According to news on November 25, Beijing time, the American "Discover" magazine recently selected the 20 smartest scientists under the age of 40 in the United States. They are regarded as geniuses in their respective research fields and have achieved fruitful results. These young talents have also won numerous awards for their research achievements in various aspects. The following are these 20 young talents:

1. Terence Tao

Tao Zhexuan

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) mathematician

Among the great mathematicians of our time, many may have scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT. But Terence Tao scored a high score of 760 when he was 8 years old, showing his talent for mathematics at a young age. Twenty-five years have passed, and the 33-year-old Terence Tao has now become one of the most prolific and respected mathematicians in the United States. In 1999, 24-year-old Terence Tao became the youngest professor in the history of the University of California, Los Angeles. He later won the Fields Medal, which is awarded to outstanding mathematicians under the age of 40. This award is known as the "Fields Medal" in mathematics. The Nobel Prize of the World”.

In a subject where some people may spend their whole lives studying a certain problem, Terence Tao has made important contributions in many aspects, from nonlinear equations to number theory, which explains to a certain extent why his colleagues still Looking to gain His guidance. Charles Fefferman, a mathematician at Princeton University, spoke highly of Terence Tao: "Among every generation of mathematicians, only a very few are among the top. He is one of them." Fefferman himself is also a mathematical genius.

Tao Zhexuan's most famous research involves the form of prime numbers or prime numbers. The so-called prime number or prime number is a positive integer that does not have any other factors except itself and 1. Although Terence Tao focused primarily on theoretical research, his groundbreaking research in compressed sensing allowed engineers to develop more sophisticated, more sophisticated devices for MRI, astronomical instruments, and digital cameras. Effective imaging techniques.

Tao Zhexuan said: "Scientific research is sometimes like a TV series that is being broadcast. Some interesting plots may have been clarified, but there are still many exciting and unresolved plots to be solved. You go and dig. But scientific research is different from TV series. We have to figure out what will happen next. "Tao Zhexuan said that he likes to challenge some difficult mysteries, and the only way to climb this peak is to overcome relative difficulties. Smaller, more manageable problems: “If there’s something that I know how to handle but can’t, I get very distressed. I feel like I have to quiet down and calmly explore the problem.”

2. Jeffrey Bode

Organic chemist at the University of Pennsylvania

34-year-old Jeffrey Bode said that organic chemistry There aren't many ways to stitch together structurally complex molecules. In his research, Byrd has discovered a new method that may facilitate the production of peptide-based drugs, such as insulin and human growth hormone, which are generally expensive. Many organic chemists had thought that the well-established method for making these proteins—adding individual amino acids like beads on a chain—worked well. "These methods are really good, but only if you're going to make relatively short proteins, or you want to make very small amounts of them," Bird said.

As the chains get longer, if a single bead Without being concatenated into a "peptide chain", it is even more difficult to distinguish these incorrect sequences from the correct ones. To improve on this, Bird discovered a new chemical reaction that creates an amide bond (the reaction between an alpha-keto acid and a hydroxylamine), which he used to link small, easily synthesized peptides. (chain of amino acids), into longer peptides.

Bird points out that in organic chemistry, "it's possible to come up with better and more efficient methods than we currently have."

3. Katey Walter

Kay Katey Walter

Ecologist at the University of Alaska

To further explore the impact of greenhouse gases on local ecology and global climate, 32-year-old Katey Walter continues to pursue research from Methane seeping from Arctic lakes. As temperatures rise, the arctic permafrost thaws and ice water flows into the lake. Bacteria in the lake have traditionally fed on carbon-rich materials (animal remains, food and pre-ice age debris) while producing methane - a "heat trap" 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Increased methane leads to warmer temperatures, thus accelerating the thawing of permafrost zones.

"This means that if you open the refrigerator door, everything inside will melt," said Walter. Walter and his colleagues are cataloging the carbon contents of Arctic "freezers" in Alaska and eastern Siberia in an attempt to Find out how much of the ice will be converted to methane as it melts. In 2006, Walter's research team found that the Arctic was producing nearly five times the amount of methane that scientists had previously reported.

4. Amy Wagers

Stem cell biologist at Harvard University Stem Cell Institute

In 1999, Amy Wagers While earning her doctorate in immunology, Si received a call from the National Marrow Donor Program Registry. Years ago, Wagos volunteered to donate bone marrow, and now someone needs it. Inspired by this incident, Wei Gesi developed bone marrow stem cells and took adult stem cells as his postdoctoral research topic. Today, the 35-year-old Wiegos is one of the most renowned scientists in the field of adult stem cells, the cells that make blood and muscles. Her research involves isolating these cell populations, discovering how the body regulates them, and understanding how these cells can be used to treat disease.

Wegos is now determining how blood cells move between the blood and bone marrow and how they reproduce. This work may improve the survival rate of transplanted cells, thereby helping to improve the efficiency of bone marrow transplants. This summer, Wiegos published the results of a new study that showed that after transplanting muscle stem cells into mice with muscular dystrophy, the mice's muscle function improved. "They immediately began to generate new muscle fibers," Waegos said. "Although there is still a long way to go before these findings can be translated into humans, the results are very encouraging."

5. Joseph Teran

Joseph Teran

UCLA Mathematician

We can imagine such a scenario : Before you have surgery, the doctor has not only performed the surgery hundreds of times before, but has also practiced it on a replica of you. Mathematician Joseph Trang, 31, is helping to turn that dream into a reality, using mathematical models to simulate surgeries involving a patient's tendons, muscles, fat and skin. "We've been using mathematical equations to model the workings of those tissues," Trump said.

The first step is to turn those equations into a standard "digital human body" that can respond in real time to The surgeon's virtual operation reacts. Next, Trang's idea is to have doctors customize the tool. In the future, medical imaging technologies such as CT and MRI will reveal that a patient's tendons are harder than the average person's, so doctors can adjust the "digital double" accordingly. "You probably want it to be as close to a real experience as possible," Truang said.

6. Jack Harris

Applied physicist at Yale University

Quantum mechanics describes a crazy microscopic world in which particles move at lightning and thunder speeds, often violating the laws of classical physics we take for granted.

Jack Harris' goal is to harness "strange, even enigmatic" microscopic laws and use them to solve problems we encounter in the microscopic world. He said, "The ultimate 'Eureka moment' will be the sudden discovery of a microscopic object doing something that is absolutely unimaginable in classical physics."

Harris, 36, is currently studying The negligible pressure produced by individual photons (electromagnetic particles) as they bounce off small moving mirrors. We can give a vivid example to feel the magnitude of these pressures: on a sunny day, the sun's rays will push your body with a force of one millionth of a pound, and we certainly cannot feel this force. Harris hopes to make full use of the properties of photons to eventually enable indestructible cryptographic systems and ultra-sensitive astronomical instruments to detect the invisible phenomena that formed moments after the Big Bang.

7. Sarkis Mazmanian

California Institute of Technology biologist

In 100 parasites of the human digestive tract Among the trillions of bacteria, some pathogens can induce disease and vicious immune responses, while others have immune systems that protect their hosts. Sarkis Mazmaniya, 35, is committed to research on how beneficial bacteria can enhance human health. “They don’t care about us at all, except to see if we can provide them with a stable, nutrient-rich environment,” says Mazmanian, who sees this symbolic relationship between the human body and its microbes as therapy. A gold mine of potential treatments for numerous diseases.

Mazmanian believes that the interaction between the human body and intestinal bacteria is crucial, for example, to understand how the body's abnormal immune response to these microorganisms can further the development of colon cancer. “The potential for beneficial bacteria seems to be limitless,” Mazmanian said. He added that the philosophy underpinning his research is that “in nature, anything is possible. So, I am willing to pursue any possibility of scientific questions.” "

8. Doug Natelson

Condensed matter physicist at Rice University

37 years old. Doug Knightson is the Benjamin Franklin of microscopy. He studies the properties of electrons at the atomic level. The agreement between classical physics and quantum physics at the atomic level makes the study of electronic properties even more important. Knightson's research includes complex electron flow through single-molecule transistors and the deliberate replacement of silicon transistors in electronic devices with organic semiconductors-carbon-based materials. This nascent technology promises to make the dream of building thin, flexible organic electronic devices a reality.

Unlike those who devoted their main energy to fields of physics such as super particle accelerators and supermassive black holes, Knightson preached the gospel of condensed matter and nanotechnology. Share his happiness with everyone in the blog. He said: "Deeply in my heart, I consider myself an experimentalist, and I am playing with these new and strange toys. It is quite interesting to do this level of physics research."

9. Michael· Michael Elowitz

Molecular biologist at California Institute of Technology

Michael Elowitz, 38, designed a genetic circuit in 2000 ), causing E. coli to sparkle in a petri dish. It was a great moment, he said, and in retrospect, those cells behaved like fluorescent Christmas lights. But the experiment, which brought everyone good luck, ultimately failed. Although these cells sparkle, they don't glow with the same intensity. This variability among cells that contain identical programs prompted Ilovicz to conduct a whole new series of experiments, which, he said, looked at “what prompts different cells to do different things.

Now Ilowicz is studying the mechanisms by which genetically identical cells exploit and control random fluctuations in their biochemical molecules to generate cellular diversity. Ilowicz "Understanding the role of 'chaotic' fluctuations will help us understand how surviving bacteria can diversify and how single-celled organisms can become multi-cellular organisms," Weisz said. ”

10. Changhuei Yang

Electrical Engineering and Bioengineer, California Institute of Technology

As the performance of microscopes continues to improve, their size and cost Also increasing, the size and cost of microscopes have a direct impact on research, said 36-year-old Yang Changhui: “There is no tacit agreement between the functions of microscopes and basic needs. "Yang Changhui has made a cheaper miniature microscope by combining chip technology with microfluidic technology. He said that this microscope is about as big as a bumblebee's body hair and has a circuit that is only as big as a dime. It has no optical lenses. It works by passing a small amount of liquid through a microchip, which takes images of the sample and transmits them to a computer.

The microscope can be mounted on a small handheld monitor. The display is about the same size as an iPod, and Yang envisions it being used by doctors in developing countries to test patients' blood or check local water supplies. A durable tool that doctors can carry around in their pockets. ”

11. Adam Riess

Adam Riess

Johns Hopkins, USA University astrophysicist

After leading an astronomy research team to discover the fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, scientists began to turn their attention to the field of astronomy. Since 1929, scientists have believed that the universe is expanding. Until 1998, scientists believed Earth's gravity would gradually stop the expansion of the universe. But when Reese, 38, tried to solidify this theory using data he had collected from observing distant star explosions, A few days later he showed that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate, suggesting that a mysterious dark energy exerted a powerful repulsion that overcame gravity. The expansion of the universe continues to accelerate. This dark energy accounts for 72% of the total energy of the universe. "It's like throwing a ball upwards in the air. It keeps rising." "In September he received a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship, and now he plans to use the money to unravel the mystery of this mysterious dark energy and its impact on the universe.

12. Nicole· Nicole King

University of California, Berkeley, molecular cell biologist

38-year-old Nicole King is now looking for ways in which single-celled organisms can transform into plants, fungi, and more. Answers to the evolution of cellular animals and other types of life. Looking for clues, she focused on choanoflagellates—a group of single-celled eukaryotes considered the closest living organisms to animals. p>

While sequencing the chromosomes of one of these organisms, Kim and her colleagues discovered the genetic code for the same protein fragments used to "bundle" information between animal cells with the cells. "It was surprising to find something like this in this organism," Kim hypothesized. "These single-celled ancestors had proteins that interacted with the environment outside the cell, preying on bacteria and detecting chemical signals by gluing the cell surfaces together." , which later allowed the cells to stick together and communicate with each other, said King, who said explaining the origin of multicellular bodies is key to understanding the origins of animals, commenting that her study "looks back much further than our family tree." and other primates have ancestors whose genealogies are much older.

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13. Luis von Ahn

Computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University

30-year-old Luis von Ahn Von Ahn has already made minor achievements in various online fields. In 2000, von Ahn helped develop this anti-spamming technology, known as verification. Code (CAPTCHA). The reason why the verification code works is that the computer cannot answer the questions raised by the verification code. Von Ahn's ultimate goal is not to deceive the computer. He hopes to use human beings' unique intelligence to eliminate the problem of computers. Flaws in accomplishing some important tasks.

One way to close this intelligence gap is to use CAPTCHAs to exploit the roughly 18 million computer users—perhaps all ticket buyers—in Home page typing information scans the text so that it can be digitized by computers. Researchers hope to fully digitize New York Times archives from the 1950s onwards by next year. "I don't think we're going to scratch the surface of what we're doing," he said. ”

14. Tapio Schneider

Caltech Environmental Scientist

The complex relationship between atmospheric turbulence and heat exchange effects Tapeo Schneider, 36, has developed computer simulations to better understand how the interaction between the two affects climate. Conceptually, I don't want to create a microclimate for myself in the lab, but we can't create a global climate in the lab, so using computer simulations is the best second option. ”

In a project under development, he recently used an Earth simulation to show that monsoons can form over shallow water such as swamps. Halley’s traditional monsoon model fails to fully represent global Monsoon conditions. Not much is known about the constant movement of water vapor through the climate system, Schneider said. “This is one of a series of questions that I will be studying for many years. Schneider's aim was to develop a set of fundamental physical laws for climate. "The laws of thermodynamics provide a macroscopic description of microscopic behavior," he said. I wish a similar law could be formulated for climate. ”

15. Sara Seager

Sara Seager

MIT Astrophysics Scientist

In the late 1990s, the scientific community raised questions of one kind or another about the existence of exoplanets. At the time, 36-year-old Sarah Siegel made a bold prediction that these planets would pass in front of stars. Distant, shining objects are poised to become the next frontier for astronomers, and Siegel's bet paid off when her theoretical model of the chemical properties of exoplanets helped researchers predict the atmosphere of a distant world for the first time. Making measurements. Siegel believes we will discover Earth's "distant relatives" in the next few years, but her ultimate goal is to go beyond that.

What I really want to do is to determine for sure. What types of gases might be produced by extraterrestrial life? These gases will build up in the atmosphere and potentially be detected from extreme distances. As a step in this direction, Siegel is looking for non-oxygen "signatures" that Earth-like life might have left behind, such as hydrogen sulfide. Siegel spent her childhood in Canada, where her father always It is to develop her creativity with a variety of ideas, she said: "Love of fantasy is a crucial habit, and it is this habit that makes me a good scientist.

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16. Jon Kleinberg

Jon Kleinberg

Cornell Computer scientist at Baltimore University

In the mid-1990s, searching for "Discover Magazine" on the Internet meant that you had to struggle to find the answer you needed among thousands of chaotically sorted results. In 1996, 24-year-old Jon Kleinberg developed an algorithm that revolutionized web search. To this day, if you type "Discover" into the search box, you will get the first result. The first search result is the magazine's homepage, which is entirely due to Kleinberg, 37, who created the topic search algorithm HITS based on hyperlink analysis. Content quality and whether it is recommended by other web pages) and hub (whether it is connected to excellent web pages) evaluate the value of web pages.

Kleinberg continues to combine computer science, data analysis and society. According to his vision, whether we will see information increase over time as it travels through space—what he calls geographical hotspots on the Internet—depends on his vision. Interest in a particular area. Our social network connections and friendships can rely on these geographic hotspots, making it easier to search "by typing in a person's name or a time."

17. Edward Boyden

MIT Media Lab Neural Engineer

Some certain types of bacteria and algae have properties that allow them to convert light Genes that generate electricity. Edward Boyden, 29, has inserted one of these genes into nerve cells to make them respond in a similar way. "If we shine light on these cells, we can activate them," he said. Based on similar genetically engineered nerve cells, Boyden is using engineering techniques to develop brain implants that can be stimulated with pulses of light. He hopes such implants can help control diseases such as Parkinson's disease, which sometimes , doctors use implanted stimulators that generate electrical current to treat Parkinson’s disease, Boyden said: “Light can do a lot of things that a simple electrical stimulator can’t do. "Using this technique, researchers can selectively make their genetically modified nerve cells respond. By implanting an optic that emits different types of light, researchers can have more precise control over neural circuits.

18. Richard Bonneau

New York University systems biologist

33-year-old Richard Bonneau said that cells It would be great to record the various parts obtained after dissection one by one, but the real "holy grail" for biologists is to understand how each part controls and controls the function of other parts. "You may know that A is related to B, but this is not the case. It doesn’t paint a complete picture of the entire system; you don’t know how the parts interact with each other. I want to put arrows on these lines to show these effects. ”

By tracking the activity of nearly all the genes in a free-living archaea—a prokaryotic organism, like bacteria—Bonnu recently pieced the pieces together to understand how the genes influence their expression. , which then allowed him to map the "control circuit" of this organic life like a research machine. In the process, he discovered something surprising: this archaea did not react to external stimuli such as light and toxic chemicals. Completely different reactions, "it uses the same integrator to process these environmental stimuli, so there is not an infinite number of reactions taking place." He noted that understanding the limited range of microbial behavior could provide huge insights into the use of genetic engineering to develop drugs and biofuels. help.

19. Shawn Frayne

Inventor of Humdinger Wind Energy Company

The 27-year-old Shawn Frayne knows How to create simple and practical technological solutions that can make a real difference in the lives of people in developing countries. He is part of a group working on using sugarcane-based charcoal as a cheap cooking fuel, and his solar-powered sterilizing plastic bags can purify water and turn it into drinkable water. In contrast, the Windbelt designed by Vrana may have the greatest impact.

His design was inspired by the dynamic principles used in the collapsed Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. After 4 years of hard work, he finally designed the world's first wind turbine without turbines. . When wind blows, a plain fabric sheet covered with polyester film vibrates rapidly, driving magnets installed between coils at both ends to generate electricity. In developing countries, "wind belts" only need to generate 10 watts of electricity to light a room all night long, eliminating the need for expensive and dangerous kerosene lamps.

By selling the intellectual property rights to his inventions to large companies, Vrana hopes to raise more money for creative programs in developing countries. He said: "Developing countries face the greatest challenges. I think that most of the inventions and innovations in my lifetime will become a reality in developing countries. If it were any other region, I would go crazy."

20. Jonathan Pritchard

Geneticist, University of Chicago/Howard Hughes Medical Institute

It is easy to think that evolution occurs in numbers That happened millions of years ago, but 37-year-old Jonathan Pritchard has shown that we have actually been adapting to our environment in real time, simply saying evolution never stops. Using a statistical model that tracks genetic variation that spreads rapidly through a population, Pritchard and colleagues identified hundreds of regions of the genome that have recently been mutated by natural selection. He said: "If a new variant appears and becomes popular in a defined population, natural selection will quickly increase the frequency of this allele variant. Most of the time, the difference in variant frequency between populations is small, and if it occurs With large frequency differences, they naturally appear very prominent."