Competition Judges Needed
Anyone with relevant knowledge or skills is encouraged to sign up to judge Sigma Xi's Student Research Showcase (SRS), an online science communication competition in which students compete for awards and recognition of outstanding virtual research presentations. The competition is open to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students and most worldwide research disciplines (学科) are represented across the following categories.
• agriculture, soil, and natural resources
• cell biology and biochemistry
• human behavioral and social sciences
• math and computer science
• physics and astronomy
Information for Judges
Professional researchers and science communicators from the above-listed disciplines are needed to evaluate and interact with contestants by posting comments and questions on presentation websites. Each judge assesses up to 10 websites where students submit their presentations containing mainly a research abstract and a slide presentation. Sigma Xi membership is preferred, but not required, to judge. Judging takes place from April 26 to May 10, 2022, allowing flexibility with each judge's personal schedule as no travel is required.
Click here to download the SRS Judges Manual for more information and judging criteria.
Information for General visitors
General visitors to the presentation websites can also watch the personal videos of the presenters and vote for the People's Choice Award winner, who will receive a prize money of up to $ 250. Visitors of general science background can also read the abstracts and comment in the discussion forums. Locate the link on the site that most likely appears as comments & reactions.
Visit //sigmaxishowcase.tumblr.com/ for a sample Student Showcase presentation site.
A mild-mannered cat by day, at night Rusty was just the opposite. Often, Bill and I would lie in bed quarreling over whether we should let it out to wander in the dark or put up with another sleepless night. So, instead, we lay in the dark each noisy night and wondered what damage Rusty would do. And always in the morning, if I had forgotten to put the butter in the cupboard, there were marks from a rough, little tongue and once even a paw print.
Something had to give. Bill looked at me straight in the eyes, "Do it." My reservations were such, however, that it took me several weeks and the loss of nearly a pound of butter to decide we didn't have much choice.
That night, I put Rusty on his cat bed and patted him a little guiltily on the head. Then I began filling the kitchen sink with about two inches of water. Rusty loved jumping into a damp sink and then tracking water all over the cupboards and across the kitchen floor. According to the article I saved from a website to my folder, cats used to jumping into your sink, but they won't do it again if they jump in and find a couple of inches of water.
Next, I cleared the cupboards of everything. Then I got out all my metal cookie sheets and a fork to go with each. According to the article, you should support a cookie sheet with a fork. When your cat jumps on the counter, he will knock down the insecurely balanced cookie sheets. What happens next will stop him from doing it a second time.
Everything in place, I slipped onto our bed quietly, waiting. Suddenly, there came an awfully loud noise of metal. A chain reaction of crashes next. Finally, Rusty rounded the corner in the hall heavily and leaped through our doorway onto the foot of our bed, trembling under our cover. And that was the night Rusty, the Midnight Troublemaker, retired.
On Monday, December 5, online retailing (零售) giant Amazon announced the opening of its first physical store. Called Amazon Go, the Seattle-based store that is currently being tested by company employees, learns from regular grocery stores except for one thing — "Just Walk Out" technology. All purchases are handled electronically, which means there are no cashiers, checkouts or lines. Shoppers simply take what they need and leave.
To shop at Amazon Go, customers need to open an Amazon account and download the store's App onto their smartphones. Upon entering the store, they scan a QR code (二维码) with their phones and begin shopping. Every item picked up gets added to the bill automatically. If the customer changes his/her mind, all he/she has to do is return the purchase back on the shelf, and it will be removed from the final bill. Once the customer leaves the store, the amount spent is automatically taken out from the Amazon account and a digital receipt is generated to remind the shopper of the trade.
To provide busy customers a pleasant shopping experience, Amazon, which has been working on this concept for four years, plans to keep the store size at a "comfortable" 1,800 square feet. In addition to typical grocery products like bread and milk, the store will stock ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch and dinner options, made by on-site chefs. There will also be chef-designed Amazon Meal boxes for those who prefer to cook the food at home.
After years of joint efforts by Amazon staff, Amazon Go finally opened in 2021. Amazon will not provide any insight into the cutting-edge "Just Walk Out" technology. The company website states, "The checkout-free shopping experience is enabled by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning."
Sleeping with a dim light like a television or nightlight is enough to the raise blood sugar and heart rates of healthy people, according to a new study. Light helps our body maintain an internal clock, but artificial light at night can interrupt the rest and repair that should happen during the sleep. New research suggests that even when our eyes are closed, a small amount of light can disrupt the way our bodies normally keep our blood sugar within a healthy range.
In the study published in Sciences on Monday, scientists asked 20 participants ages 19 to 36 to spend two nights in their lab. On the first night of sleep, the volunteers slept in a very dark room. For their second night of sleep, half of the group snoozed with a small light like the glow of television at night, or streetlights through a window—and half spent their second night in a dark room.
During the trial, all participants were connected to devices that measured different markers of their sleep quality. They were each connected via a special tube, allowing researchers to collect samples without waking the individual. Researchers also recorded participants' heart rates and brain waves.
When the volunteers awoke in the morning, the team tested their blood sugar and found that participants that slept in rooms with a dim light spent less time in deep sleep. In addition to having slightly worse blood sugar control, the group exposed to dim light had a higher heart rate on average. "By comparison, those that spend two nights in the dark room had little difference in their blood sugar control. They thought they slept well, but your brain knows that the lights are on," says Zee, "you should clearly pay attention to the light in your bedroom. If you can't give up your night light, keep it dim and at floor level."
Earlier work has linked exposure to light during sleep to an increased risk of obesity in women. Zee recommends, "make sure that you start dimming your lights at least an hour or two before you go to bed to prepare your environment for sleep."
Digital Technology is the major engine of modern life. It provides us with our means of communication, entertainment, and social lives. The last few years especially have shown how important digital technology is to our lives, as the pandemic forced us to move online. Everywhere, there are many apps that claim to help people find happiness: heart-rate trackers, exercise apps, sleep apps, etc.
Actually, there are three things you can do to ensure that your digital technology tools are helpful. Firstly, be certain that the app is designed in such a way that it serves your purposes and not the company's purpose. Some apps will overwhelm you with notifications (通知) and data. After all, you never want to feel bad about an app which always tells you what you should or should not do.
Before downloading an app that claims to make your life better, do a quick Google search and read up on the science behind it. Sometimes app designers start with the best intentions, but then get too invested in the engineering and details and lose sight of the science that they are basing themselves on.
Finally, make sure you try out the app before you use it. Read the fine print and inform yourself regarding return policies and trial periods when you download a new app. Don't use an app that isn't right for you.
Digital Technology may help, but you still need to go outside to take a walk, and do something to make someone else happy. Use the tools that are helpful to you, digital or otherwise, and find your way.
A. Not every app is right for every person.
B. You may find these notifications useful.
C. How can we know which ones are truly helpful?
D. That could be more harmful to your mental health than helpful.
E. Remember, the pursuit of happiness doesn't have only one path.
F. In addition, make sure that the science behind the app is good science.
G. Can we rely on digital technology around us to become happier people?
Eradajere Oleita thinks she may have got something about the 1 to two of her country's problems: garbage and poverty. It is called the Chip (薯片) Bag Project. The 26-year-old student and environmentalist is asking a 2 of local snack lovers: Rather than throw empty chip bags into garbage cans, 3 them so she can turn them into sleeping bags for the 4.
Chip eaters 5 their empty bags at two locations in Detroit: a print shop and a clothing store, where Oleita and her volunteer helpers 6 them. After they disinfect (消毒) the chip bags in soapy hot water, they slice them open, 7 them flat, and iron them together. Then they use cotton and liners (衬层) from old coats to line the insides. It takes about four hours to 8 a sleeping bag, and each takes around 150 to 300 chip bags, 9 on whether they're single-serve or family size.
Since its start in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has 10 110 sleeping bags. Sure, it would be 11 to raise the money to buy new sleeping bags. However, that's only half the 12 for Oleita. "We aim to make a (an) 13 not only socially, but environmentally," said Oleita. "It is worth 14 chip bags and using them to help the homeless. 15, they would land in the garbage.
Vertical gardening isn't new, but an example from India shows how this inventive technique is (true) changing lives.
The Mehra family from Amritsar were locally hot news last June when they showed off the vertical garden they had created at their home. The family used over 175, 000 plastic bottles to create garden, fixing the bottles to the outside walls of their home and filling them with (variety) of plants. The plants are irrigated by (use) a simple drip system (滴灌系统) and amazingly, this (lower) the temperature of their home by nearly a cool five degrees Celsius so far.
The idea caught on quickly. Many local schools now have green vertical gardens on their walls, so does Punjab Agriculture University, and even Ludhiana railway station, the first station in India (adopt) this initiative. The railway notes that the plants not only cool the station, but also help absorb the noise, and seem to have a calming and anti-littering effect travelers. Moreover, every vertical garden created this way is recycling plastic which would otherwise be a pollutant, actively reducing local (pollute).
On a hot September afternoon, Peter and his friend Isabel were on their way to the library. When they passed by Tubman park, Isabel suggested cutting through it to get to the library. As they entered the park, the sight of the swings and the merry-go-round brought back a flood of memories of their childhood spent there. But now everything looked so old, sad, and dirty. Litter lay on the ground next to an overflowing trash bin. There were still young schoolchildren playing there but they had to avoid the trash that littered the playground. A little boy told them that the city took the other trash cans away and the remaining one never got emptied often.
As they headed toward the library, the two high school students wrinkled their forehead. In the library, they encountered Mrs. Evans, their kind-hearted fifth-grade teacher, retired yet still passionate. Mrs. Evans listened as Isabel and Peter eagerly explained what they'd seen. Finally, she recommended them to go to the City Hall to voice their concerns.
The next day, Isabel and Peter went into the building of the City Hall but were met with an impatient officer. They were informed that the city couldn't help with their problem due to a tight budget. Discouraged, they left and turned to Mrs. Evans for help.
Under her guidance, they decided to ask Go Green, a non-profit organization whose goal is to protect the environment, for help. "This group is good at raising money for projects just like yours," said Mrs. Evans. She promised to arrange them to present their ideas to Go Green. Hearing this, their face lit up.
Two main tasks remained ahead: researching ways to clean up the park and preparing a convincing presentation. As Isabel was good at researching while Peter always had a talent for speaking, they cooperated quite well. Isabel learned from a science magazine that a new type of trash bin can squeeze the trash down without being emptied often, which saves time, money, and energy. Based on this, Peter practiced his presentation over and over again.
注意：
1）所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2）续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:
A week later, Peter stood nervously at the back of the hall where Go Green was meeting.
Paragraph 2:
After the meeting, Isabel excitedly told Peter the good news.
