Self-driving cars. Proteins that help patients with cardiac problems. Smartphone addiction versus drug addiction. These are all various topics that MVHS’s science magazine Res Novae staff writers wrote about for their first cycle.

In Res Novae, a long process takes place behind the scenes before the articles are released to the public. Staff writers contact and interview sources, edit drafts and revise articles before submission.

Junior Shreya Ramakrishnan is familiar with this process and had to go through it for her article in Res Novae’s first cycle. Ramakrishnan wrote an article about smartphone addiction and its similarity to drug addiction. She contacted six professors, and of them, two replied.

Junior Ellie Chen had a similar experience, contacting many sources and getting responses from only a few. Chen’s interest about self-driving cars fueled her motivation to write her article about them. During the interviewing process, she got to learn more about her sources and their opinions on self-driving cars.

Chen says she’d like to see the implementation of staff bonding activities in the club to allow the members to get closer and meet new people.

“At least, personally, for me, I haven’t been able to get to know people that well through Res Novae,” Chen said. “So I feel like it would be more cool to know people that I have not met and maybe interact with them more.”

While Chen hopes to make new acquaintances, freshman Riya Ranjan researches for her article about the PCSK9 protein. Ranjan wrote an article about PCSK9, a protein that can inhibit the liver from destroying excess cholesterol, which can cause unnecessary cholesterol to clog the heart’s arteries. Ranjan contacted a few sources before ultimately deciding which one was best for her article.

“The reason writing that article was very cool for me is because I got to interview a student here at MVHS who is a cardiac patient herself and I got to hear her story and her experiences,” Ranjan said. “It was just really cool to hear that because I really don’t know anything about a personal experience of having a form of cardiac disease.”