Earlier this week The Discovery Channel handed out awards for its 2005 Discovery Young Scientist Challenge. Who took ‘America’s Top Young Scientist of the Year’ award? Meet Neela Thangada of San Antonio, TX. From Rediff.com:
Neela, of San Antonio, Texas, was adjudged ‘America’s Top Young Scientist of the Year’ — which carries a $20,000 scholarship – for her science project on plant cloning.…student of Keystone Junior High School, won the top prize for her science fair project titled ‘Effects of Various Nutrient Concentrations on the Cloning of the Eye of Solanum Tuberosum at Multiple Stages.’ Her skills of leadership, teamwork, scientific problem solving, critical thinking, and oral and written communication skills earned her the title of ‘America’s Top Young Scientist of the Year’, organisers say.
“I am very excited and happy to win this prize,” Neela told rediff India Abroad. “I did not expect to win, so it was a shock to me.” She said the contest is a great programme, which helps students get interested in science and take that interest to the next level. She plans to continue research at her high school, with the ultimate goal of becoming a professor of medicine.
Neela’s research was inspired by a biology textbook’s idea of a potato cloning experiment. She wanted to determine how different nutrient concentrations affected the multiple stages of growth in a potato. In her experiment, she removed 60 shoot tips from growing potatoes.
After sterilizing the tips, she excised the bottom two segments, and placed each in a test tube of half-strength or full-strength nutrient solution before incubating them.
Cloning? I don’t think they look favorably upon cloning in conservative Texas. It’s great to see that Indian parents are now allowing their kids aspire to be a professor of medicine and not just common doctors 
. Nine of the forty finalists were in fact of South Asian origin. Second place went to Nilesh Tripuraneni of Fresno, CA:
Nilesh had heard about hydrogen-powered cars but understood that producing hydrogen requires fossil fuels. He sought to find a more environmentally friendly approach through solar hydrogen production.
Nilesh built a solar-powered device that ran an electric current through a beaker full of saltwater. The result: electrolysis, by which water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. By clever manipulation of various gas laws, Nilesh measured the temperature, pressure, and volume of the hydrogen gas produced. He found that seawater produced almost as much hydrogen as solutions containing sulfuric acid or sodium hydroxide. [Link]
That there is an engineer in the making folks.
To conclude this week’s Science Friday I wanted to draw your attention to news reports of a study published in the Indian Journal Current Science.
SCIENTISTS in India say they have discovered two fossils fused together in sexual union for 65 million years.
It is the first time copulation has been discovered in a fossil state.
But voyeurs will need a microscope to view the eternal lovers.
The fossils are tiny swarm cells, a stage in the development of the fungus myxomycetes, also known as slime moulds. [Link]
Basically this is a very “ordinary” article about a fossilized slime mold. Can two cells fused together really be considered sex? There are countless examples of cell division in the fossil record. If you sex up a discovery however (pun intended), the media will jump all over it and put it out over the wire ahead of more groundbreaking work that doesn’t have “sex” in the title. This is an example of just how gullible the press and the public are about science. On the other hand, I now know how I want to go out. Yep, like that.
In other sepia science-related news, the NEJM (link may not work if you don’t have NEJM subscription) reported that India and the Indian subcontinent, from an absolute number perspective, contribute the highest number of immigrant physicians to the developed nations studied (US, UK, Canada & Australia). Big surprise, I know. But this “brain drain” is causing major issues in places like Subsaharan Africa, so the article is actually quite interesting.
Of course, after that article Abhi references in Current Science, I can see why scientists/phsycians would be so eager to work elsewhere. 😉
awwww. should’ve thought of that before the divorce, abhi-kins. 😉 fortunately for both of us, i’m not one of those draconian, “my ex- is dead to me!” types. 😀 i keed, i keed…
w00t team brown! mmm, yummy engineers in the making. heed my words, pre-teen sepia readers (if we have any) guitar-playing, pottery-throwing mathalete Nilesh is just adorable. and i’m almost certain hE d0esN’t tYpE lIkE tHiS.
Abhi,
I use Current Science for my proposals, etc on India. I have never published there but read their articles for Indian tectonics.
On one hand, Current Science enables grass-roots scientists in India publish without going through hazing of western counterparts, sometimes prejudices.
However, the standard of Current Science is very, very shoddy (somebody will definitely hate me for this).
I like Nilesh’s quote: “the sheer power and complexity of the Earth captivates me.”
Abhi,
Let me please clarify (as I am feeling guilty), most of the work in Current Science is work in progress, still in the burner (fast publication) or its equivalent here will be like Physics Review Letters, Geophysical Review Letters,…..you know all those letters type journals.
Even when Indian Scientists publish their major work, they take to like Journal of Geophysical Research, IEEE Journals, Nature, Science, etc. Some Indian Scientists in Inda, especially from PRL, Tata Institutes, IISc do world class work.
You have to keep that in context.
Not one, but TWO finalists named Nilesh. That’s it, if I ever have kids (a son), he’s gonna be named Nilesh.
Mini-Abhi?
i know this sounds nerdy..but back in 1988 the newsweek had the winners of the westinhouse science scholarship… (now it’s the intel thing i think..?!?), anyhow, the cover story were the winners and this guy named chaitan someone (it’s friday and i’m hella tired, can’t recall), won the entire thing..came from stuyvesant hs in nyc.. and a few others were indian as well…being in jr. high at the time, it was awesome to look up to..and inspire to work harder.. i still have that magazine somewhere in my parents house…
that gal will inspire others out there..brown, non brown, whatever.. it’s kinda cool..
sigh… a nerd wanna be.. never won the westinghouse..but heck.. other things came this beans way 😉
Compared to these kids, I was a complete moron in middle school… wait, compared to these kids today, I am still a complete moron. haha Serious, thats awesome, but seriously, how does some one of that age get into “Effects of Various Nutrient Concentrations on the Cloning of the Eye of Solanum Tuberosum at Multiple Stages”? Parents?
I did win a Physics Olympics competition in the state of MD my senior year in HS by building a catapult. 🙂
Unfortunately I was not nearly as handsome as this kid. A picture exists of me holding my trophy that even makes me cringe. No matter how much humanity evolves, science geeks will never get the loving they need. 🙂
But you grew up into Mutiny Abhi, so don’t feel bad 😉
remind me to cite this exact quote, the next time i hear a reader puling about “why couldn’t you two make it work?”
this engineering groupie is all about the lowe, and if you don’t know, now you KNOW. 😉 viva los geeks de sciencia!
That reminds me of a tongue-in-cheek article I read years ago:
Model Prisoners
Vikram,
Bah. Geeks are cutie patooties as kids, and hawt when they grow up!
(And I bet the lovin; those model prisoners are getting isn’t exactly model material.)
I know you science nerds love the numerical analysis, but when it comes to the lovin, it’s quality, not quantity, folks! 🙂
A good (in my opinion) book on the subject of the preception of engineers by society is “The Introspective Engineer” by Samuel Forman:
oh wow, you took it there! 😉
Was it Bill Gates who said something to the effect of ‘be kind to the nerds. You’ll work for us some day…’ Much lowe for nerds.
I seem to remember reading an excellent essay somewhere (dammit…synapses connect!) about how the trend of “the geeks shall inherit the earth” and “you’ll work for the nerds” stopped being true after the dot-com boom, and society reverted back into being run by the frat boys. Basically it was kind of a psychology article saying that the people that rise to the top in business aren’t the technically smartest, they’re the socially smartest/most confident/most attractive, and that this means nerds will always be workhorses and the jock will run the company, unless nerds suddenly develop the alpha male traits necessary to truly run the earth. What do you think?
anyone see the special ‘revenge of the nerds’ on pbs a few years ago..
really really interesting 😉
hey, napoleon dynamite made nerdy kinda cool… there was this great article in hmm.. which newspaper/magazine (i can’t keep tract) of how being a nerd is actually now cool in high school… ahh.. i missed that boat big time… hehe.. 😉
chick pea : – No way, I wish that being a nerd was vogue when I went to high school (Math club say what?!~)
ovaltine: i know.. i know.. let me tell you, academic decathlon, president of the scholastic club, and ehem… yearbook, newspaper editor, etc.. didn’t bode the ‘cool factor’ as it does now… my saving grace was being on the softball team.. hehe.. made me um… semi-cool?
p.s. love the name ovaltine.. the malt stuff is the bestest! ahh.. had some yesterday morning in fact… cheers!
p.p.s. the name of the guy on the cover of newsweek in 1988 who was my idol by nerd factor and brown was chetan nayak.. now a prof at ucla in some physics thingamajig.. 😉
see.. all comes full circle.. it always does!
geekifest destiny, if you ever stumble upon the essay again, please pass it on — I would love to take a look at it!
eeek!.
do tell us more about your high school transcript. oh, and perhaps you are “fair”, as well?
Wow ,Thats great.me proud to be a sepia mon.It is amazing to see the south asian obsession with medicine and medical education,soon the shade of the physician will be sepia.Folks did you see Neela’s ambition?”Professor of medicine”great and gutsy to have an ambition of becomin a teacher.Lady!you are goin to be the “rock star of medicine”.
9 south asians? All indians?