Freshman Leads H-ton at NYS Engineering Fair
Huntington High School freshman Jacob Strieb is steadily making a name for himself in the metropolitan area science research community. The teenager recently captured third place in the New York State Science and Engineering Fair held at the New York Hall of Science in Queens.
The competition included many exceptional high school science research students from across the region. Huntington seniors Aron Coraor, Brian Gilbert and Victor Tellez also presented their impressive research projects.
“The team did a phenomenal job and had an exciting day discussing their research with top scientists from New York,” said teacher Lori Kenny, who heads Huntington High School’s science research program.
Mr. Strieb’s performance was all the more impressive since it came in a talented field featured many veteran science research students from a variety of powerhouse high school programs.
“It was outstanding to see such composure and skill in such a young student,” said Mrs. Kenny about Mr. Strieb’s effort. “He handled the pressure of the competition with great poise and passion. I look forward to seeing the accomplishments he will realize in the coming years at Huntington.”
While Mrs. Kenny was naturally happy that Mr. Strieb captured third place in a premier event, she found the day “bittersweet because it was the final competition for my passionate group of seniors,” she said. “We had a lot of fun this year competing at this level and nothing will match the learning and laughter we’ve had along the way.”
The following are abstracts of the research projects presented by the four Huntington students:
Jacob Strieb
Although sleep deprivation can drastically affect health, its effect on the progression of neurodegenerative disorders and the effects such diseases have on sleep patterns is not well-understood. Argonaute 2 is a central component of the RNA-induced silencing complex, which facilitates RNA interference and the regulation of transposons. Transposons are parasitic nucleotide sequences which cause instability in the genome. Sleep patterns of Drosophila with genetic mutations causing the Argonaute 2 protein to become nonfunctional were recorded using a TriKinetics Locomotor Activity Monitoring System and compared to those of wild-type control flies.
By using mechanical deprivation at timed intervals, Drosophila were deprived of sleep while their activity levels were simultaneously measured. Due to the large quantity of data from the TriKinetics monitors that required analysis, an alternative method for analyzing data was required. As opposed to using spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel, a unique data analysis program, named “Somnus,” was created. By using straightforward analysis and visualization techniques, Somnus was able to efficiently analyze large quantities of data taken directly from the TriKinetics monitors. Analysis performed by Somnus includes removing measurements from dead flies and grouping sleep into bouts of a desired length.
Results showed that flies with nonfunctional Argonaute 2 proteins had greater amounts of sleep fragmentation and less total activity than wild-type flies, though flies of all genotypes were shown to contain a high quantity of the Drosophila C Virus at the conclusion of the experiments, which may have affected the flies’ sleep patterns and lifespan.
Aron Coraor
The purpose of this study was investigate a class of materials, namely superlattices of ferroelectric perovskite-structure oxides, to test for their potential to produce a single material that is photoreactive under visible light, has electrical band energies in positions suitable to drive hydrolysis, and that exhibits ferroelectricity, a property which may induce spontaneous segregation of photo-excited charge carriers. A material of this sort would then generate perfectly clean, easily transportable fuel in the form of hydrogen gas, when illuminated under sunlight in water, and could be utilized in solar farms.
Since a vast majority of the sunlight incident upon the surface of the earth is visible light or of lower energy, so this new material would be able to utilize far more of the Sun’s light than known materials active under UV light. Superlattices of PbTiO3 and SrRuO3 were grown using off-axis RF magnetron sputtering deposition, and characterized using x-ray diffraction, confirming the composition, ordering, and ferroelectric properties of these samples. These were illuminated in AgNO3 solutions under visible and UV light, as a proxy reaction of hydrolysis, and the surfaces were scanned using atomic force microscopy to identify any deposited Ag particles. No particles were found after either illumination, in contrast to bulk PbTiO3 which has been demonstrated to catalyze Ag deposition, strongly suggesting that superlattice ordering can greatly affect electronic band positions of a material, thus revealing an entire class of materials with potential to photocatalyze hydrolysis under visible light.
Brian Gilbert
Brookhaven National Laboratory’s muon (g-2) experiment has provided compelling evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model through a measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon inconsistent with current theory. The experiment will be replicated at Fermilab National Laboratory with a slightly different experimental design in order to correct issues with the original measurement, including systematic error caused by a high incidence of lost muons, or muons that collided with collimators during data collection.
This paper describes methods necessary and sufficient to bring muon loss rate to acceptable levels, or ten times fewer than levels experienced at Brookhaven. The causes of muon loss in the Brookhaven experiment were investigated to gain a clear understanding of what aspects of experimental design could be improved. Muon paths through the storage ring were analytically modeled, and then using Monte Carlo methods, a simulation written in C++ was used to predict muon loss rate under varying conditions, specifically magnetic field uniformity and collimator shape. It was found that in order to achieve a tenfold decrease in muon loss rate, using circular collimators and magnetic field uniformity must be enhanced such that magnetic orbital perturbations are decreased to 0.4 times their previous magnitudes, or 0.6 times their previous magnitudes using elliptical collimators.
The efficacy and feasibility of these options will be weighed when determining the design of the (g-2) experiment at Fermilab, where these methods are expected to mitigate the statistical error associated with muon loss.
Victor Tellez
The purpose of this experiment is to identify the effect of gefitinib on the uptake abilities of HeLa cells. This is believed because gefitinib an inhibitor of the epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR). EGFR are cell surface receptors and this is why they are believed to be interfering with the uptake abilities of a cell. The uptake will be measured by cell death. This is because once the HeLa cells receive the gefitinib they will receive nanoribbons that carry doxorubicin, a common cancer drug.
So, if the gefitinib has no effect on the uptake of nanoribbons all the HeLa cells should be dead. Cell death was calculated by using the LDH assay which measures lactate dehydrogenase, a molecule that is released once the cell membrane is broken. However, this was not the case because as the data shows, when the concentration of gefitinib added was increased cell death decreased significantly. In conclusion gefitinib does affect the uptake ability of HeLa cells and this can be a dangerous side effect for patients who use gefitinib.