What experiments andprojects does he then undertake?

After losing out at thescience fair, Richard Ebright undertook various experiments andprojects. For his eighth grade project, he tried finding the cause ofa viral disease that killed nearly all monarch caterpillars every fewyears. He tried raising caterpillars in the presence of beetles as hethought the disease might have been carried by a beetle. He did notget any results. However, he went ahead and showed that he had triedthe experiment, and this time he won.

The next year, hisscience fair project was to test the theory that viceroy butterfliescopied monarchs in order to prevent being eaten by birds. His projectwas to see whether birds would eat monarchs. He found that a starlingwould not eat ordinary bird food, but ate all the monarchs it couldget. This project was placed first in the zoology division and thirdoverall in the county science fair.

In his second year athigh school, he began the research that led to the discovery of anunknown insect hormone. Indirectly, it also led to his new theory onthe life of cells. He tried to find the purpose of the twelve tinygold spots on a monarch pupa. Along with another excellent sciencestudent, he built a device which showed that the spots were producinga hormone necessary for the butterfly’s full development. Thisproject won the first place in the county fair and also an entry intothe International Science and Engineering Fair, where it was adjudgedthe third best in zoology.

As a high schooljunior, he continued his advanced experiments on the monarch pupa.His project won first place at the International Science fair.

In his senior year, hegrew cells from a monarch’s wing in a culture and showed thatthe cells would divide and develop into normal butterfly wing scalesonly if they were fed the hormone from the gold spots. That projectwon first place in zoology at the International Fair.

The summer after hisfreshman year at Harvard, Richard worked on the hormone secreted fromthe gold spots, and was able to identify the chemical structure ofthe hormone. During his junior year, he got the idea for his newtheory on the life of cells. Along with his room-mate, James R. Wong,he worked on his theory and wrote a paper explaining the same.