Regeneron Science Talent Search (Regeneron STS) is the oldest and most important science research competition for high school students all over the nation. Started in 1942, Regeneron STS recognizes and empowers most promising young scientists. Each year, nearly 2,000 students enter Regeneron STS. The competition awards 300 student scholars and their schools annually and invites 40 student finalists to Washington, D. C. to participate in final judging. Regeneron STS provides an important platform for their original research which is examined and reviewed by professional scientists.

●Applicants must be over 13 years of age and have legal parental permission to submit (提交) the application and participate, or be 18 years of age or older;

●Applicants must complete individual research projects to enter Regeneron STS. Research conducted as part of a pre-collegiate student team project is not qualified for Regeneron STS;

●Applicants must submit application package through our online system, and must not have entered any previous Regeneron STS.

●Essays, short answer responses, activities and basic information;

●Scientific Research Report (maximum 20-page research paper about one of the applicant’s original research projects);

●Recommendations submitted by adults;

●Test Scores (optional).

●PARTICIPATION AWARDS: All competitors will receive a T-shirt, laptop stickers, and a free one-year subscription to Science News magazine.

●SCHOLAR AWARDS: Each of the 300 scholars will receive a $2,000award.

●SCHOOL AWARDS: The schools of each scholar will receive $2,000 per scholar. The award is intended to contribute to excellence in science, math and/or engineering education at the school.

●FINALIST AWARDS: Judges select 40 finalists from among the scholars. In addition to an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D. C., finalists receive a minimum award of $25,000.

Growing up in suburbia, yard work was punishment. I’d take almost anything else. I didn’t like being outside, and I especially didn’t like bugs or dirt.

When I left home at 17 with a backpack of belongings, I figured my gardening days were behind me. There were no yards to work in—only concrete! The concrete jungle that awaited me seemed like a welcome escape from the outdoor chores that had once felt like a sentence.

It wasn’t until my mid-20s that I, thinking it was the adult thing to do, brought home a small daisy (雏菊) in a pot to put on my fire escape. Less than 24 hours later, a squirrel (松鼠) arrived and dragged it away, pot and all. That’s New York for you! I took it as a sign and didn’t try any more plants in that apartment.

When I married, my wife and I bought a house in outer Brooklyn. There was enough room to have a garden if we wanted one. We decided to see if we could grow anything, mostly for the novelty factor. Much to my surprise, digging in the dirt felt like fun and totally not a chore! In the early mornings, I would bend down to inspect the soil waiting for the plants to appear. Watering at dusk, I whispered to the baby plants, expecting them to keep growing. The plants kept the neighborhood squirrels fed and provided a place for bumblebees to nap. I felt a rush of power and excitement.

As the flowers and vegetables bloomed, I noticed something in me was growing as well. Since running away from home as a teenager, I’ve always done my best to build a shelter for myself wherever I was living. I hung pictures on the walls. I built new holiday traditions with friends. I painted the walls bright colors. But it always felt like maybe that deep connection to a particular space was missing. In gardening, I finally found this new layer of depth. I guess you could say I was putting down roots.

There is an inspiring, self-care practice in the time and energy it takes to plant, water, and wait and wait to see if the magic happens. It’s the act of growing that I find the sweetest.

What are you growing?

The rechargeable lithium-ion (锂离子) battery market is worth more than ＄50 billion. Lithium-ion batteries, whose demand continues to go up day by day, are used in a wide range of electronic devices. They are made of four main components, and cathode (阴极) is one of them. The cathode’s active material type is what determines the capacity of a battery.

A recent study, led by Wang Yan, a material scientist of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, finds that lithium-ion batteries made with recycled cathodes work better than those with new cathodes.

“The battery industry is expected to grow sharply in the next decade. This high demand has led companies to go to extremes, like increasing deep-sea mining, to gain access to the minerals used in lithium-ion batteries,” Wang said. “Mining minerals will have environmental impacts. Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries offers a way out.”

But until now, the prospect of using recycled materials in lithium-ion batteries has some manufacturers (制造商) worrying that it could impact performance. Thus, lithium-ion batteries are still not widely recycled. Aware of decreasing resources and environmental impact, Wang and other researchers set out to find a way to make recycling lithium-ion batteries economically practical. Through experiments, they could recover more than 90% of the key metals from spent batteries. These recovered metals became the basis of the new recycled battery’s cathode’s active material.

In tests between Wang’s team’s recycled batteries and brand-new batteries of the same composition, the recycled batteries outperform the new ones in their ability to maintain capacity. It took 11,600 charge cycles for recycled cathode batteries to lose 30 percent of their original capacity. That was about 50 percent better than the 7,600 observed cycles for new cathode batteries, the team reported. Those thousands of extra cycles could translate into years of better battery performance, even after repeated use and recharging.