Intrepid explorers

by Susan Rosenberg; photos by Mark McCarty

今年夏天，师生合作的研究让火博体育再次活跃起来，招收了大约70名学生 working working 9 to 5 for five, eight, or ten weeks.  Projects were wide-ranging 像往常一样，从阿富汗妇女的领导和墨西哥移民的生活，到 金属对细菌的影响和减肥的细胞机制 War I images and the meanings of food blogs.  Here are a few spotlights:

Scummy green algae may have a very bright future-as biofuels. Unlike more complex plants, algae have 简单的细胞壁更容易分解，以便有效地燃烧和产生能量.

藻类生物学家David Domozych说:“在过去的几年里，藻类生物燃料真的 caught on among researchers." He and Berke Tinaz '16 are part of that movement, studying 细胞壁的构造和解构在一种叫做单细胞藻类的藻类中 Penium. Domozych解释说:“我们使用酶来溶解细胞的特定成分 比如，果胶或纤维素，然后观察生物体如何再生这些成分." 它们甚至可以去除整个细胞壁，使细胞在糖溶液中存活. 多莫奇说，通过逐渐稀释溶液，他们可以刺激细胞进入 构建新的细胞壁”，并了解它首先产生的是果胶还是纤维素 或者是一种不同的聚合物，随着结构的重建，它就会出现."

今年夏天，哈佛大学的博士生玛雅·雷德尔(Maja Rydall)加入了这对搭档 该公司正在开发利用抗体对细胞部分进行活标记的方法 wall for microscopic detection. Domozych also partners with Cornell and other Penium researchers in the US and abroad. What Skidmore brings to the partnerships, he says, “通过共聚焦激光扫描显微镜，我们可以看到抗体标记 区域并创建3D图像，我们的电子显微镜可以让我们看到 细胞的分泌系统产生聚合物来修复其细胞壁."

Tinaz去年也是一名暑期研究员，他说他现在对显微镜很熟练: “有很多设置激光和过滤器的选择，让我们检测化学物质 labels we've attached and to get the multilayered imaging correct."

Can't get a song out of your head? Don't complain: it may be a great memory aid. Testing Alzheimer's patients and the 音乐唤起记忆的潜力是Renee Schapiro '15和Denise的项目 Evert, a neuroscience and psychology professor.

夏皮罗曾在一家阿尔茨海默病护理中心做过暑期工，他回忆说:“有一次， unfriendly patient. When I tried playing her some music, she squeezed my hand and her face lit up!护士们还注意到，许多患者的认知能力和舒适度都有所改善 after a music session.

所以今年夏天夏皮罗和埃弗特一起钻研现有的文献 plan her senior thesis research into music and memory. Using an iPod and headphones, 夏皮罗为参与者献上了他们生活中不同时代的熟悉歌曲 and then asks for free-recall anecdotes. Evert says, "We want to see whether the time 这首歌的情绪与参与者的记忆相对应——确实如此 一首快乐的60年代歌曲帮助他们找回生活中那段时间的快乐记忆?" 夏皮罗要求家庭成员或照顾者帮助确认这些自传的准确性 memories.

由于整个夏天都在做准备工作，考试将在今年秋天进行. "Just finding the participant and control groups was a huge job," notes Evert. Schapiro forged relationships 与医院合作招募没有其他身体或精神疾病的阿尔茨海默病患者 可能会影响结果的条件，以及辅助生活设施和其他 agencies to assemble a control group of similar age and background. She also sought 为了限制各种场所——医院房间、老年中心、家庭——排除干扰， 比如能像音乐一样唤起记忆的香味.

经过大量的数据分析，两人想要弄清楚这是否是 melody, rhyme, rhythm, or words of a song that most affect memory.

Each crystal-clear raindrop has dirt at its core. Tiny airborne mineral particles—desert sand, topsoil dust, 火山灰，人造烟灰，与空气中的水分层层叠加，直到形成液滴 and fall as rain. 对于海洋微生物来说，雨水是铁元素的重要来源. 铁颗粒如雨点般涌入大海会刺激浮游生物大量繁殖 由于浮游生物吸收二氧化碳，它们有助于减缓全球变暖. But before 然后，当颗粒留在大气中时，阳光可以改变它们的化学性质 and produce pollutants that increase global warming. "It's a very complicated story," says chemist Juan Navea. "Our lab 对主要大气和气候模拟系统使用的数据进行微调吗."

16岁的Jaya Borgatta, 17岁的Amanda Paskavitz, 17岁的Daniel Lesko，还有Matthew Lueckheide 17年与Navea合作研究了气溶胶颗粒溶解，吸附， and photochemistry. Using power-plant fly ash from coal mined from the US, Central 在欧洲和印度，研究人员正在测试粒子需要多长时间才能到达 dissolve; such aerosols typically float in the air, carried on wind currents all around the world, for weeks and even months. They're also analyzing how the interactions 大气中的化合物和尘埃颗粒受到阳光的影响. Exposing 粒子在太阳模拟器的紫外线下，他们反复检查 每隔几分钟就会有化学反应，“我们可能会看到化合物附着在粒子上 lessens over, say, 30 minutes," Navea says. "Where do those compounds go? They get 释放为温室气体，如一氧化二氮，其威力是其300倍 than carbon dioxide as an agent of climate change."

研究人员使用光谱学来识别化学物质，但没有说明 或者是用来分析这些层状聚集分子的不同形状的实验书. 为了证实他们的结果，他们将光谱结果与量子化学进行了比较 simulations on a computer.

Attention, job-seekers: What color is your skin and where do you live? Both factors might affect your job-hunting success.

社会学家阿蒙·埃梅卡(Amon Emeka)说:“我们知道全国平均黑人是3岁 times more likely to be unemployed as white people. That figure is higher in some cities and lower in others, and we don't know a lot about why." So, along with Rebecca Datus '15和Taylor Sczymecki '15 "而不是问什么样的人做得好 或者劳动力市场表现不佳，我们问的是哪种劳动力市场表现良好 poorly at being equitable."

研究人员比较了美国50个最大的大都市地区，收集了失业率 2005-07年(2008年经济危机前)8个种族或身份的男性的比率 群体:黑人、白人、拉丁裔、美洲原住民、东亚或印度人、东南亚人、 Arab or Middle Eastern, and other. And some of those groups were pretty small, Sczymecki notes, so it was a struggle trying to get large enough sample sizes. Next they scoured census data and other sources—such as a big, thick tome called Cities Ranked and Rated-描述每个城市的市政预算、学校系统、公共交通、 labor union strength, and other factors. Datus also took an interest in population growth vs. job growth rates; Taylor was eager to expand the study to women, for whom 婚姻状况、家庭休假、照顾孩子和其他问题会使问题变得非常复杂 their working lives. But all three agreed that the cities' civil-rights climate, such 就像机会均等执法和平权行动法律或禁令一样 be key to their analysis.

And then came the number-crunching. Datus was dismayed that, inevitably, "some of the data we entered (for hour upon hour!) didn't need to be included in our analysis." 对每个大都市进行单独的分析是一项艰巨的工作，尽管她说 这是“最难的也是最快乐的一件事，因为一旦我得到了结果，我 was really excited with what I worked so hard to create."
 

Do-it-yourselfers are leaving Home Depot in the dust. 利用数字设计，共享或“开放”的软件和硬件，众包 以及像3d打印机这样的小型制造设备，以及新一代的发明家 hopes to change the landscape of manufacturing. Maker Faires and  Makerspaces (one Skidmore计划中的新综合科学大楼的创意实验室的灵感) 正在吸引具有合作意识的创新者一起展示和分享他们的自制产品吗 electronics and other creations.

商业和国际事务学者斯科特·穆里根(Scott Mulligan)正在探索如何做到这一点 像价格低廉的3d打印这样的发展可能很快就会让几乎所有人都能下载 designs and engage in patent infringement." Some predict that the Maker movement and 传统行业很快就会以纳普斯特和音乐唱片行业的方式发生冲突 did around 2001. 穆里根和15岁的拉姆齐·卡黑尔整个夏天都在研究、指导 对开源哲学背后的态度进行采访和管理调查 创客运动，以及对知识产权的影响.

他们询问是什么激励创客去创造和分享，他们如何看待潜力 竞争对手可能会对他们使用专利，以及他们是否想要主张 intellectual property rights for their own inventions. They also pondered whether 知识产权法，其部分目的是保护，因此刺激 创新的工作，现在可能被用来扼杀自己动手的创新 outside of traditional businesses. Kahhale, a self-described tinkerer himself, enjoyed 看到创客的发明，看到这个运动如何“吸引人，也许。 revolutionary.他是一名国际研究专业的学生，正在考虑上法学院 暑期项目中最困难的部分是改进他们的调查措辞:“这很难 精心设计能给你想要的答案的问题."

如果创客们致力于知识共享生产模式的理想，那就会有所改善 在大规模、等级森严的组织运作上，他们还能成为 successful entrepreneurs? Mulligan and Kahhale are teasing out some good clues.

Humans have domesticated thousands of plant species but currently use only a few hundred. In the United States, just two or three big companies dominate the commercial seed market. But lately, nonprofit groups and communities 是否正在努力保护农业生物多样性和重新控制种子育种 and exchange. 他们由教员Nurcan Atalan-Helicke监视 in environmental studies.

她和16届的海伦·阿勒马耶胡·梅布雷特(Helen Alemayehu Mebrate)和15届的劳伦·博舍(Lauren Bosche)一起仔细研究目录 和网站，并采访种子供应商、育种者和非营利组织. They're studying 谁参与了种子交换网络，他们的关注点是什么 了解种子交换对农业和粮食系统的影响 例如，这样的网络真的能提高社区农业的恢复力吗 production in the face of droughts or pests?

第一个种子保存交换网络建立于1975年，今天已经有了 美国有超过340个种子库，但它们的影响仍然很小. Bosche felt 她说，她的研究也是如此，直到“我看到Nurcan在一次会议上发言， and I was inspired. 回到校园后，我对我们的工作有了更深刻的认识 to the larger debates." Focusing on a library in New York and a native-seed group 在亚利桑那州，博舍不仅喜欢收集事实，而且“努力去收集” 处理好那些不容易得到或没有说出口的东西."

研究人员的另一个重要课题是种子交换之间的联系 and the notion of food sovereignty. While food security is about access and sufficiency, 粮食主权是指社区决定自己选择种子的权利， food markets, and farm policies. Like seed exchanges, the food-sovereignty movement is spreading fast. For Mebrate, that growth is comforting; she was impressed by the 她和她的同事参加了大型会议，她说如果更多的人 learn about food systems, "hopefully we'll make better decisions."