much as 25% of its calories derived from fat. On the other hand, the fat content of gelato is much lower than ice cream, only being about 4-9% fat. Both contain high levels of sugar. In ½ cup of ice cream, there is around 210 calories and 16 grams of sugar, while in gelato there are around 160 calories and 17 grams of sugar. By knowing and learning the scientif ic makeup of gelato, ice cream, and other foods, chefs can continue to experiment and create new and unique tastes. Next time you stop by a local gelato shop or travel to Italy to sample some authentic gelato, you are now able to differentiate gelato from ice cream.

Diabetic Retinotherapy

By: Rithvik Raguram ‘24

After having a large dinner (and a lot of birthday cake) for his 41st birthday party, Venancio Martinez noticed that he was still hungry; he ravaged his pantry, but even af ter having a few slices of bread, Martinez found his appetite was still not appeased. Over the next few weeks, he noticed that his thirst could not be quenched, and he urinat ed more frequently than normal. With grow ing concern, Venancio visited a local doctor, who informed him that he was a diabetic. Martinez was given the proper medication, but, by that point, the disease had pro gressed too far, and the medication’s effects were limited. At the age of 62, Martinez loved to take long walks through his neigh borhood, and to lay down in his baby blue hammock looking up at the sunlight shining down through the trees. One afternoon, while making lunch, Martinez began to see small dark spots floating across his field of vision; thinking they were tiny bugs or par ticles of dust, Venancio went to wash his eyes, but the moving spots didn’t go away. That night, Martinez picked up the daily newspaper, but the letters were blurred, and he struggled to understand what he read. Weeks later, on his daily commute to work, his vision suddenly became “cloudy”, and he could no longer drive. His vision progres sively deteriorated, until one morning while looking at the sky from his baby blue ham mock, everything became completely dark. Martinez went blind. Nowadays, Martinez is relegated to his home. Although he can’t see, Venancio still takes long walks through out the neighborhood, stating that “he knows the streets by heart”; “I don’t go very far be cause I’m afraid of getting lost,” he says. “It’s like being a prisoner.”

Venancio Martinez suffered from a condition called diabetic retinopathy (DR). DR is one of the leading causes of blindness in adults over 40 years old, and with over 93 million patients afflicted with the disease worldwide, DR is becoming increasingly important. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have allowed for the quick diagnosis of DR, which is crucial for the pre vention of blindness caused by excess blood sugar, especially in developing/third-world countries. However, before we discuss the involvement of AI in the diagnoses of DR, there are a few questions that need to be addressed: what is diabetic retinopathy and how does it cause vision problems? Diabetic retinopathy is a complica tion that affects the eyes by damaging the blood vessels of the light-sensitive retina, tis sue in the back of the eye. Overtime, an excess amount of blood sugar can lead to the blockage of the small blood vessels that nourish the retina, which cuts off its blood supply. If left untreated, the eyes will at tempt to proliferate new blood vessels, but often-times, these newly-formed blood ves sels do not develop properly, and can leak easily. In early diabetic retinopathy, new blood vessels do not grow, which is why it is also called non-proliferative diabetic reti nopathy (NPDR). NPDR causes the walls of the blood vessels in the retina to weaken, creating bulges that can both: protrude from the walls of the smaller vessels and leak fluid into the retina. A buildup of too much fluid in the middle of the retina, called a macular edema, can cause blurriness and waviness in the center of the field of vision. Advanced DR, otherwise known as proliferative diabet ic retinopathy (PDR), is

caused when damaged blood vessels close off, leading to the formation of abnormal and dysfunctional blood vessels, which can easily leak into the clear, jelly-like substance filling the eye, called the vitreous, causing the patient to see floaters.

The growth of new blood vessels can create scar tissue, which can cause the reti na to detach from the back of the eyes, and if the formation of new blood vessels inter feres with the flow of fluid out of the eye, pressure builds up in the eye which dam ages the optic nerve (a condition called glaucoma). As previously said, DR causes vitreous hemorrhages, glaucoma, and reti nal detachment, and any of these compli cations can lead to blindness, which is why preventing DR is important.

The best way for a patient to prevent diabetic retinopathy is to control their diabe tes, which includes monitoring blood sugar levels, and eating healthily. It is also import ant for diabetics to get their eyes checked, and their retinas photographed, however this poses another problem. In many devel oping countries there are huge lines outside of optometrists which means that not every one can receive the needed diagnoses and treatment: one doctor in India states that he has to image “over 3000 people a day, which is impossible.” This is mostly because of how long the diagnoses process takes: first the retina has to be imaged correctly, using expensive technology, and then this image has to be taken to a doctor to be as sessed; without the proper training, doctors

could miss a diagnoses which could be det rimental to the patient’s vision. This process needs to be streamlined so it takes less time, and is more accurate, so that more people can receive an accurate diagnosis and the appropriate treatment.

A recent breakthrough in AI allows diabetic retinopathy to be diagnosed accu rately and efficiently, using neural network based image recognition software. Quan ta Magazine has already published a few articles about artificial neural networks, so I won’t talk too much about their details here. In short, image recognition algorithms use deep-learning datasets to identify pat terns in images. Using a large database of retinal scans otherwise known as fundus photographs, Google was recently able to utilize deep learning algorithms to di agnose whether or not a person has DR, and was even able to grade it’s severity. Google’s system was called the Automat ed Retinal Disease Assessment or ARDA for short. ARDA not only makes diagnosing DR easier, but also makes diagnosing quicker, which means that more people can get the correct treatment, which as a consequence, lowers the amount of people suffering blind ness caused by DR. ARDA has prevented people like Venancio Martinez from going blind, and has allowed them to go about their daily lives, and do the things they love to do, even if it was as simple as looking up at the sky. ARDA saves people from feeling like prisoners, as Martinez once did.

Hey Siri, How do Voice Assistants Work?

By: Audrey Lin ‘25

The future of voice assistants began in 1952, with Bell Labs’ “Audrey”. It was the first instance of a machine that was capable of understanding human words, called an Au tomatic Digit Recognition machine. Decades later in 2010, Apple Inc. unveiled “Siri” as an iOS app. Other tech companies soon fol lowed, with Amazon’s “Alexa” and “Echo”, IBM’s “Watson”, Microsoft’s “Cortana”, and many more. Since then, it’s revolutionized the way the world uses their phones. From “Hey Siri, directions to The Bishop’s School” to “Alexa, shuffle my ‘Studying’ playlist”, these voice commands have introduced a near-fu turistic method of technology usage. But how exactly do these “personal assistants” work?

HEY GOOGLE, WHAT EXACTLY IS GO ING ON?

Voice assistants rely on the power of speech recognition (a.k.a speech-to-text) and natural language processing (NLP). First ly, speech recognition software processes speech into text data. For instance, if one were to say, “Hey Siri, how’s the weather”, Apple’s speech recognition software would convert that sentence into a textualized form. When the software detects the audio of a speech, it breaks it down into unique sounds and then analyzes each of those sounds, known as phonemes. For example, take the word “hat.” The “h”, “a”, and “t” each have an individual phoneme. Once these phonemes are recognized, the software will utilize algorithms to find which word in the English language (or whichever language

of the user’s choosing) best fits the sounds detected. This sounds quite simple, but in re ality, due to the complexities of language, it’s not so easy. Accents, mispronunciation, slurring, slang, and more can make this pro cess difficult, which is why it is crucial that computers are repeatedly trained to accom modate various voices.

Once the textualized form of the word has been created, the voice assistant sends it to the “main server”. This is where natu ral language processing comes into play. Natural language processing is essentially a big flowchart for data. Taking the statement from before (“Hey Siri, how’s the weather?’’), these words travel through this “flowchart” to arrive at the most probable answer. These servers already have a database of possi ble questions and their corresponding an swers. With the keyword being “weather” in this instance, the NLP engines can rule out other possibilities such as “show directions” or “call Mom”. These NLP engines are then able to return whichever answer is most prob able and desirable. Similar to speech recog nition, NLP comes with its own challenges, especially incorrect grammar and/or word order. While the computer does its best and has already been exposed to a wide range of phrases and data, certain colloquialisms may be hard for it to recognize. With in stances like these, the query is often discard ed and the voice assistant may return with a canned response. make all these processes even more efficient.

For Siri, this is often “Would you like to search the web for that?”, while Alexa may answer with “Sorry, I’m having trouble under standing you right now. Please try a little lat er”. Nonetheless, the progression of technol ogy over the years when it comes to speech recognition and NLP has been massive, and computers are constantly being trained and databases expanded to make all these pro cesses even more efficient.

ALEXA, DID NO ONE EVER TELL YOU IT’S IMPOLITE TO EAVESDROP?

While this all may sound incredibly convenient, voice assistants aren’t always considered ethical. Voice assistants are con stantly listening and waiting for their “wake word”; once that wake word has been heard, the voice assistant begins recording the request. So why exactly is this so con cerning?

When we search things up on the internet, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the same item appears in an ad on our social media feeds, and this has likely been a common experience for many people. But as voice assistants grow in popularity, they adopt the same technique, noting down the items their user desires. You could be talking about Hydroflasks in what you believe to be the comfort of your own kitchen, but the Alexa in the corner over there is hard at work. A day later, Hydroflasks could be recommended on your Amazon page.

However, when asked the question “is Alexa always listening?”, Dave Limp, chief of Amazon Devices ambiguously respond ed with, “Alexa is not a listening device”. Many others at the forefront of designing

and producing these voice assistants have claimed the same thing. A large fear of many consumers is that in order for a voice assistant to even begin processing a request, it must always be listening for its wake word. Whether or not the conversations prior to the wake word are truly being recorded, saved, and sent to the main servers, it appears as if these voice assistants are listening at all times. And if these conversations were re corded, they could be used to shape your bias and beliefs (such as changing the ads you see), or against you in privacy-breach ing ways. If another human being was con stantly following you around and listening to every single word you said, society would immediately deem that morally incorrect. Yet voice assistants have somehow now shifted our view of technology, deeming this accept able.

HEY READER, DO YOU TRUST VOICE AS SISTANTS?

Speech recognition and natural lan guage processing are facets of artificial intelligence that are continuously advancing and shaping the effectiveness of voice as sistants. The convenience and presence of voice assistants are only going to grow. So, where does that leave us? It’s up to each consumer as to whether or not they feel comfortable with this growing technology. Nevertheless, due to the various ways these voice assistants have infiltrated society’s dayto-day lives, both positive and negative, it is crucial that their mechanisms and processes are understood.

Quanta Magazine

The Quanta student magazine is an entirely student-run science magazine for students to share their scientific passion with their peers. Since its founding in 2010, Quanta has periodically released to The Bishop’s School and the broader community through print issues as well as online articles through their website. Quanta features student-written articles about new and exciting scientific topics. Any students are invited to write for Quanta as we are always looking for new writers!

Quanta Staff

Editors-in-Chief: Grace Sun ‘23

Silva ‘23

Myer ‘23

Layout and Design Editor: Grace Sun ‘23

Photo Credits: Dr. Pamela Reynolds Mrs. Cathy Morrison

Lani Keller

Special Thanks to our Faculty Advisors for always giving us valuable advice and supporting us: Dr. Pamela Reynolds

Ben Heldt