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Something that's always been of particular interest in the scientific field of food insecurity is something known as Microbiome engineering, Microbiomes are communities of microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses, that in agriculture, soil and plant microbiomes influence nutrient cycling, disease resistance, and plant growth. Microbiome engineering involves manipulating these communities to enhance their beneficial effects. By shaping microbiomes, scientists aim t

As part of the Independent Learners Program (ILP), which involves researching a topic you find extremely passionate about, our group of about 10 students met together to discuss our initatives If you are unaware, or even aware, of who Bryan Stevenson and the EJI is, I would reccomend looking at at least one of the following Watch Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk, We Need to Talk About an Injustice Explore the EJI website Bryan Stevenson page Hover over the OUR WORK tab at the top o

A reflection on volunteering to help plan and host our school’s STEM Night for younger students and their families. Once a year, STEM club at my school hosts their annual "STEM Night", which involves elementary students from the school district coming to the High School building where us high school student put on science fair-esque projects. Mine was dry ice bubbles, and it works by placing dry ice in a glass filtering flask with warm water and a funnel on top of the opening

A field observation exercise recording the activity and diversity of pollinators in different parts of a public green space. Over the...

A personal Synopsys For a class assignment at Brown Precollege, I put together a dramatic synopsis about one of the most infamous viruses in history: the 1918 influenza strain. Scientists recently reconstructed it using reverse genetics, which sounds like something ripped straight from a zombie movie, but the purpose was serious. By rebuilding all eight of the virus’s gene segments, researchers were finally able to test what made the 1918 strain so virulent. Here is the link

The “Spongivirus”: Charming Little Menace Every now and then, a class project produces a virus so weirdly creative you almost want to root for it. The Spongivirus (officially D. spongiae Variant-1) is exactly that. Picture a virus with a sponge-like outer shell full of tiny pores and a yellow protective core inside. It’s basically the kitchen sponge of the microscopic world, just… a lot less helpful ` This thing runs on RNA, which means it mutates fast and never sits still.