andoverscienceandtechreview

27Sep

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Technology

ChatGPT vs. DeepSeek: The Struggle For Dominance Between Global AI Contenders

By Manalee Chowdhury ’28 Over the past couple years, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become synonymous with cutting-edge large language models (LLMs), revolutionizing how we write, code, and solve problems. Its ability to generate contextually relevant text, compose creative writing pieces , and assist in coding has made it an indispensable tool across various industries. However, in early 2025, DeepSeek, a Chinese-developed AI model, emerged as a formidable challenger to ChatGPT’s dominance. While DeepSeek was trained with less data, it has rapidly become a strong global AI contender, leading to a wave of comparisons between the two. Beyond the technical rivalry, DeepSeek’s rise carries profound geopolitical implications. Unlike ChatGPT, which benefits from access to the most a...

26Sep

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Physics

A Preview of BIO460: Thinking about Conservation Biology Beyond the Classroom

By Ian M. Kim '28 In a society where the effects of climate change influence many conscious choices made in daily life, some students at Andover are at the forefront of biological conservation here at PA and the surrounding communities. In the fall of the 2025-2026 school year, Phillips Academy offered BIO460, an interdisciplinary course on conservation biology. Students target biology and conservation from social, economic, and historical perspectives, while putting an emphasis on hands-on experience and being outdoors to engage with the local Andover community. Dr. Catherine Kemp teaches BIO460 as well as BIO500 (an advanced biology course open for upperclassmen) and BIO600 (an independent research course open for seniors). She explained how many of her interests and passions led h...

26Sep

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Astronomy

Your Mind is the Map: What Polynesian Wayfinding Teaches Us About Knowledge in the Age of GPS

April 22, 2025 By: Rakhi Jain ’26 Imagine you’re stranded on a deserted road at night, your phone battery drained and GPS useless. That familiar panic sets in; you’re lost. Now amplify this feeling a thousandfold: you’re sailing the vast Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from land, surrounded only by endless horizons of water. No electronics, no maps, just stars, waves, and intuition. Could you navigate your way home? Fifty years ago, this scenario wasn’t hypothetical. It was the extraordinary reality faced by the crew aboard the traditional Polynesian sailing canoe Hōkūleʻa during their legendary 1976 voyage from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti, spanning over 2,500 nautical miles. They succeeded using just ancient Polynesian navigation methods. Revisiting the story of Hōkūleʻa today invites us ...

26Sep

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Physics

Inside Mr. Robinson’s Environmental Science Elective: Food, Agriculture, and the Future

By Claire Bancroft '28 Starting as a Phillips Academy student, Mr. Robinson’s passion for agriculture began when he returned as a faculty member: “I always liked the outdoors, but when I started teaching here [at PA], I started to appreciate bigger systems, like ecology and ecosystems.” After taking over the Environmental Science: Food, Agriculture, and the Future class as department chair, Mr. Robinson helped students dive into the environmental, social, and economic systems behind modern food production. He does this while confronting big, complex questions: How should we feed the planet? What’s the cost of doing so? Who’s paying for it? The class begins by breaking down the environmental costs of modern agriculture, from industrial farming to pesticide use. “One of the big questio...

26Sep

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Physics

Making an Autonomous Bicycle a Reality

By Saketh Lingisetty '27 Have you ever wondered if a self-balancing bicycle exists? In the spring of 2025, James Xiao ’25, Russell Robinson ’25, and Winston-Hughes Wall ’25 aimed to make this a reality through their Independent Project (IP). The three of them applied concepts from physics and engineering to make an autonomous bicycle using a reaction wheel, which will help the bicycle stand upright on its own. The project was intended not only to invent something unique and fun but also to address real-world issues related to accessibility. Xiao explained that the project provides a solution to “the issue of transportation for those who are either unable to ride a bike…, for tight spaces in which four-wheeled vehicles may not be able to enter,” as well as for those who are inju...

26Sep

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Biology, Technology

Introducing RenewBlue: PASC’s Newest Project-Led Initiative

By Claire Bancroft '28 This year, the Phillips Academy Sustainability Coalition (PASC) welcomes an exciting new initiative: RenewBlue, a club aimed at developing practical, hands-on climate solutions. In contrast to the previous PASC initiatives, Matt Robinson and Henry Zimmerman wanted to bridge the gap between environmental discussion and physical action: “It [RenewBlue] came out of a lack of practical solutions. We were thinking that we wanted a place at PASC where people could actually make things and do physical activities, instead of either thinking or talking about solutions. That’s how it came about!”says founding member Matt Robinson. Despite having a slower start in October, RenewBlue quickly gained momentum. When asked about the projects in the club, Robinson mentioned the...

26Sep

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Biology, Technology

The Unquenchable Thirst of Artificial Intelligence: Data Centers and their Water Consumption

By Alex Lin '28 It’s no secret that the AI industry is exploding. The generative AI market alone is projected to increase to $1 trillion USD in 2032, and the physical AI infrastructure, temperature-controlled buildings known as data centers, is estimated to almost double worldwide by 2030. Amidst the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and an utter lack of transparency within the competitive industry, researchers and policy makers are scrambling to determine what impact their expansion has on the environment: their need for both massive and stable amounts of power, inequity concerns, heat and noise pollution, and water consumption. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water daily...

26Sep

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Biology, Technology

Scientists Combating Climate Change by Genetic Modification

By Paxton Auguste '28 The agricultural industry is responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. These greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, leading to sea level rise, dry soil, more severe weather events, and other abiotic stresses on environments and their plants. Historically, genetic modification has been used to alter the size, yield, behavior, disease and pest resistance of crops and livestock. Scientists are now experimenting with using genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, to help crops combat and adapt to drastic changes in climate. Proteins are crucial to an organism’s functioning; each gene in an organism provides instructions on how to make a certain protein. Transcription factors are proteins that bind to specific DNA sequences and regu...

26Sep

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Biology, Technology

Cultivating the Future of Sustainable Agriculture

By Manalee Chowdhury '28 Agriculture has begun to transition from rows of people working fields to a coordinated system of machines: robots on the ground, drones in the air, and automated algorithms making decisions in between. This transition reflects mounting pressure from rising labor costs, worker shortages, and increasing food demand globally. As detailed in the Agricultural Drone Industry Report, the industry is integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things into the core of food production to ensure survival in an era of climate volatility. On the ground, agricultural robots are increasingly handling specific repetitive tasks like harvesting, identifying weeds, or navigating fields using computer vision. These machines rely on combinations of sensors, moti...

26Sep

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Biology, Technology

Date of Cambrian Explosion Thrown Into Doubt by New Fossil Discoveries

By Amara Muller '29 What if one of evolution’s most famous events didn’t happen when scientists thought it did? For decades, most scientists believed that complex life on Earth arose through the Cambrian Explosion, a sudden burst of rapid evolution beginning around 535 million years ago; this diversification of life led to many of the organism groups we see today. However, recent fossil discoveries in China are challenging this narrative. If these new findings prove to be accurate, complex life’s origins may stretch back millions of years before previously thought, and the ‘explosion’ theory may require more nuance than before. The Transitions Heralded by the Cambrian Period Before the Cambrian Period spanned the Ediacaran Period, lasting from 635 to 541 million years ago. The maj...