Articles by Tamar Levy

What Does the Typhus Vaccine Have to do With the Holocaust?

By Tamar Levy • Published: September 17, 2015 • Comment ()
1024px-Vaccine

This story is little known, yet the ramifications are truly astounding. It begins in 1942, in Buchenwald, a German concentration camp. German troops were dying of typhus, a disease brought about by lice, which terrified the Nazis. Thus, the Nazis attempted to create a vaccine, using the Jewish inmates as test subjects. On December 11, […]

The Butterfly Children

By Tamar Levy • Published: May 12, 2015 • Comment ()

Although there are many versions of the fairytale, “The Little Mermaid,” the one I grew up with claimed that after Ursula turned Ariel into a human, every step that Ariel took on dry land was one filled with pain. What if such a concept didn’t only exist in the fairytales, but was actually true? Jonathan […]

Fire: Friend of Fiend?

By Tamar Levy • Published: April 13, 2015 • Comment ()

Although I did not know the Sassoon family, I feel as if I would like to do my own small dedication in the memory of the children killed in this horrible tragedy. And so I will write in a way I can relate, using science. Fire: friend or fiend? The multifaceted nature of fire has […]

The Bionic Eye

By Tamar Levy • Published: March 13, 2015 • Comment ()

What if you woke up one day and couldn’t see? What if you were walking down the street and suddenly the world went dark? No longer could you see the green leaves on trees or the puffs of pollution from trucks driving by, a baby reaching for your hand, or a cashier giving you change. […]

Fearing No Fear

By Tamar Levy • Published: February 11, 2015 • Comment ()

President Franklin D. Roosevelt is quoted to have said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Perhaps for some, this quote would prove untrue and a correction should be made: “the only thing we have to fear is no fear.” Such is the case for patients with Urbach-Wiethe syndrome. This is a […]

The Gift of Aging

By Tamar Levy • Published: February 17, 2014 • Comment ()

The gift of growing old is one that few appreciate. Or more poignantly, “Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.” On January 10, 2014, at the age of 17, Sam Berns, a Massachusetts high school junior, passed away. At the age of 22 months, Sam Berns was diagnosed with Progeria […]

The Color of Mozart

By Tamar Levy • Published: December 16, 2013 • Comment ()

Neil Harbisson was born with achromatopsia, total colorblindness. For Harbisson, television still appears in black and white. Since the age of 21, he has been able to detect colors using his sense of hearing rather than sight with a prosthetic device he calls an “eyeborg.” This device allows him to hear the color spectrum, even […]

Holocaust Survivor Wins Nobel Prize in Physics

By Tamar Levy • Published: November 18, 2013 • Comment ()

On October 8, 2013, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences granted the Nobel Prize in Physics to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs for their theory on how particles obtain mass. Englert and Higgs were able to solidify their theory in 2012, with the discovery of the Higgs particle (Higgs boson), also called the God particle, […]