We’ve got a list of teen scientists from a variety of fields.

Jack Andraka

Jack Andraka created a biosensor for cancer that he says is 168 times faster, 26, 667 times less expensive and 400 times more sensitive than technology nowadays.

He’s the youngest person to have spoken in front of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Taylor Wilson

Taylor Wilson was the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion (核聚变). He was inspired by The Radioactive Boy Scout, a novel in which a kid tries and fails to build a nuclear reactor.

Taylor thought he could do better. Long story short, he wanted to build a small nuclear reactor. And he did it at the age of fourteen. He received a Thiel Fellowship, which gave him $100,000 to work on his own research.

Sara Volz

Sara Volz performed experiments in which she grew algae based on their oil output for the purpose of growing them as biofuel (生物燃料). This research is especially important as the world continues to search for a way to lessen our dependence on non-renewable energy. She won the top prize of S100,000 in the Intel Science Talent Search.

Daniel Burd

Plastic usually takes thousands of years to decompose (降解), but this high school student Daniel Burd managed to do it in three months.

In an experiment, he mixed plastic bags and a special kind of dirt together, and found that they did decompose faster. He then performed tests to find the bacteria responsible for decomposing the plastics.

His solution only produces water and small amounts of carbon dioxide. He says it could easily be used elsewhere.

One Saturday afternoon, I went to a fast food restaurant to have some food with my kids. As we were walking into the restaurant, I noticed a woman smoking a cigarette outside. While we were waiting in line, with about ten other people, we saw the woman rush back into the store to help the busy staff.

A customer standing next to us started yelling at the employee who had begun filling brown paper bags with fries, burgers, and nuggets, “I saw you,” she said. “I saw you out there smoking; then you came in straight and touched our food! It’s disgusting! Why would you do that?” The woman wouldn’t stop. Everyone was staring. The employee was getting teary. It looked as if she just wanted to find a place to hide. The manager came over and told her to wash her hands and leave the floor for a while. He then apologized to the customer.

“That’s disgusting,” my oldest son whispered to me, “But I do feel bad for her.” I was glad he followed it up with that last sentence. His comment showed me that he’d probably never treat someone the way that customer had treated that employee.

You are allowed to be angry at others’ improper behavior and tell them how you feel. However, you don’t need some audience or witnesses when you are making negative comments on others. Doing that in public doesn’t strengthen your point.

I’m willing to bet that the woman being criticized was so shamed that she wasn’t able to hear the message that was being forced down her throat. However, had the customer taken her aside, and said in a quiet voice, “I noticed you didn’t wash your hands after your smoke break; can you please go to do that now?” The employee would have had the opportunity to do just that. The message the customer wanted to convey would have gotten to that employee more effectively, and her entire day would not have been ruined.

A city in South Korea, which has the world’s highest smartphone usage rate, has placed flashing lights at a road crossing to warn “smartphone zombies” (低头族) to look up and drivers to slow down, in the hope of preventing accidents.

The designers of the system were motivated by growing worry that more pedestrians (行人) addicted to their phones will become victims in a country that already has some of the highest injury rates among developed countries.

State-run Korea Institute of Civil Engining and Building Technology believed its system of flashing lights at crossings can warn both pedestrians and drivers.

In addition to red, yellow and blue LED lights on the road, “smartphone zombies” will be warned by flashing lights and a warning sent to the phones by an app that they are about to step into traffic.

“Increasing numbers of accidents are happening at pedestrian crossings, so these lights are needed to prevent these pedestrian accidents,” said KICT senior researcher Kim Jong-hoon.

South Korea has the world’s highest smartphone usage rate, according to Pew Research Center, with about 94 percent of adults owning smartphones in 2017, compared with 77 percent in the United States and 59 percent in Japan.

For now, the warning system is set up only in Ilsan, a city about 30 km northwest of the capital, Seoul, but is expected to go nationwide, according to the institute.

Kim Dan-hee, a 23-year-old citizen of Ilsan, welcomed the system, saying she was often too absorbed in her phone to remember to look at traffic. “This flashing light makes me feel safe as it makes me look around again, and I hope that we can have more of these in town,” she said.

If you watched TV in the 1980s, you probably remember the Head &Shoulders advertisement warning, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

Now new research suggests that this isn’t totally true. For a paper called “The Tipping Point of Moral Change: When Do Good and Bad Acts Make Good and Bad Actors? “ published in Social Cognition, Nadav Klein and Ed O’ Brien, psychological scientists at the University of Chicago, ran several experiments designed to discover how quickly people are willing to change impressions.

In one online study of 201 participants, an office worker known as “Barbara” started off, but occasionally committed (做) a series of positive or negative actions. Sometimes she held doors for people. Other times she would cut in line. Subjects answered how long such behavior had to go on for their view of Barbara to tip in various directions.

The result? Barbara had to do nice things for more weeks to become regarded as a good person than the number of weeks she had to do bad things to become bad. Another online experiment involving 200 female participants also found that people were quick to judge when Barbara was doing wrong and much slower to believe she’d changed for the better.

“People only need to commit just a few bad actions to appear greatly changed for the worse, but need to commit many good actions to appear greatly changed for the better,” the authors write.

If you’ve made a good first impression on a group of people, don’t get too comfortable. Flub something, and they’ll quickly change their impression for the worse. But if you made a bad first impression? Then the Head & Shoulders advertisement is on to something because, as Heather Huhman, president of Come Recommended, puts it, “People are always quick to judge, and we like our opinions-we don’t like to change our minds.”

“It is difficult to change a bad first impression, but not impossible. Don’t try to force new relationships. Let relationships develop naturally and don’t do things just to make people like you. Be yourself, “ Huhman advises.

Heart disease is the leading cause of disability and death worldwide.     37     With that in mind, if you knew that you could help keep your heart healthy by eating just a little bit less every day- about six standard-size Oreos’ worth of calories-would you?

Researchers have found evidence that just a modest reduction in our daily caloric intake (摄入) could have protective benefits for our hearts. They drew on data from the Long term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy (ERIE) study. According to the study, the experiment began with 218 participants, all of whom were normal weight or just slightly overweight and between the ages of 21 and 50. Researchers started 143 participants on a diet that reduced their caloric intake by 25%.     38    . In the end, 188 participants completed the study-117 with caloric restriction and 71 without. Over two years, people in the calorie-cutting group reduced their caloric intake by an average of about 12%.

    39    . They lost about 16.5 pounds on average and saw improvements, including lowered cholesterol (胆固醇) and blood pressure, on all six primary factors associated with risks to heart health. “We expected there to be some improvement on cardiometabolic (心血管代谢) factors,” says William Kraus, the study’s lead author. “    40    .”

Though the weight loss was relatively impressive, it wasn’t responsible for a majority of the heart benefits. After conducting further analysis, researchers determined that caloric restriction can have health benefits above and beyond those normally associated with weight loss. “    41    .”

I was very fortunate to be chosen by Kindspring to receive $100 for the monthly kindness competition. This past October I ______ some Inspiration Trees and they have helped to make a ______ in people’s lives.

The idea is simple. I took a lot of fallen branches that I had been ______ on walks and hung them from the ceiling with the help of volunteers and friends. Then we ______ strings with pins (大头针) attached to them from the branches. I got a lot of art supplies and as people came in for the art exhibit, they were ______ to create a piece of art or a ______ message to hang from the branches.

The tree changed into this really funny way of ______ positive messages. If you hung a message up, you had to take one down for you to ______. The experience was really ______. People of all ages and from all walks of life were sharing art and inspiration through the ______.

With the $100 I ______ from Kindspring, I made more Inspiration Trees. I’m ______ them all over our community, such as classrooms and youth shelters for homeless teens. The act is to create communication that is positive and can ______ people’s lives by just doing a ______ act of kindness. The message people receive can be kept with them as a reminder of the ______ in the world.

We are all aware of the threats our planet is facing. Experts agree that it’s mainly humans     57     are responsible for the destruction of the environment. Activities such as mass farming and burning       58     (harm) our climate now-and we are suffering too through natural     59       (disaster) such as flooding and droughts.

One of the most destructive activities we are carrying out is deforestation (砍伐森林). This has been most noticeable in Brazil, which is home to the world’s     60     (large) rainforest. Deforestation there     61     (hit) its highest rate in the past decade, according to official data. The result of widespread deforestation has threatened     62     centuries-old way of life. The future of the rainforest could be     63     danger of being damaged.

The amount of deforestation in the Amazon has     64     (actual) seen a decline but the figures are still large. Brazil has taken some steps to try and decrease deforestation by     65    (introduce) government policies including fines for breaking land use regulations. While humans are largely     66     (blame) for the destruction of the rainforest, it seems only humans will tackle this problem and save planet Earth.

Gold and brown leaves crunched (嘎吱响) under Dora’s boots as she made her way down the sidewalk. She couldn’t wait to be home. The autumn cold wind was bad, but it was not nearly as hard to bear as the cold she felt in her heart.

She couldn’t forget the way she had frozen in front of the class today. Mr. Roberts divided the class into groups to do presentations. Each person in the group would speak for five minutes in front of the class. Today was Dora’s turn. Her legs trembled all the way to the front of the classroom. Her hands shook so badly that she couldn’t read her notes. As Dora spoke, her voice became softer. Mr. Roberts kindly ended Dora’s part of the presentation even though she had clearly not finished. He also asked Dora to stay for a moment after class.

“Dora, I know you’re shy, but you worked hard on this project. I’d hate to see you give up on yourself.” Mr. Roberts suggested, “If I give you another chance tomorrow, do you think you can find your courage?”

Dora nodded. She went as quickly as she could to her next class. She kept her head down and hoped the school day would end soon.

Arriving home, she found Mom baking in the kitchen. When Mom baked, Dora always watched and chatted with her. Mom always said it was Dora’s company that made her baked goods taste so sweet. Mom studied Dora’s face as she came into the kitchen. “What’s wrong, Dora?”

Tears shone in Dora’s eyes. She told the whole story. Mom was silent for a moment. “Why is it that you can talk to me about anything and everything, but you can’t talk to your classmates?” Mom asked, sliding the round cake pans into the oven. She set the timer and then said, “Let me show you something.”