“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Those are the words of Thomas Alva Edison, one of the greatest     1     (inventor) in the history of the United States.

Edison, who grew up in the Midwest, was     2     (large) self-educated. He earned 1,093 patents in his lifetime, including the lightbulb. Being     3     successful businessman, Edison often reworked existing technology, making it more practical for widespread use.

Edison was born on February 11, 1847, a day that     4     (celebrate) as National Inventors’ Day today. The Thomas Edison Center, which was created in memory of Edison, is at Menlo Park in New Jersey. It is said that the seven years Edison spent at the lab he created in New Jersey were the most     5     (product).

“Menlo Park is the birthplace of     6     (record) sound. It was in Menlo Park     7     Edison invented the phonograph (留声机) in 1877. The invention led to the 30-year-old Ohio native’s international fame. From then on, he was known     8     the “Wizard (奇才) of Menlo Park.”

A phonograph was the first device that was used     9     (reserve) sound. It was the precursor (先驱) to record albums and CDs. The original model had no volume knob (旋钮), so listeners would have to control the sound by     10     (place) a sock in the machine. That’s where we get the expression “put a sock in it”, which means “stop talking”.

Dr Jian Zhou was a molecular biologist and virologist who worked with Professor Ian Frazer to develop the technology toward the Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines (疫苗),     1     protect against viruses that cause cervical cancer.

Born in Hangzhou, China, Dr Zhou graduated from Wenzhou Medical College and went on     2     (obtain) a Master’s degree from Zhejiang Medical University. He studied for a PhD at Henan Medical University,     3     (complete) this in 1987. He received a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Queensland in 1994. Dr Zhou’s interest in human papillomavirus (HPV)     4     (bring) him to Australia in 1990 to join Professor Ian Frazer’s Centre for Immunology and Cancer Research at the University of Queensland. Nearly all cervical cancers are caused by HPV and it     5     (believe) that a vaccine against HPV might work. The vaccine required a particle that would stimulate an immune response to the virus,     6     causing an infection. This was a significant focus of Dr Zhou’s work with Professor Frazer and in 1990, working also with his wife, he succeeded in creating a virus-like particle that was now the basis     7     the Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines.

    8     (unfortunate), Dr Zhou died in 1999, at the age of 42. His work has had     9     huge impact on human health globally. The Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences is therefore delighted to establish an award in     10     (recognize) of Dr Zhou. The Jian Zhou Medal was made possible by a generous donation from the Frazer Family Foundation.

3 . Sarkar is a nanotechnologist (纳米技术专家) and assistant professor at MIT. She is conducting her research on brain diseases that _________ the minds of millions of people worldwide.

Born in Kolkata, India, Sarkar credits both of her parents as early _________. Her courage as a researcher comes from her _________, who as a young woman went against social norms (常态) in her village by _________ to fund her own education. Meanwhile, Sarkar’s father _________ her interest in engineering. Sarkar recalls her father finding time for his _________, fashioning devices to make home life more _______, including an electricity-free washing machine. “That got me very _________ in science and technology.” Sarkar says.

After _________ a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Dhanbad, Sarkar __________ California to study nanoclectronics. There, she tested new ways to __________ nanodevices that could reduce the amount of __________ consumed by computers and other everyday electronics. __________, she made a breakthrough by developing a standout nanodevice.

Along the way, Sarkar became fascinated with the __________, which she calls “the lowest energy computer”. She hopes to put nanodevices between human neurons (神经细胞) to improve the computing speed of the processor in our brains. “Our brains are __________, but we could be better than what we are.” she says.

8 . Charles Darwin was born in 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. His father, a doctor, had high hopes that his son would earn a medical degree at Edinburgh University in Scotland, where he was admitted at the age of sixteen. It turned out that Darwin was more interested in natural history than medicine. While he continued his studies at Cambridge, it was his focus on natural history that became his passion.

In 1831, Darwin set out on a voyage as a naturalist aboard a ship of the British Royal Navy, the HMS Beagle. The main purpose of the trip was to survey the coastline of South America and chart its harbors to make better maps of the region.

Darwin spent much of the trip on land collecting samples of plants, animals, rocks, and fossils. He explored regions in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and remote islands such as the Gal á pagos. He packed all of his samples into large wooden containers and sent them back to England aboard other large ships.

Upon his return to England in 1836, Darwin’s work continued. Studies of his samples and notes from the trip led to groundbreaking scientific discoveries. Fossils he collected led to advances in the understanding of the processes that shape the Earth’s surface. Darwin’s analysis of the plants and animals he gathered led him to question how species form and change over time. This work convinced him of the insight that he is most famous for — natural selection. The theory of natural selection says that individuals of a species are more likely to survive in their environment and pass on their genes to the next generation when they inherit traits from their parents that are best suited for that specific environment. In this way, such traits become more widespread in the species and can lead eventually to the development of a new species.

In 1859, Darwin published his thoughts about evolution and natural selection in On the Origin of Species. The book convinced many people that species change over time — a lot of time — suggesting that the planet was much older than what was commonly believed at the time: six thousand years.

Charles Darwin died in 1882 at the age of seventy-three. He is buried in Westminster Abbey in London, England.

9 . A Victory for Women in Economics

Economic history has long been documented through a male perspective, putting emphasis on the contributions of men and their viewpoints. For proof, just look to the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.     1     The third, Harvard labor economist Claudia Goldin, won the prize in 2023, for her decades of work studying the gender pay gap.

    2     This narrow view might not appeal to everyone. Women in particular tend to be drawn to areas that have a direct impact on social challenges, such as health economics, development economics and education economics. But those fields don’t get as much attention and are sometimes not even recognized as economics at all.

Not only are women insufficiently represented as economists, economics as a field has historically ignored the role women play in the economy.     3     This resulted in economists failing to appreciate the unpaid labor that women provided in households and continuing to shape their analyses based on their traditional gender role beliefs.

Goldin has challenged the traditional male-centered world and turned the attention to women’s economic roles and challenges. Her Nobel recognition isn’t merely an honor for her individual achievements. It shows the world how inclusive, diverse and interconnected the field truly is.     4    

10 . Richard Feynman was arguably the second best known physicist after Einstein. But she is not the only distinguished scientist in the Feynman family.

Born in 1927, Joan Feynman grew up in Queens, New York, alongside her older brother Richard. He would become Joan’s first teacher and someone who helped develop her curious nature, believing her capable of learning all the math and science he could teach her. She would try to solve math problems for the unique reward of getting to pull her brother’s hair and serving as his “lab assistant” at the age of five. For her fourteenth birthday, Richard gave Feynman a copy of Astronomy by Rebecca Horace Baker, a college-level physics text, which both taught her about physics and what was possible. Feynman credited it for proving to her that women could indeed have a career doing science.

Feynman would go on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College, before she attended Syracuse University, studying condensed matter theory and earning a PhD in 1958. By 1960, Feynman was married with two children and she decided to take a break from physics to take on the role of homemaker.

The break was short-lived, as Feynman grew depressed from keeping a home and caring for two small children. In 1962, at the advice of a psychologist, she went in search of employment, securing three job offers at multiple institutes. At Lamont, where she worked part-time, Feynman began her research into Earth’s magnetosphere, identifying its shape.

Over the course of her career, Feynman made many breakthroughs in furthering the understanding of solar wind and its interaction with the Earth’s magnetosphere. As author or co-author of more than 185 papers, Feynman’s research accomplishments range from discovering the shape of the Earth’s magnetosphere to identifying the origin of auroras. In 1974, she would become the first woman ever elected as an officer of the American Geophysical Union, and in 2000 she was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal.

“Joan Feynman leaves a wealth of scientific accomplishments, having made important contributions,” said APS CEO Kate Kirby. “Despite being discouraged to pursue science by social expectations, she persevered, and her accomplishments serve as an inspiration to women who wish to pursue a career in science.”