John Ebright easily
found out that to avoid being eaten by birds, the viceroys try to look like the
monarchs. The project was to check out whether birds would eat monarchs. John
Ebright easily found out that a starling would eat all the monarchs that he
could get. The project was placed first in the zoological division and overall
third in the county Science fair.
After that Richard
Ebright began research that led him to discover an unknown insect hormone. It
was discovered that indirectly it made him propound a new theory on the life of
cells. Ebright tried to answer a simple question about why there are tiny gold spots on
a monarch pupa. It was commonly believed that twelve spots on a monarch pupa
were ornamental.
Now, the task in front of Ebright and an
excellent science student was to build up a device that would show that the
spots were providing a necessary hormone that was helping the butterfly’s full
development.
This project won Ebright first place in
the country fair and it opened his way to enter the International Science and
Engineering Fair. He won third place for zoology at that fair. He was
allowed to work at the entomology Laboratory of the Walter Reed Army Institute
of Research. He continued his advanced research work on the monarch pupa. His
progress won first place at the International Science Fair that very year.
It provided him
another opportunity to work in the army laboratory during the summer.
After that, Ebright
took a step further. He grew cells from a monarch’s wing in a culture. He
showed that if the monarchs are fed the hormone from the gold spots, their
cells would divide and develop into normal butterfly wing scales. That project
won him first place in Zoology at the International fair. He continued
his work at the laboratory of the Us Department of Agriculture. The next
summer, Ebright was able to identify the hormone's chemical structure by using sophisticated instruments at the laboratory of the Department of Agriculture.
Later on, after one and a half years, while looking at X-ray pictures of a
hormone chemical structure, he got an idea for his new theory about cell life.
Ebright got a reply to one of the most puzzling questions ‘how the cell can
read the blueprint of its DNA’.
DNA is a substance
that’s found in the center of a cell that controls heredity. He called DNA
the blueprint of life.
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Later, Ebright and
his college roommate wrote a paper explaining the theory Ebright began doing
experiments to test the theory. He thought that if he proved his point, it
would be a giant step towards understanding the process of life. It might also
be possible for finding out some medicine to treat cancer and some other
diseases. Although Ebright had a very keen interest in science the day he started
collecting butterflies, he spared time for becoming a Champion debater,
public speaker, and a good canoeist.
He was an expert
photographer, especially of nature and scientific exhibits. Mr. Weihere was a sole
model for him and he was the person that opened up the way to new ideas.
He would always give three or four hours at night
doing debate research in addition to doing all his research on butterflies and
his other interests. He always fully utilized his capacity to the optimum to
bring his bent out of himself. Ebright had that quality in him and it made
him a scientist.
The making of a
scientist required a first-rate mind, curiosity, and the will to win for the
right reasons. Thus Ebright’s book ‘The Travels of Monarch X’ opened the world
of science for him. Written
by Robert. W Peterson
