The Making of a Scientist

Richard Ebright

This is the story of a young and bright scientist named Richard H. Ebright.He grew up north of Reading, Pennsylvania.At the age of 24 he excited the scientific world with his theory of cells.As a child he collected rocks fossils and coins.

The Making of a Scientist

The role of his motherA great driving force in making of him as a scientist

Always encouraged him & developed his interest in learning

Took him on tripsBought him telescope, microscopes, cameras, mounting materials etc.

Got him the book ‘The Travels of Monarch X’ which opened a new world for him

He was her – (i) whole life after his father’s death, (ii) only companion

She would find work for him that will make him learn new things, if does not have any some day.

He liked it and wanted to learn too.

The role of his mother

By the time he was in second grade , he had collected all the twenty five species of the butterflies found around his home town in six weeks.

Early Childhood Talent

The book is about how butterflies migrate to Central America.

It was written by Dr. Frederick Urquhart of the University of Toronto, Canada.

Readers were invited to help study butterfly migration.

He also asked readers to tag them for research.

This book opened a world of science to this young collector.

The Travels of Monarch X

But it was impossible to catch so many of them in six weeks.

So he started raising a flock of butterflies in the basement of his house.

He would catch a female monarch, take her eggs and raise them. (Life Cycle)

But as he didn’t get much feedback he started losing interest in it.

The Travels of Monarch X

When he was in the seventh grade, he participated in a science fair and lost.

Here he gets a hint of what real science is. He learns that science is not a neat display of something but doing real experiments.

He had just shown slides of frog tissues.

Experience in the Science Fair

He wrote to Dr. Urquhart for ideas and got many suggestions for experiments.

He kept on working on them throughout his high school which led him to many prize projects on national & international levels.

In eighth class he found out the cause of a viral disease that killed all monarch caterpillars. He raised them in presence of beetles.

Further Achievements

They are the food of birds.Viceroys taste good whereas monarchs do not taste good for birds.

The viceroys look like monarchs because they want to trick the birds and save themselves.

This project was placed first in the zoology division.

Why viceroy butterflies copy monarchs

He tried to find out the purpose of the twelve tiny gold spots on a monarch pupa.

Earlier it was assumed that they were just ornamental.

But later Ebright , along with his fellow students, showed that the spots were producing a hormone necessary for their full development.

It gave him entry in the International Science & Engineering Fair

His theory on the life of cells

In his senior year, he grew cells from a monarch’s wings in a culture and showed that the cells would divide and develop into normal butterfly wing scales only if they were fed the hormones from the gold spots.

This project won him the first place for zoology at the international fair.

Further Achievements

He studied the photos of the chemical structure of a hormone in the X-ray.

This photo solved his doubt on DNA.

He determined that the DNA is the substance in the nucleus that controls heredity.

So DNA was established to be the blueprint for life.

X-ray photos of chemical structure of a hormone

Richard Ebright became a scientist because he had a driving curiosity along with a bright mind.

He started his journey from collecting the butterflies.

This led him to discover the theory of life cells.

He was not just interested in science.

He took interest in other activities too.

The Making of a Scientist

There art many qualities that go into making of a scientist.

He was curious, dedicative and hardworking.

He was competitive but not in a bad sense.

He had a will to win.He was intelligent and worked for the right reasons.

He didn’t run after prizes.

The Making of a Scientist

PRESENTED BY

N K F THAKUR

TGT ENGLISH

JNV HOSHANGABAD (MP)