R EAD AND F IND O UT • How did a book become a turning point in Richard Ebright’s life? • How did his mother help him? A T the age of twenty-two, a former ‘scout of the year’ excited the scientific world with a new theory on how cells work. Richard H.
Ebright and his college room-mate explained the theory in an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. It was the first time this important scientific journal had ever published the work of college students. In sports, that would be like making the big leagues at the age of fifteen and hitting a home run your first time at bat * . For Richard Ebright, it was the first in a long string of achievements in science and other fields.
And it all started with butterflies. An only child, Ebright grew up north of Reading, Pennsylvania. “There wasn’t much I could do there,” he said. “I certainly couldn’t play football or baseball with a team of one.
But there was one thing I could do — collect things.” So he did, and did he ever! Beginning in kindergarten, Ebright collected butterflies with the same determination that has marked all his activities. He also collected rocks, fossils, and coins. He became an eager astronomer, too, sometimes star-gazing all night.
* A home run in the game of baseball is when the batter scores a run after running safely around all bases and back to the home plate without stopping. A ball hit out of the playing field is also called a home run. Getting a paper published at the age of fifteen in a scientific journal is here compared to scoring a home run while batting for the first time. Richard Ebright has recieved the Searle Scholar Award and the Schering Plough Award for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
It was his fascination for butterflies that opened the world of science to him.