Brown Adolescent Science International Students (BASIS) | 2013

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BASIS: Brown Adolescent Science International Students The Pretend Journal of SciComm

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Editorial

A Start to a Lasting Legacy Emmanuel Dean This is the first release of what we hope to be the annual volume of the Brown Adolescent Science International Students. We hope, as a team, that years from now, not only will this journal influence other students attending the program in communicating science to reproduce the annual series, but to also influence students from around the world to attend this program. All the components of this journal, whether it is the front cover, the reviews, or the posters, have been designed, researched, and written by the summer Scientific Communication students of 2013 in Brown University.

This journal is an exhibition of all the works we have done during the three weeks we were at Brown. The works we did range from grants to posters. All the pieces of work are self-written and have been approved by our instructor, Dr. Christopher Ciarleglio. The aim of our class was to learn an undergraduate level course which will help us not only improve our English writing skills, but also learn vital skills such as writing grants, making scientific posters and writing official papers; many skills which undergraduates and even graduate students do not possess.

compose written work, but we were also trained to present in front of a class. Many of the aspects of a scientific presentation are very different to that of a presentation of other subjects.

The topics in which we chose for our reviews are all personal to each of us. All the reviews reflect on the different primary papers that we found on PubMed or in the Science Library of Brown University. In this volume, we cover a range of topics from obtaining oceanic energy to the self-experimentation with magic mushrooms. Some of the topics we chose required some of us to create artificial data to create our reviews, but many of our reviews contain data collected from different papers that have been written in the past.

Ultimately, we are all very satisfied with the work we have done. Many of the experiences which we had over the last 3 weeks are beyond compare to any experience we will ever obtain during our high school years. We hope that this journal will be able to spark a new beginning for what we hope will be a long-lasting legacy.

For many of us, this has been a very unique experience in which we had to stretch our limits and break out of our comfort zones to create works meeting higher standards when compared to our average high school science papers. Many of the works here required long, painstaking hours to complete and polish. Not only were we assigned to

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BASIS: Brown Adolescent Science International Students The Pretend Journal of SciComm

Masthead CEEL 0980: Scientific Communication (SciComm) Writing, Editing, Reviewing, and Presenting the Language of Science

Summer@Brown Intensive English Program Brown University 200 Dyer Street Box T Providence, Rhode Island 02912 United States of America Brown Adolescent Science International Students (BASIS) is an open-access journal. BASIS is the pretend journal of the “Scientific Communication: Writing, Editing, Reviewing, and Presenting the Language of Science,” part of the Summer@Brown Intensive English Language Program at Brown University. BASIS is a collection of works submitted by students whilst attending the course. BASIS was founded in July 2013 in an effort to consolidate and recognize the hard work done by each class of students, and is published as needed by KumK Publishers, LLC. Review Process All works submitted for publication must be approved by the SciComm Instructor. All approved works are accepted by Brown Adolescent Science International Students.

Reprints of individual articles are available from the authors or on the website (under construction). No copyright infringement or plagiarism intended. The journal is simply English language and scientific communication practice. Requests for permission to reprint material published in Brown Adolescent Science International Students should be made in writing and addressed to the attention of Journal Permissions, Brown Adolescent Science International Students, via email: c.ciarlegio@brown.edu. The request must include a citation of the exact material that will be reprinted and specific information about where it will be used.

One must receive express written permission from the authors whose work will be reused. Original artwork can only be obtained from the authors. All copyrights © are held by the Authors.

2013 Editorial Board Teacher-in-Chief Christopher M. Ciarleglio, Ph.D. Indispensable Assistant to the Teacher-in-Chief Angelia Wang, `16 SciComm Logo Designer Naz Sakarya, RISD `15 Section Editors (Students) Emmanuel Dean – Editorial and Posters Wei Jie Nixon Lim – Reviews Maria Jose Ramos Villanueva – Story Arcs Mara Thomas – Cover, BASIS Logo, and 1° Manuscript Benjamin Wong – Contents and Grants

Summer@Brown • Department of Continuing Education • Intensive English Language Program http://www.brown.edu/ce/pre-college/iep/ James Chansky Director, Summer Session and Pre-College Programs Esther Zirbel Associate Director, Pre-College Programs Rosario Navarro Director of Language Area Studies and International Programs

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Story Arcs: From 1° to Pop

How light can be used as signals to hypothetically ‘Turn-off’ a habit in animals Emmanuel Dean I chose this topic because I thought it was very interesting how our brain and our body are mere small cells working together to accomplish a great many things. I find this very fascinating. In addition to that, I think that the idea that a change in color could affect a mouse’s habit is pretty cool.

There were three sources I found: Primary Literature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v456/n7223/f ull/456826a.html (Cell Imaging: Light activated)

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Secondary Literature: The Switched-on Brain by Amy Barth (Discover Magazine) Tertiary Literature: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/23/anxietybrain_n_838648.html (Anxiety in the Brain: Have we discovered an ‘Off’ switch?

To make things simple and short, this is what Karl Deisseroth, a scientist in Stanford, did to arrive to this discovery Basically, what Karl Deisseroth was able to do was to give light signals to mice to make the mice stop doing certain habits. In the experiment, he made mice addicted to cocaine, and with a light signal, the mice was no longer addicted to cocaine.

The whole thing was done by mice, and he does agree that there are many different possibilities that this technique could be used to ‘maybe’ turn off some of the bad habits that humans have. But he never did any experimentations on humans, therefore does not have adequate amount of evidence to support this statement.

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literature, Deisseroth did not even work on diseases, all they worked on was the mice’s addiction to cocaine. He did not even touched any humans.

In the beginning of the article, he claims that a scientist in Stanford has been able to some what cure anxiety. But for the rest of the article, there was no solid evidence to support that statement because Karl did not focus on diseases in the experiment.

“The anxiety-reducing brain circuit is located – counter-intuitively -- in a part of the brain that is typically associated with fear, which may explain why scientists have overlooked it before.” This was stated in the article, but again, Karl did not work with anxiety, he worked with mice who he made addicted to Cocaine.

The next paragraph suddenly had no reference to anxiety, making this paper even more weaker because the previous statement was not support by any evidence. Instead they added another paragraph talking about how his technique with light could do many more things than they could before. But the thing that people want to know is “What New Things?

But in the end of the article the article does have a reference to mice, but it also said that mice have helped many scientists understand the human brain.

But before any of these techniques can be used, they must be tested and ensured they are safe. Just because they work on mice, doesn’t mean it will work on humans.

In addition to that, people most probably will not read the last paragraph, even I missed it so people will reading this will definitely have a very different outlook than what Karl Deisseroth actually did.

But, here comes the really funny part, The Huffington Post claims that this technique could be used to cure Anxiety, while from the primary

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Story Arcs: From 1° to Pop

Killing Cancer from the inside Maria Jose Ramos I chose cancer because it is a common disease that affects so many people, and destroys a lot of families.

A team from Johns Hopkins University had created a molecular switch that activates chemotherapy drugs only within cancer cells . To create the switch, biomolecular engineer Marc Ostermeier and colleagues found a protein found in high levels in cancer cells to activate a second protein that he built in the lab.

This is the secondary literature. http://urology.jhu.edu/newsletter/prostate_cancer615 .php

http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cancerupdat e.asp http://jhu.edu/chembe/facultytemplate/MarcOstermeier.html This is a very interesting topic because is a challenge for the entire humanity, find cancer's cure, or to investigate more about this disease, here we can see how all the opinions are changing, or better they are evolving.

Why do some mammals have stripes of a different color than their skin?

Mara Thomas For more than 60 years biologists have tried to find the reason for the stripes on animals such as tigers, for example. It was the mathematician Alan Turing who had hypothesized that this mutation was developed due to a reaction from a pair of chemicals in a regular and alternating manner as they move through tissue during development. In King’s College a team lead by Jeremy Green ,PhD in Imperial College of London in cell biology, decided to take over this study. In continuation he discovered a pair of proteins, the morphogens, that react on the mouse’s palate creating ridges the same way as the phenomena of Turing.

Therefore he associated this change with the difference of the tiger’s color on some parts of their body. primary: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v44/n3/full/ng.10 90.html

tertiary: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_16257381693/alan-turings-tiger-stripe-theory-confirmedsay-researchers/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=biol ogists-home-in-on-tiger-stripes-and-turing-patterns http://io9.com/5886406/scientists-confirm-alanturings-50+year+old-theory-for-why-tigers-havestripes It is common that during the process that divides the primary paper until the tertiary, the information related to the subject is misunderstood and interpreted in a different way than the original author’s. However in this case the primary essay, published in Nature Genetics, is written in a very scientific way and therefore the secondary paper, being the one in Discover Magazine, explains it with simpler notions but still insert the most important

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Story Arcs: From 1° to Pop explanations such as the concept of activator-inhibitor concept. Also in the tertiary essay the press reviews the actual paper and adapt it to an audience of everyday life. However the main goal of the definition

remains the same throughout the whole arc and therefore people reading only the media article, would still be ensured the right version of the experience.

Tornadoes on the sun Benjamin Wong In class, we picked through the magazines to find a topic that interests us. I found an article about tornadoes on the sun. A team of scientists including Wedemeyer Bohm researched on this. It is a secondary source because it is published on a magazine.

Compared to the primary source seen on Nature's magazine, it is less simpler in language and it doesn’t give us data such as how big and long each tornado is.

The tertiary source which is from National Geographic News has a much briefer explanation. It has other information such as tornadoes on other stars which is not the star Wedemeyer-Bohm examined. But most of the information relates back to the article.

Primary source http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/nature11 202 Secondary source Discover, Tornadoes on the Sun (Magazine) Tertiary source http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/06/1 20627-sun-solar-tornadoes-storms-corona-heat-spacescience-nature/

Dark Energy Nixon Lim

In class we each flipped through books to find out what interested us in the magazine then find both the primary source and the tertiary source. My topic is about dark matter and the researcher is Brain Schmidt, the primary source in read cube talked about dark matter and how it affected us. The Article in the newspaper of NY times dumbed it down with the scientific words and gave examples of what the dark matter is causing it to happen to out universe. Some of the information is related to the article, but was dumbed down too for the people to understand.

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Primary Sourcehttp://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/490S2a Secondary SourceDiscover, Dark Energy Tertiary Source http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/theuniverse-dark-energy-and-us.html?_r=1&

BASIS: Brown Adolescent Science International Students The Pretend Journal of SciComm

Pretend 1° Paper

Does being submerged in water affect the heart rate of an individual compared to being on land?

An experiment on the principles of the diving reflex Maria Jose Ramos Villanueva1,2, Mara Thomas2,3, Emmanuel Dean2,4, Benjamin Wong2,5, Nixon Wei Jie Lim2,6, and Christopher M. Ciarleglio2,7 1

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Lux Mundi, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Summer@Brown, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA; 4 5 Lycee Vauban, Luxembourg, Luxembourg; United World College of South East Asia, Singapore; Shanghai 6 7 American School, Shanghai, China; Shanghai American School, Shanghai, China; Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, RI

A simple experiment conducted at Brown University by students was done to seek evidence to support the diving reflex theory. They gathered 19 different students to perform an experiment where they submerged their heads and compare heart rates at resting position and when their heads are submerged.

From the results we gathered, we saw a distinct difference between the two mean heart rates when resting and submerged, therefore giving evidence for the diving reflex theory. The importance of this theory is that, this theory could be the key to finding our lost long ancestors. Some scientists believe that we adopted this ability because our long lost ancestors lived in the ocean. But inadequate evidence has been found to support this theory in addition to that, the fossil record also those not support this theory. But nonetheless, it is a very mysterious and interesting phenomenon.

For many centuries, we humans have the mysterious reflex known as the ‘diving reflex’. It is not only until recently that we have been able to recognize this very mysterious adaptation. This reflex in mammals is an adaptation, which optimizes respiration to allow a mammal to stay underwater for an extended period of time. The reflex that we mammals have can be observed from the experiment, which was done by Fleming S Pedroso. Of 1066 infants born at the hospital de clinicas de porto alegre, Brazil, 33 infants were chose at random to be subjects for an experimentation to find evidence regarding the diving reflex.

Pedroso submerged the babies in water and to his astonishment found that these babies were able to swim and survive on their own. They would not choke on water or even try to breath underwater. Many scientists believe that this reflex is another evidence regarding our lost ancestors. But what is even more interesting is what actually causes this reflex.

So our Aim for this experiment is to gather information to support this theory. We are going to try and find out, what happens to the heart rate of an individual when he or she is submerged in water?

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Pretend 1째 Paper Hypothesis: Our hypothesis is that, when an individual is submerged in water, their heart rate will decrease. We think this is so because of the fact that under water, there is less oxygen that we can breathe; therefore, our bodies automatically react and decrease our heart rate to decrease usage of oxygen.

Materials & Methods Equipment Amount Uncertainty Bucket of water Enough to None submerged a persons face Thermometer 1 0.5 degrees celsius Stop Watch 1 0.5 seconds People 19 None Procedures: 1. Measure the resting heart rate of the individual while bending down. For 15

seconds (to ensure the position of the body is equal outside and inside water) 2. After 15 seconds from 16-30 seconds dunk the individuals head inside the water and measure his heart rate again 3. Record the Resting and Submerged heart rates 4. Re-do steps 1-3 with all the other individuals.

Results Our aim for this experiment is to seek out evidence for the diving reflex in humans. We took 19 different students and performed an experiment in which we measured the resting heart rate of the students and compared them to the diving heart rate of the same students. The results are as shown below:

Table Showing the raw data collected from the experiment showing the resting heart rate and the immersed heart rate

Table showing the results from the paired sample T-test 8

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Pretend 1째 Paper

Table showing the Mean Heart rate of resting and immersed and Standard Deviation

Figure 1. This graph illustrates the average heartbeat of the 19 students that were tested. As we can see clearly from this diagram, there is actually a difference and we can see it visually. But to confirm that this difference is true but not just a coincidence, a T-test needs to be conducted

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Pretend 1° Paper

Figure 2. the diagram above illustrates the raw data that was collected during the experiment. The blue represents the resting heart rate and the red represents the immersed or submerged heart rate. Using this data alone, we are able to see that there seems to be a trend of blue dots above the red ones.

Meaning that when an individual is submerged in water, it is very likely tat the heart rate will decrease.

Discussion & Conclusion From the data that we received, we are able to conclude that submergence in water does have an affect on an individual’s heart rate. Hence, the results of this experiment do support our initial hypothesis. This can be clearly seen from the graph presented in this paper and moreover from the statistically calculations we did to confirm that our hypothesis can be accepted. Shaw R Noren, writer of ‘the dive response redefined: underwater behavior influences cardiac variability in freely diving dolphins. From the data he collected, he found that when the dolphins were submerged in the water, just like how the students heads were submerged in water, their heart rates were significantly lower than their heart rates on the surface of the water. Although his experiment was involving dolphins and ours involving humans, they are many connection in

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which we can make between the two data.

But, our experiment involved humans and his involved dolphins; therefore, the dolphins are always in water while our students were not always in water. So we think that there must be other aspects of submergence, which will affect the heart rates of humans.

Our conclusion on the diving theory states that from the evidence and data that we have collected, we can see that there is a difference in heart rate when an individual is submerged in water or when an individual is not.

But is submergence the only aspect of swimming that actually affects our heart rate?

With this in mind, we decided to test out other aspects when under water to determine whether or not submergence is the only aspect that affect the decrease in our heart rates.

Pressure

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Pretend 1° Paper The first aspect we thought about was the change in pressure. When we are on land, the pressure is very different to that of when we are in the water. In water, especially down deep below the ocean, there is pressure which is exerted on top of our bodies. We did not find any data on this so we decided to do a simple experiment with books.

Apparatus Equipment Quantity Uncertainty scale Stop watch 1 0.5 seconds Books, the 4 None Journal of Physics Method 1. Instruct the individual to lie down flat on it’s back 2. Measure his resting heart rate 3. Put one book on his chest 4. Measure his heart rate with the book on his chest for 15 seconds to calculate his heart rate per minute.

5. Repeats steps 2-4 again 4 more times for trials 6. Repeat step 5 but instead using 2 books, 3 books and 4 books.

We did this simple experiment with the 5 different people in our group and we found out that despite the weight and pressure on the chest, which exceeds the weight exerted on top of us when submerged in water, there was no change in the initial heart rate. All heart rate of every individual stayed constant. Therefore, we can conclude that pressure does not have any affect on the heart rate.

Blindness During our blindness experiment, we encountered a fluctuating of heart rate when the test subject is either blindfolded or not blindfolded. We did multiple layers of tissue paper for different light intensity to see if there is a change in heart rate. But as more layers are added, there was no significant change of heart rate. As we covered more and more tissue paper on to the test subject’s face, we didn’t find a huge heart rate change. We are uncertain that this

actually reflects a situation in which a person will be submerged in water; therefore we think that blindness alone does not actually make a difference. Because underwater, as humans, our eyesight is actually pretty good even though we live most of our lives on land Temperature This was very interesting, as it was the one thing that actually has a huge possibility of affecting our body’s heart rate. Before any research, we hypothesize that when someone is cold, it means that the body will not work as quickly as it would in the heat. But as we researched, we found out that temperature does affect the heart rate of a human being.

This reflex is called thermoregulation. As our body is exposed to the cold environment, our body instantly needs to react and conserve energy incase it will get worst.

This reflex will cause the body to work slower therefore our heart beat will start to decrease.

With this in mind, in our experiment, the water we used was 15 degrees, which is colder than that of the room temperature. Therefore, since the water is colder, our body will try and react to it and try to conserve energy therefore decreasing our body temperature.

So What?

A side from all the technical aspects of this theory, why is this reaction important? A few scientists out there hypothesize that with this information, they think that this is a connection to our lost ancestors. What they are proposing is that our lost ancestors came from the sea, or maybe sea dwellers. Their theory is that, since there was huge competition on land for our ancestors against the other animals, they hypothesize that our ancestors decided to stick to the water where it is much easier to gain food rather than having to hunt against the other faster and better adapted animals.

Another aspect, which they state, is that since we lived in the sea, our ancestor’s diet will most probably be comprised of seafood and fish. These foods are what they call brain food. It has been scientifically proven that fish food is very good for

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Pretend 1° Paper the brain. Therefore they hypothesize that this is the origin of our superior brains.

A review written by M. Verhaegen also states that this is a possible theory. This theory will also explain the difference in brain intelligence of a monkey and a human. Although we are very similar, there is a definite difference between the two of us. We humans have the diving reflex while the monkey do not. With this in mind, scientists believe that the theory of our ancestors coming from the sea is quite possible. They think that the monkeys, did have the same ancestors, but we decided to go into the sea, while they stayed on the land. But after many years, we return to the land with a much more improved brain because of the diet we had and also the capability of swimming.

principles of physiology & Students of RISD Human Physiology.

Acknowledgements We would like to also thank these students for allowing us to conduct our experiments and collect data: Students of summer brown

Verhaegen, M. "Aquatic Ape Theory, Speech Origins, and Brain Differences with Apes and Monkeys." Medical Hypotheses 44.5 (1995): 40913. Print.

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References Noren, S. R., Kendall, T., Cuccurullo, V. and Williams, T. M. (2012). The dive response redefined: underwater behavior influences cardiac variability in freely diving dolphins. J. Exp. Biol. 215, 2735-2741.

J Child Neurol February 2012 vol. 27 no. 2 168171 M.A. Ruvolo Molecular evolutionary processes and conflicting gene trees: the hominoid case Am J Phys Anthropol, 94 (1994), pp. 89–113

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Ever-Flowing Energy from the Sea Generating electricity by using the cold bottom water and the warm surface water to change the problem of oil scarcity.

Today, the number of people in the world has already reached 7 billion people. An increase in our population in the upcoming years will result in the increase for the demand for electricity. Currently, these demands can be reached with the supply of oil we have on earth. But, at the current usage of oil in the world, oil will run out in just a mere 40 years. The question then lies, what will we do when our oil supply runs out? One idea, devised by a French physicist named Jacques Arsene d’Arsonval, is to use the theory of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion to generate clean and sustainable energy.

This theory exploits the different temperatures of the ocean’s water to run a heat engine to produce working electricity. This idea has a lot of potential to becoming a success and will, in the future, make a difference in our lives.

Emmanuel Dean Introduction The United States of America, in the year 2010 used 1.584x1019 Joules of electricity. That is roughly the same amount of energy released by 3785 nuclear bombs. People are relying more and more on electronics, media and the Internet to do everyday work. But if we do not find an alternative, or a solution to this matter, in just a mere 40 years, the privilege of air conditioning, the internet and many other electronic services will not be available to us anymore. But the question is, where will we get the energy from when our oil supplies deplete?

On an average day, the tropical areas of the ocean absorb a huge amount of solar energy. The energy absorbed is roughly equivalent to 250 billion barrels of oil. The idea to harness this immense source of energy is called OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion). This technique theoretically can produce at least 14 million megawatts of energy. 1 megawatt can support 1000 homes for 1 year. 14 million can supply the households in the United States of America for 122 years.

There are two different methods of OTEC. The first, also known as the open cycle, utilizes pressure to evaporate and condense a liquid. The second, also known as the closed cycle, utilizes

the different temperatures of the ocean to evaporate and condense a liquid. Up until now, this method is the most economical and efficient way to gaining sustainable energy.

The Closed cycle method of OTEC The closed cycle method involves a plant structure, which will be situated at the coast of an island (Figure 1). The location has to have an ocean where there is a supply of warm surface water and cold deep ocean water. The difference in the two temperatures has to be at least 20°C to ensure that evaporation and condensation will happen efficiently. Some locations that have these qualities are the Island of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, and the Island of Tokunoshima in Japan. Generally the best places for these plants are in the tropical areas of the world, roughly 1520° above and below the equator.

This technique fundamentally works on the concept of evaporation and condensation.

Because the temperature of the water does not reach the 100°C which is the boiling point of water, this technique uses the liquid known as refrigerants, for example ammonia. Ammonia is usedbecause of the very low boiling temperature, roughly -33°C. Therefore, the warm surface temperature of the ocean, roughly 26°C will be

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Reviews suggests that these chambers will last for 30 years or more.

The pipelines that are extended into the bottom of the ocean go through rings on cables, which are anchored, to the bottom of the ocean to ensure that these pipelines do not move. But there has been a controversy and debate about the influence that these pipelines have on the aquatic environment. According to Christina M. Comfort, scientists who assessed the trial OTEC plant in Hawaii stated, “the vibration of the deep water pipe will create a signal that may be detectable by marine Fig 1. This will most likely be how the power plant will look mammals and fish.� They were like. Situated at the coast of an island with a supply of warm concerned that these sounds might and cold ocean water (Penney 1988) have a possibility in disturbing the able to evaporate it. After the process of marine animal’s communication or their habitat. evaporation, the ammonia vapor will pass This is where the plant situation comes into play. through a turbine engine, which will cause it to To minimize the disturbance to marine animals, turn and generate energy. Preceding the turning we should place the plant where there are of the turbine engine, the ammonium vapor will minimal marine animals. continue on into a different chamber and condense due to the cold deep ocean water; upon condensation, the liquid Ammonia can be reused. Ultimately, this is a sustainable cycle, which can generate a lot of energy (Refer to Figure 2).

Materials and Collection of Water Besides the functioning technique, a lot of research has gotten into the materials and the structure in which the pumps should be aligned to minimize the damage on the aquatic environment.

The first aspect considered was the material used for the heat exchangers and the pipelines. The material that was originally chosen for the pipelines was the metal Titanium. Titanium was chosen because of its resistance to corrosion. But this metal is very expensive. Therefore the Argonne National Laboratory developed a brazed aluminum heat exchanger instead of titanium one. The test conducted

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Fig 2. This is a simple diagram on how the OTEC will work.

The warm water (1) will come through a pipe in which it will evaporate the ammonia (2). Next the vapor will pass through the turbo generator (3). This will cause it to spin and generate energy. At (4) the vapor will then condense due to the cold ocean water. It will change back into liquid form and re-pump through the feed pump the cycle starts again (5) (Penney 1988).

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Fig 3. This is a plan of how the water will be pumped out of the ocean from the two different locations. The first, which is closer to the surface and the second, which is deeper in the ocean (Penney 1988) Tokunoshima Island In the book written by Masayuki Mac Takahashi, he states that the Island of Tokunoshima is a viable place to build an OTEC power plant. In addition to the cold and warm water available at this location, the pipeline does not have to extend longer than that of 3 kilometers to reach a depth of 600 meters.

Although the location of Tokunoshima is viable, the cost of this power plant is very large. It has been estimated by E. C. Gritton that an OTEC power plant would roughly cost, if it were to be similar to the one in Hawaii, $71 million. At the moment, this may be considered a ridiculous amount of money, but Gritton stated that in the future, engineers will develop new technology and will be able to make an OTEC power plant cheaper. Therefore, it may be possible to build in Japan, given the fact that Japan is a very developed country and the technique is economically feasible in Tokunoshima Island. In addition, for OTEC power to actually make an impact, the costs of coalburning and oil usage must increase, so that many people will convert to the cheaper and cleaner energy which, in the future, will be energy from Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plants.

Conclusion This method of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion will not be done in the next few months but maybe in the next 5 years. There is room in which this technique can develop economically and environmentally. The cost of the power plants and its maintenances still have room to improve in the future, and there is also a lot of room for technological innovation to ensure the safety of many marine animals which may come in contact. But besides that fact, this is a technique that has a huge potential for success. We are not sure when this idea will be launched, but the idea of clean energy and sustainable energy is not far away from our reach.

Fig 4. Contour and depths of Tokunoshima Island (Takahashi 1991) References 1. Coastal Response Research Center. 2012.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: Information Needs Assessment.

University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, 25pp and appendices.

2. Cavrot, D. "Economics of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)." Renewable Energy 3.8 (1993): 891-96. Print.

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Reviews 3. Lee, C. K. B., and S. L. Ridgway.

"Vapor/Droplet Coupling and the Mist Flow (OTEC) Cycle." Journal of Solar Energy Engineering 105.2 (1983): 181.

Print.

4. Nihous, GĂŠrard C. "A Preliminary Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Resources." Journal of Energy Resources Technology 129.1 (2007): 10.

Print.

5. Penney, Terry R., and Desikan Bharathan.

"Power from the Sea." Scientific American 256.1 (1987): 86-92. Print.

6. Verhaegen, M. "Aquatic Ape Theory, Speech Origins, and Brain Differences with Apes and Monkeys." Medical Hypotheses 44.5 (1995): 409-13. Print.

7. Gritton, E. C., R. Y. Pei, J. Aroesty, M. M. Balaban, C. Gazley, R. W. Hess, and W.H.

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Krase, a quantitative evaluation of closed cycle ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technology in central station applications, The Rand Corporation, R2595-DCE, May 1980 8. Gritton, E. C., R. W. Hess, and R. Y. Pei, Projected Engineering Cost Estimates for an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Central Station, The Rand Corporation, N-1788-RC, January 1982 9. Comfort, CHristina M. "Environmental Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in Hawaii." (2011): 8. Print.

10. Takahashi, Masayuki M. "OTEC Is Not a Dream." DOW Deep Ocean Water as Our Next Natural Resources. Trans. Kazuhiro Kitazawa and Paul Snowden. Tokyo: Terra Scientific, 2003. 31-41. Print.

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Reviews

Life with Epigenetics In this review, I would like to discuss how epigenetics can effect out lives. Our lives are affected by the genes we have. When these genes are altered our appearance and immune systems can vary widely. Epigenetics permanently imprints a gene that can possibly change the outcome of ones life.

If epigenetics results in deleterious modification one may become obese or have a weaker immune system. Due to the fact that Epigenetics can have a life-changing effect, scientists have studied this topic so that they can understand epigenetics better. Scientists have tried several tests and experiments, and discovered many new principle about Epigenetics. These discoveries can help mankind grow stronger against diseases and other world problems like diabetes. These effects can happen depending on many interferences like what one eats.

Nixon Lim Introduction Epigenetics is when the environment changes or alters a person’s DNA in either a good way or a bad way. Epigenetics is the external influence which alters one’s genetic material.

Epigenetics is now one of the most studied topics in science and can be very interesting. The topic is quite difficult to understand; For example when these genes change they can repel dangerous diseases or disorder and can be more susceptible to them like diabetes or it can even lead to obesity. Scientists from all over the world are trying to manipulate epigenetics and turn epigenetics into good, so that they can help other people. Epigenetics can be used to enhance development; epigenetics could be a new scientific outbreak for Science.

Works of Epigenetics Epigenetics has contributed to our life by either helping us be immune to a disease or make us more susceptible to it, such as, cancer, obesity, and influenza. Epigenetics can drastically change the lifestyle of humans just by eating something different. A person’s personality or structure is built up from his DNA. Which stands for Deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is the molecule that holds the information about one and can act like a human blueprint building one up slowly. In that time, when one are being built, the outside

Fig 1.

The difference between a mouse because of epigenetics. The mother is the left mouse and in the right is her child which is much smaller than her.

environment may make some changes to one.

Immune system to better fend off sickness. This change during that process is known as epigenetics. Obesity is one of the things, which one can see happen in epigenetics. Obesity happens when one eat too much unhealthy food and one’s body turns it into fat, one ends up building in one’s stomach over time and soon one are a fat person. Obesity is the point where one’s

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Reviews

Fig 2.

The outside environment is affecting the babies growth inside of the mothers womb. The genetics of its chromosome is changing.

life is endangered because of the intake of harmful foods. Obesity is widely known around the world and is very common. Epigenetics is partially responsible for this is epigenetics. When he or she is a baby, epigenetics modifies the gene so that when the person grows up, he ends up being fat. Though it may not be his fault because that person was just more susceptible to it. This could also result in diabetes where one have too much sugar or too little sugar in one’s blood.

Everyday one would have to take insulin to

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regulate that and one can see this mostly in fat people because of their sugar intake also. One could be more susceptible to obesity and diabetes because of his genes. Cholesterol Gallstone Disease is also another disease that mainly can be caused by the alteration of genes. The Cholesterol Gallstone Disease is one that has to do with one’s digestive track. Not only will the chances of having this disease be more but also other diseases too. One would be vulnerable to a virus if one immune system is not strong enough to defend against it. Cancer can also happen if one are not careful with what one do and where one are. There are also good things that can happen to one in epigenetics. Such as one can grow as a healthier person and get better immune system.

There are many scientist who are experimenting on mice to find out just how do epigenetics works. Since mice are like humans during birth we tend to use them as test subjects for our epigenetics experiments. We would watch the pregnant mice till it gives birth and analyze the baby. As one can see in Figure 1 the change from a mother to a baby can be much significant. Just as the mother of the mouse is obsess her child is not.

Conclusion Epigenetics gives humans the power to control birth, it has also helped the controversial topic of nature vs nurture come to an end. Epigenetics has shaped our lives and helped us follow it, it is one of the most widely studied topics and the newest.

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Reviews

Magic mushrooms: how it affects our health Magic mushrooms have been used and spread all over the world since ancient times. They use procures hallucinations, visions, euphoria and a good feeling. In fact besides from the immediate effects such as physical or hallucinations, they also face the person to a chronic toxicity with the possibility of psychosis and psychiatric disorders. In this paper we will detail the effects of these magic mushrooms.

Mara Thomas Introduction: Magic mushrooms are mainly composed of psilocin and/or psilocybin is producing all sorts of hallucinating effects, on a psychological way as well as physically. “Psilocybin is an indoleamine or serotonin-like hallucinogen and the main psychoactive principle of a group of hallucinogenic fungi of the genus Psilocybin, also often referred to as ‘magic mushrooms’.”(1).The fungi’s consumption has been an increasing problem as the possession of these lasts was not illegal. In this study we will analyze the different effects that magic mushrooms can have on a human metabolism.

1. Physical effects a) Basic trips Mushrooms’ effects tend to last from 2 to 6 hours post ingestion (fig 1). It generally is threefold (2).

In the least dangerous case the person would experience nauseas, dizziness, weakness, muscle a muscle aching, shivering and abdominal pain.

The pupils would dilate and the heart rate increase, revealing, in a worst case scenario, a syndrome of tachycardia. Therefore the blood pressure increases as well, putting at risk the people with cardiovascular conditions, especially untreated hypertension.(r2).

The body temperature stays normal, except due to sickness when the person might get fever form the pain and vomiting. b) Intoxication Intoxications due to magic mushrooms are quite rare. However some cases have been reported.

For example a 20-year-old woman was admitted

to hospital because of nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain due to ingestion of what she believed to be magic mushrooms. “She experienced none of the expected hallucinations or mood alterations; instead, a constant, severe pain developed in her entire abdomen, radiated to both flanks and prevented sleep. The pain was accompanied by flatulence, nausea and vomiting, and diarrhea. She denied any urinary symptoms”.(5) she was victim of a severe renal failure. As said before her only symptoms were physical and experienced none of the hallucinating effects. c) Interference with other drugs Magic mushrooms can be extremely dangerous when ingested along with other drugs such as cannabis or even alcohol. Since the mushroom contains the enzyme MAO, it will interact with whichever other substance containing the same enzyme. Therefore alcohol would enhance the effects of the mushroom and another example would be tobacco.

2. Psychosis and psychiatric diseases a. Bad trips Bad trips are when the effects of the mushrooms reach a very high level. In that case the person would be extremely agitated, confused, anxious and disorientated. He would have severe paranoia; see images and total loss of control which may lead to unconscious suicidal attempt.

For example, a 31 year old English man died after leaping from a tower block window after consuming ‘Hawaiian’ psilocybin containing mushrooms in combination with alcohol. A

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Reviews coroner confirmed the contributory role of magic mushrooms together with alcohol: the amount of alcohol consumed was two and a half times the drink drive limit. (r2) b. Psychosis Psilocybin is the component of the mushroom that is source of most psychological effects .In fact it is said that it mimics certain aspects of stages of schizophrenia. It is supposed that the hallucinogens exaggerate a possible psychosis and other psychiatric problems. Hofman’s discovery states that hallucinogens might be associated with long term disorders.(1) To ‘calculate’ the effects mushrooms have on the human mind, the 5D-ASC main scale is conceived in order to capture what might feel the person under hallucinogens. It is composed of “elementary hallucinations,” “synesthesia,” “changed meaning of percept,” “facilitated recollection,” and “facilitated imagination.” It summarizes the different effects either acoustics or visual that you are facing during the ‘trip’.(4) There is a case report as well of A 48-year-old man, with no previous medical history, gathered mushrooms he presumed to be Amanita caesarea. He prepared the mushrooms and ate a whole plate of them for dinner at 8 p.m. Half an hour later nausea developed and he started to vomit and then fell asleep. He was brought to emergency and when he woke up after 10 hours he could remembering dreaming about his childhood. Although he was free to go home he still was showing paranoia and extreme anxiety after this episode.(9) This shows us that hallucinogens can also provide long term psychosis. d) Flashbacks People having experienced psilocybin experience, tend to have flashback of their experience once the effect is gone. They may come after a long time. Since usually the person would have no memory of what happened during the trip, these memories might be frightening and might lead to a long term psychosis as seen above. (r2)

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Figure 1. Course of clinical effects of LSD, psilocybin and CZ-74 (a psilocybin-derivative).(7) References: R2: Jan van Amsterdam a,*, Antoon Opperhuizen a, Wim van den Brink Elsevier Journal, Harm potential of magic mushroom use: A review 1: Elsevier Journal, 2: SARAH C.E. RILEY AND GRAHAM BLACKMAN, Informa healthcare, Between Prohibitions: Patterns and Meanings of Magic Mushroom Use in the UK 3: Erich Studerus, Michael Kometer, Felix Hasler and Franz X Vollenweider, Journal of Psychopharmacology, Acute, subacute and longterm subjective effects of psilocybin in healthy humans: a pooled analysis of experimental studies 4: Felix Hasler · Ulrike Grimberg · Marco A. Benz ·Theo Huber · Franz X. Vollenweider O R IGINAL INVES T I GATION, Acute psychological and physiological effects of psilocybin in healthy humans: a double-blind, placebocontrolled dose–effect study 5: Errol Raff, MD; Philip F. Halloran, MD, FRCPC; Carl M. Kjellstrand, MD, PhD, FACP, FRCPC, case report, Renal failure after eating "magic" mushrooms.

6: Kenji Tsujikawa*, Tatsuyuki Kanamori, Yuko Iwata, Yoshihito Ohmae, Ritsuko Sugita, Hiroyuki Inoue, Tohru Kishi elsivier Journal, Morphological and chemical analysis of magic mushrooms in Japan

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Reviews 7: TORSTEN PASSIE, JUERGEN SEIFERT, UDO SCHNEIDER & HINDERK M. EMRICH INVITED REVIEW, The pharmacology of psilocybin 8: Leszek Satora*, Dorota Pach, Beata Butryn, Piotr Hydzik, Barbara Balicka-S´lusarczyk Elsevier

Jounal, Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) poisoning, case report and review 9: Miran Brvar1, Martin Moˇzina1, and Matjaˇz Bunc2, case report, Prolonged psychosis after Amanita muscaria ingestion.

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Reviews

Eating Disorders in female adolescents I am going to talk about eating disorders in female adolescents, which are all the diseases that have to do with poor alimentation or with feeding excess. As the name says “Eating disorders”, it means that you do not have the control of your own body, and you cannot control your mind and desires.

The results were that the middle and final part of adolescence are when girls are most affected, because what matters during the adolescence is how they look, and what others think of them.

Anorexia and Bulimia is a theme that does not have any ending, because every day appears more cases about anorexia and bulimia, and the specialists cannot stop it.

Maria José Ramos Villanueva Introduction Eating disorders are abnormal eating habits, those are when you don’t eat correctly, so the person starts to miss some of the necessary nutrients, vitamins, and she begins to uncontrollably reduce her weight. This disease is called anorexia nervosa, and it is the third most common illness of adolescence. Anorexia Nervosa appears when the teenager lets herself go by her mind, and only thinks about her body and how she looks. There is also another illness that affects teenagers, Bulimia nervosa, the bulimia patients are not in their normal weights. They cannot control themselves so they start eating everything in large amounts, and then vomit everything they ate, or also use some medications like laxatives, diuretics, and others.

Anorexic patients are afraid of getting fat, so they let themselves being develop by their mind, they just act before think. That is why they need some kind of help from psychotherapy. Bulimic patients let themselves go by desires, they only think about food, and to then vomit it.

Malnutrition causes many consequences in every patient; it can cause a decrease in the muscle mass including the cardiac muscle it can bring so many impacts on the person.

Fifty percent of deaths in anorexia nervosa may have a cardiac etiology.

Chest pain is another consequence of Anorexia Nervosa.

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They also can have Osteoporosis, the lowest body mass is the best predictor of bone loss, all depends on the duration of the illness.

The symptoms of the Bulimia Nervosa are dizziness, fatigue, syncope, palpitations, and seizures. These diseases can cause suicide For all these reasons, we must be aware of those illnesses, because if we do not give the necessary help to adolescents they will never be safe, we need to show them how to do self-control.

Time trends in eating disorder incidence During 1985–1989 they had a large average of annual patients who had Anorexia nervosa or Bulimia nervosa. For all the patients who had eating disorders, the general practitioner filled out an information sheet regarding eating disorders symptoms. They did the first diagnosis, they did about the information provided by the

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Reviews general practitioners. After both study periods they conducted the studies that started in 1991 and 2001, at the end they obtained.

Conclusion These diseases have so many risk factors, and almost all of them are biological.

Genetic: That is when you have the genes of your parents, and one of them had Bulimia or either Anorexia Puberty: Because the adolescent starts to develop her body, and her body starts to change, so she can feel uncomfortable about it.

Also we have another type of cause:

Prevalence and Correlates of Eating Disorders in Adolescents, Results From the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement The NCS- A is a national representative interview survey of adolescents in the United States. NCS-A sample was based on a national] household and another school. One parent of each participating adolescent was asked to complete a questionnaire that had questions about the mental health of the patient, and they got some results.

Social Pressures: The adolescents start to care about what others can think of how she looks, and this factor is one of the main causes of those illnesses.

We need to.

References 1.American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th ed (text revision). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association; 2000.

2. American Dietetic Association. Position of the American Dietetic Association: Nutrition intervention in the treatment of eating disorders.

J Am Diet Assoc. 2011;111:1236-1241.

3. Attia E, Walsh T. Anorexia nervosa. Am J Psychiatry. 2007;164:1805-1810.

4. De Simone G, Scalfi L, Galderisi M, Celentano A, Di Biase G, Tammaro P, et al. Cardiac abnormalities in young women with anorexia nervosa. Br Heart J 1994; 71:287–292.

5. Romano C, Chinali M, Pasanisi F, Greco R, Celentano A, Rocco A, et al. Reduced hemodynamic load and cardiac hypotrophy in patients with anorexia nervosa. Am J Clin Nutr 2003;77:308–312.

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Reviews

Cortisol Effects on Human As stress increases, more and more people started to find ways to reduce their stress. Stress can cause people to lose their minds and make stupid decisions such as suicide and pessimistic. Stress is the body’s reaction to cope with physical and mental adjustments. Having stress is normal in life and everyone has some sort of experience with stress. The human body is designed to react towards unexpected and stressful situations such as the ‘fight or flight’. Short-term stress can actually be constructive to our immune system. However, long-term stress can cause major health problems.

Animals also experience stress over much more basic things than humans. Stress can cause memory loss that is disadvantageous to people. Cortisol, the stress hormone, prevents cells from communicating with each other, which stops information from being processed. Stress can also be treated through many methods. This essay is about cortisol, effects on the human body, stress in animals, and how it can be relieved.

Benjamin Wong Introduction The hormone that is released into the person’s body during a ‘fight or flight’ situation is called cortisol. As it is released, cortisol floods through the body to respond to sudden physical responses. It is normally called the stress hormone because of its mass production during edgy and nervous situations. The scientific side of psychology is the study of hormones because it involves the study of cortisol and stress. Cortisol is an important hormone in the human body and it is involved in many bodily functions. Many include regulation of blood pressure, immune functions and inflammatory response. The human body is capable of coping with short-term anxieties. But if the body remains on high tense level, it could cause serious and negative health problems.

Stress can come from many different factors.

Such as economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, self-induced pressure as well as traditional stressors like disease and famine. Any of these can cause serious difficulties for the body. During a stressful situation, the brain’s sympathetic nerves signal the adrenal glands, which then releases cortisol hormones. It is also suggested that sleep disorders can cause an increase in body stress. The body’s stress system plays a crucial rule in adapting to various difficult and demanding environments.

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Figure 1. Comparison of salivary cortisol at different stress levels. The salivary cortisol rises the longer the stress.

Stress may not only be harmful, but also constructive. Short-term stress can actually be beneficial to the human body because it boosts the immune system and defend off infections.

Experiencing positive stress can help improve academic and athletic performances. After dealing successfully with stress, it can raise selfesteem and confidence. However, on the negative side, long-term stress can cause all sorts of serious health problems. Prolonged stress can

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Reviews leave the body vulnerable for diseases and viruses. Long-term stress can also cause digestive systems to slow down due to the focus on stressor situations. When humans become nervous, a type of chemical substance called cortisol is released. Distress can lead to many physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach ache, rise in blood pressure, and sleeping disorders.

Not only do humans have stress, but animals also have stressful times. They endure stressors in their natural environment and fear about safety everyday. Maslow, a famous psychologist, created a hierarchy needs chart. From his chart, it clearly states that food, shelter, and security are few of the most important needs a living thing should acquire. Animals also stress over land, and they often fight over their neighbors for property.

Many animals are nervous and scared when they are in a new environment such as the rat trying to hide itself next to a wall. They are always very attentive and cautious when they are in a new surrounding.

prevents communication between brain cells. This prevention gives us a hard time to recall the past and to memorize things in the present. For most of the time, humans recollect the thought that was absent, but long-term stress can cause a certain memory to disappear permanently. The hippocampus is responsible for keeping information in the brain. Damage to the hippocampus can result in memory loss and the inability to make new memories. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that converts short-term memories into long-term memories.

Being stressful annoys many people. They want to get rid of the stress as fast as possible so they can get on with their lives. There are many ways to reduce cortisol level. For example, you can get enough nutrition, go to the gym, and do yoga.

There are more effect ways to control your cortisol level in your body.

Conclusion Ultimately, cortisol is the stress hormone that causes the human to react in difficult and anxious situations. It is a very important hormone to the human body because it involves in many bodily functions and short-term stress can lead to a boost in the immune system. On the long run, everyone should avoid stress because it can cause serious health problems and memory loss.

Citations

Figure 2. Shows where the hippocampus is located in the brain.

Stress is one of the factors that can affect your memory. While being stressed, the body’s adrenal glands pump out cortisol and prevent you from memorizing things and allow you to easily forget old things. The reason why it affects your ability to remember things is because cortisol interferes with the brain’s neurotransmitter, which then

"Wholeliving." Whole Living. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 July 2013.

Magazine, WebMD Feature from "Marie Claire" "What Stress Does to Your Body."WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 02 July 2013.

"The Effects of Stress on Your Body." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 02 July 2013.

"How Can Ongoing Stress Affect Your Memory? Curiosity." Curiosity. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 July 2013.

"When Babies Awaken: New Study Shows Surprise Regarding Important Hormone Level." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 02 Dec. 2011.

Web. 03 July 2013.

"KoreaMed Synapse." Http://dx.doi.org/10.5607/en.2012.21.

4.141. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

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Reviews "Behavioural Brain Research." - Journal. N.p., n.d.

Web. 03 July 2013.

"Association between Stress, Sleep Quality and Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction: Simulated Mars Mission." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"PayPerView: Group Psychoeducation Normalizes Cortisol Awakening Response in Stabilized Bipolar Patients under Pharmacological Maintenance Treatment - Karger Publishers." PayPerView: Group Psychoeducation Normalizes Cortisol Awakening Response in Stabilized Bipolar Patients under Pharmacological Maintenance Treatment Karger Publishers. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"Hormonal Contraceptive Use Diminishes Salivary Cortisol Response to Psychosocial Stress and Naltrexone in Healthy Women." Hormonal Contraceptive Use Diminishes Salivary Cortisol

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Response to Psychosocial Stress and Naltrexone in Healthy Women. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"Salivary Cortisol as a Biomarker to Explore the Role of Maternal Stress in Early Childhood Caries." Salivary Cortisol as a Biomarker to Explore the Role of Maternal Stress in Early Childhood Caries. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

Kolodkin, Alexey, Nilgun Sahin, Anna Phillips, Steve R. Hood, Frank J. Bruggeman, Hans V. Westerhoff, and Nick Plant. "Abstract." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"The Journal of Experimental Biology." Social Descent with Territory Loss Causes Rapid Behavioral, Endocrine, and Transcriptional Changes in the Brain. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"Memory Loss & the Brain." Memory Loss & the Brain. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 July 2013..

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Grants

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Emmanuel Dean

A. Specific Aims In the year 2010, the United States of America, used 1.584x1019 Joules of electricity.

That is roughly the same amount of energy released by 3785 nuclear bombs. People are relying more and more on electronics, media, and the Internet to do everyday work. But if we do not find an alternative, or a solution to this problem, in just a mere 40 years, the privilege of air conditioning, the internet and many other electronic services will not be available to us anymore. But the question is where will we get the energy from when our oil supplies deplete?

On an average day, the tropical areas of the ocean absorb a huge amount of solar energy. The energy absorbed is roughly equivalent to 250 billion barrels of oil. The idea to harness this immense source of renewable energy is called OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion). This technique theoretically can produce at least 14 million megawatts of energy. 1 megawatt can support 1000 homes for 1 year. 14 million can supply the households in the United States of America for 122 years.

Energy is important to human activity.

A world without electricity or energy would be a world similar to that of the Middle Ages.

If, in 40 years time, we do not have enough oil or energy to support the human population, economic development will be very difficult to achieve. Even today, with the amount of energy we are using, some

countries such as the United States, the world largest energy user, is only has a growth of 1.7% in its GDP. So imagine United States in 40 years time with no electricity, there will definitely be no development in the economy.

Ultimately, the goal of this project is to find a solution to the world energy crisis.

Being a young adult in the world today, in 40 years time, I will still be in the world, and the problem of no energy will be in the hands of my generation. It is a fact that without energy, economic development or any development is not possible.

Aim 1.

How much net energy can an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plant in the bay of Tokunoshima create?  We will create an OTEC power plant, which will generate energy by exploiting the different temperatures of the hot surface ocean water and the cold deep ocean water. These two different temperatures will be used to evaporate and condense ammonia.  The evaporate ammonia will be in a chamber in which it will pass through a turbine which will turn and create energy, but as it reaches the cold water chamber, the ammonia will be condensed and recycled again.

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Grants Aim II Does the temperature difference of the hot surface ocean water and the cold deep ocean water affect the efficiency of the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plant?  We will measure a 34-minute stretch, in which using different ocean waters from different depths of water will vary the temperature difference.

This opportunity will be a great experience for myself to extend my learning upon the issue of urban planning. More and more people are being born but less and less energy are left in the world. I believe that it is up to my generation to try and fix what has been done and to try and generate clean and sustainable energy for the better.

B. Background and Significance The Closed cycle method of OTEC The closed cycle method involves a plant structure, which will be situated at the coast of an island (Figure 1). The location has

Fig 1. This is a simple diagram on how the OTEC will work.

The warm water (1) will come through a pipe in which it will evaporate the ammonia (2). Next the vapor will pass through the turbo generator (3). This will cause it to spin and generate energy. At (4) the vapor will then condense due to the cold ocean water. It will change back into liquid form and re-pump through the feed pump the cycle starts again (5) 28

to have an ocean where there is a supply of warm surface water and cold deep ocean water. The difference in the two temperatures has to be at least 20°C to ensure that evaporation and condensation will happen efficiently. Some locations that have these qualities are the Island of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, and the Island of Tokunoshima in Japan. Generally the best places for these plants are in the tropical areas of the world, roughly 15-20° above and below the equator.

This technique fundamentally works on the concept of evaporation and condensation. Because the temperature of the water does not reach the 100°C which is the boiling point of water, this technique uses the liquid known as refrigerants, for example ammonia. Ammonia is used because of the very low boiling temperature roughly -33°C. Therefore, the warm surface temperature of the ocean, roughly 20°C will be able to evaporate it.

After the process of evaporation, the ammonia vapor will pass through a turbine engine, which will cause it to turn and generate energy. Preceding the turning of the turbine engine, the ammonium vapor will continue on into a different chamber and condense due to the cold deep ocean water; upon condensation the liquid Ammonia can be reused. Ultimately, this is a sustainable cycle, which can generate a lot of energy.

(Refer to Figure 2) Materials and Collection of Water Besides the functioning technique, a lot of research has gotten into the materials and the structure in which the pumps should be aligned to minimize the damage on the aquatic environment.

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Grants many places such as in the Caribbean or in Hawaii, pipes may have to extend to 5-6 kilometers into the sea to reach viable cold deep ocean water.

Fig 2. This is a plan of how the water will be pumped out of the ocean from the two different locations. The first, which is closer to the surface and the second, which is deeper in the ocean. (Power from the Sea by Terry R. Penney)

The first aspect considered was the material used for the heat exchangers and the pipelines. The material that was originally chosen for the pipelines was the metal Titanium. Titanium was chosen because of its resistance to corrosion. But this metal is very expensive. Therefore the Argonne National Laboratory developed a brazed aluminum heat exchanger instead of titanium one. The test conducted suggests that these chambers will last for 30 years or more.

Location of the Power plant There are many viable locations in which this power plant could be situated. The location in which this project will be conducted will be on Tokunoshima Island of the south of the country Japan. I decided to choose this island because it has all the qualities in which I need to conduct this project. There is a difference of 19.9ºC between the warm surface ocean water and the cold deep ocean water. In addition to the availability of the two different water temperatures, the distance in which the pipe has to extend to reach the cold water is only 3 kilometer away. Unlike

C. Preliminary Data For the first aim, we do not have preliminary data, as this project is not an experiment in which we have an independent variable or a dependent variable, this project is to find out if this technique of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion actually works.

But below are some budget data and information on the details of the power plant.

Structure of Power Plant The power plant was situated on the south west bay of Tokunoshima Island. 7.6 m in diameter and 9.5m in height. The structure was also 4 meters above sea level.

Conditions of water Warm seawater: 26ºC – 0.7m Cold seawater: 6.1ºC – 670m deep and 2,040m away Power Budget Generator Terminals: 210kW Vacuum pump: 40kW Discharge pumps: 63kW Supply Pumps: 35 kW Essential auxiliaries: 12 kW Net power: 60kW Preliminary Data for Second Aim For the second aim, there have been some data that has been collected by Luis A. Vega. (Data comes from the OTEC power plant situated in the middle of the pacific near Hawaii.) This data shows the raw data in which it was collected throughout a 34minute stretch. We are planning to do a similar experiment in which we will be able to

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Grants compare data to confirm the strength of the OTEC power plant along with the affects of the different temperatures.

Fig. 3. This is a table of the raw data in which was collected in the OTEC power plant near Hawaii. The time span in which this data was collected was from 14:33:19 until 15:17:19.

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Grants

Fig 4. These two graphs represent the data that has been collected if there is a difference in the temperature of the cold or the warm water that is retrieved for OTEC. As we can see from the results, a slight difference in the temperature will affect the outcome of the energy. Therefore to be as efficient as possible, it is suggested that the bigger the difference in the temperature, the better the output will be. Some suggestions that we have proposed is to try and make a power plant located in the middle of the ocean. Therefore we can reach for trenches that have water temperatures that are very low. For example, the Mariana trench.

D. Experimentation Aim 1 My first aim is to try and to discover if the technique Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion actually works. There is no experiment in which I will be conducting on this. All we want to record is the amount of energy that it can create and try to find new innovations in which we can increase the amount of energy that is created.

pipe will create a signal that may be detectable by marine mammals and fish.�

They were concerned that these sounds might have a possibility in disturbing the marine animal’s communication or their habitat. This is where the plant situation comes into play. To minimize the disturbance to marine animals, we will try to place the plant where there are minimal marine animals. We are uncertain where this location will be, but it will be decided before the pipelines are to be constructed.

Aim 2

There is no potential harm in which this power plant can create except for the disturbance of marine animals. According to Christina M. Comfort, scientists who assessed the trial OTEC plant in Hawaii stated, “the vibration of the deep water

My second aim is to try and find out to what extent does the temperature difference between the warm surface ocean water and the cold deep ocean water affect the

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Grants efficiency of the technique Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.

We are doing this because we would like to see, if we are able to maybe increase the temperature of the ocean water by using a portion of the energy produce to quicken the process and to see if the Net energy is more or less. Therefore we need to see if different temperatures actually allow a difference in the energy generated.

The procedure in which we will do this is to let the power plant run for 34 minutes and to use different temperatures of the ocean water by using different depths of water. Therefore we are able to graph the results and to see if there is a correlation between the two variables. What we are expecting, by using the information we gained from the experiment in Hawaii, is that an increase in the difference of the two temperatures will create a difference in the amount of energy that is produced.

The harm potential in this experiment is similar to that of Aim 1. The pipelines in which we use to extract the different temperature waters might disturb many marine animals. But in this experiment, I think there will be a bigger distraction, as we will use movement to try and extract different temperatures of water.

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Grants

Stress Improves Dual-Tasking Efficiency Benjamin Wong

Specific Aims Stress can actually improve dual tasking efficiency. Mind process and stress plays an important role in our daily lives. Stress has always been viewed as a negative thing. But what if stress is constructive to dual tasking?

While undergoing two tasks at once, we often prioritize the first task. However, a recent study has shown that stress can actually improve our dual tasking efficiency. It is examined to have a relation to multi and dual tasking performance. In previous experiments, it has shown that punishment can force the person to react and response to a stimulus much faster than usual. So if punishment and stress can have the same effect, then this means stress can also increase tasking efficiency.

We live in the 21st century, which requires assignments to be done as quickly as possible.

As more tasks are given and less time is provided, people tend to dual task to speed up the efficiency. But by doing two things at once will often cause a lack in quality and sometimes decline in efficiency. For example, many people try to text or call while driving.

This can not only divide the driver’s attention from the road, but also put him and others into danger.

The model system used to carry out this experiment is called the Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm. The period of time when the response to the second task is slowed because the first task is still being dealt with. It is the time between one task and the other. This can often create a

negative affect when one is required to divide attention for the second task. The PRP paradigm is a process in which two stimuli is presented one after the other, this requires a fast response to both of the tasks.

Ultimately, the goal of this project is to deepen my understanding about what stress can do positively and negatively. This experiment can also allow us to have a better understand on dual tasking and how the brain processes under stress. The experiments in this proposal are aimed at understanding about how stress can affect our dual tasking abilities.

Aims 1 | Determine whether stress can improve dual tasking efficiency. Specifically, I will:  Divide the participants into two groups. One for control and one for stress.  Compose two tests using the PRP paradigm to see if stress improves the participant’s reaction time.

Aims 2 | Analyze salivary cortisol, blood pressure, and pulse rate when the test subject is stressed. Specifically, I will:  Divide the participants into two groups. One for control, and one for stress  Measure and compare the three elements of the stressed participants and unstressed participants.

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Grants This experiment provides a great chance to explore in the fields of psychology and neuroscience. This project will train me in the field of research and how to act out experiments. I would also have a better understanding and foundation about how science and psychology is combined.

Completion of these aims will make me understand whether or not psychological stress can actually improve dual task efficiency as well as the behavior of a stressed human body.

Background and Significance The hormone that is released into the person’s body during a ‘fight or flight’ situation is called cortisol. As it is released, cortisol floods through the body to act out sudden physical responses. It is normally called the stress hormone because of its mass production during edgy and nervous situations. The scientific side of psychology is the study of hormones because it involves the study of cortisol and stress. Cortisol is an important hormone in the human body and it is involved in many bodily functions. Many include regulation of blood pressure, immune functions and inflammatory response. The human body is capable of coping with shortterm anxieties. But if the body remains on high tense level, it could cause serious and negative health problems. Stress can come from many different factors. Such as economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure.

As the stress pile up, people start to do multiple things at once. Because of all the expectations, they cannot afford to miss any deadlines. As dual tasking became more often, more and more people start to take chances, even chances that are not worth taking. Some examples include texting while driving, and doing homework and listening to music.

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EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We will collect 36 healthy young men to run this experiment. They will be divided into two groups, 18 control and 18 stressed.

Participants will be tested with two different tests each one after the other with a short duration between each one.

During experiment 1, salivary cortisol, blood pressure, and pulse rate are to be collected before, during, and again for 5, 20, and 50 minutes after the test.

During experiment 2, we will test for the reaction time of each participant to see if stress really helps with dual task efficiency.

The time between stimulus one and stimulus two affected the reaction time.

Preliminary Data

Figure 1. This data table shows the relation between a stressed results and controlled results. In task one, we can clearly see that if the SOA between each stimulus is same, the reaction time for stressed group is much shorter than the controlled group. But in task two, the controlled group had a faster response time.

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Grants Graph A | Experiment 1 is an introduction to the real test. Participants were to put their feet in cold water shown as stress and another group were to put their feet in warm water shown as control. As shown in graph A, we can see the salivary cortisol release for a stressed person is much higher than control.

Graph B | Other than salivary cortisol was collected, blood pressure was also one of the subject that is needed. The blood pressure under stress is obviously higher than the controlled. The systolic data is higher because it is when the heart pumps the blood into the arteries. The blood pressure lowers after the stress point because the test is already finished.

Graph C | The pulse rate in this experiment shows a big change when the test subject is stressed. It shows that the pulse rate is much higher than the control rate. This concludes that cold water can have a stress affect on the person compared to warm water.

This is experiment is composed to tell whether stress has an effect on dual tasking. There are going to be two tasks composed, the tone test and the letter test. The white circle indicates task 1 responses in stressed group, The white triangle indicates task 1 controlled, the black square indicates task 2 in the stressed group, the black diamond indicates task 2 in the control group. The graphs show how fast the reaction time is for each test. SOA stands for the time between each stimulus. As the time between each stimulus lasts longer, the reaction time is also slower. It is obvious because the more time between each stimulus, the more time the participant has to get ready and prepare. But for this experiment, we are trying to find out if stress really improves your reaction time. In all the graphs, we can conclude that the reaction time with stress is always faster than the control no matter what time is given between each stimulus.

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Grants Specific Aim 1: Psychological Refractory PeriodThe period of time when the response to the second task is slowed because the first task is still being dealt with. The method used to conduct this experiment is called the Psychological Refractory Period, also known as PRP. It is the time between one task and the other. It can often create a negative affect when one is required to divide attention for the second task. It is the process in which two stimuli is presented one after the other, this requires a fast response to both of the tasks.

The Two Tests: - Tone test - Letter test This experiment is to see the difference between dual tasking while stressed and dual tasking while not stressed. The letter test requires the experimental subject to identify the white letters (“H” or “O”) that is presented on a dark screen. They have to indicate whether the letter shown is an “H” or “O”. In the “tone test”, sine waves with a pitch of 300 or 900 Hz were sounded. After the “tone test” is presented, it is followed by the “letter test”. Participants need to use their left hand to respond to the tone stimulus and their right hand to the letter stimulus.

Participants are encouraged to respond to the stimulus as fast as possible. Then, participants are to respond to the second stimulus within 2000ms. During the experiment, we will make two random orders of tests. This can mess up the participant’s anticipation on what is coming next. This makes the participant unprepared whether the tone test or the letter test will come first and make them unsure about which hand will respond to the test. During this experiment, we can also see some obvious errors such as pure luck. The participant can start guessing if the order is 36

the same. With this experiment, we can know if stress actually affects dual tasking efficiency.

Specific Aim 2: Participants are to put their feet into cold water (0-2C) for 3 minutes. Then, I will take their salivary cortisol sample, blood pressure, and pulse rate. Then, the control group is to put their feet into warm water (35-37C) for 3 minutes. The data can be compared to see how the water temperature affected stress level. In this test, I will take and compare the salivary cortisol level, blood pressure, and pulse rate. For this experiment, participants are required to sink their feet in freezing water for three minutes. This can cause some unavoidable error because the participant can no longer hold his feet in the water because it is too cold. Although this experiment is only an introduction to stress for the participants, this can increase our knowledge on how each participant reacts to stress.

Conclusion: In conclusion, this experience can really improve and help me as a person more than academic improvement. This experiment can help us understand the benefits of stress and dual tasking. If stress can really improve dual tasking efficiency, then we may have found a way to multi tasking efficiently.

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Grants

Magic Mushrooms Mara Thomas

Magic mushrooms have been used and spread all over the world since ancient times.

Their use procures hallucinations, visions, euphoria and a good feeling. In fact besides from the immediate effects such as physical or hallucinations, they also face the person to a chronic toxicity with the possibility of psychosis and psychiatric disorders. Magic mushrooms are mainly composed of psilocin and/or psilocybin is producing all sorts of hallucinating effects, on a psychological way as well as physically. “Psilocybin is an indoleamine or serotonin-like hallucinogen and the main psychoactive principle of a group of hallucinogenic fungi of the genus Psilocybin, also often referred to as ‘magic mushrooms’.”(1). As much it has been declared a drug, it’s effects are not yet fully established. In fact after an ingestion, the person tend to forget what happened during the trip. Therefore ultimately we seek to characterize the effects of magic mushrooms on the brain, in order to better understand the neuropsychopharmacology of the drug and its possible use in medicine.

much in the medical field but as well in the socio-political affairs. It is additional knowledge for the society and better prevention for our future generations.

Fungi’s consumption has been increasing dramatically since they were, and still are legal in certain countries. They are indeed available on the web or even in big shops. The new generation has a reputation for the consumption of drugs. Therefore it is our responsibility to find out what these less known drugs procure in order to be able to prevent a possible abuse of consumption.

Drugs have always been a major conflict as

As a teenager this subject fascinates me in a way that it fulfills my curiosity. Being exposed to drugs, and tales from other youngsters, I find it interesting to study a little more this major topic of our society. In fact drugs have become a current problem everywhere in the world and the more there is to know the quicker this problem can be solved. It is also a good opportunity for me to discover and

My model system would be me, since it is established in the ethical laws that mice and other animals shall not be maltreated. Since these drugs affect our brain it would be inappropriate to confront it with such model templates. Therefore I decided to experiment it myself to also have a better perception of what and how these effects play with our minds.

Aim 1: Discover the psychological effects mushrooms can have during a trip and their exact duration depending on the dose ingested. In this case increasing doses.

Aim 2: Study the composition of the magic mushroom in order to perhaps discover an interesting help in medicine science. Some experiments have already been done for this point but without a clear conclusion.

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Grants analyze a subject of my interest so it may lead to a better and more accurate conclusion.

Preliminary Data :

occur to me: flashbacks the next day, physical effects ext‌ I am located in the same room for these two weeks. There would only be a table, chairs a

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 1: ascending doses or descending doses, of the increasing well-being and persisting positive mood. : Rating from 1 to 3 on the user of mushrooms in relation to either.

Figure 2: consumption of magic mushrooms and other drugs in Europe Aim 1 Experiment: With the help of my assistant I ingest magic mushrooms at a different dose for two weeks every two days. Following my ingestions my assistant takes notes of my behavior and registers me. Once the effect is gone I analyze the recordings, drawings and sounds I pronounced during my trip. I note every detail and secondary effect that might

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bed and a desk. The importance of not having dangerous objects around is major. Psilocybin produces loss of control so the mind does not function in a logical way and objects such as knives and lighters can be lethal. (caution must apply to smokers as well) With this experiment we could be able to actually remember in a sort of way what happens during a trip. In addition we can

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Grants observe the duration of the effect on our health in relation with the dose of mushrooms ingested.

This is the table of the doses ingested every 2 days for 2 weeks.

left, is the breaking point for the mushroom and am able to continue my studies in the rest of the mushroom. Confocal pictures are going to be used to see how the chemical move in the brain and what part of it they access.

Potential problems are mostly the same as the usual ones in the labs. Use of dangerous chemicals, unsupervised experiment ext‌

I will ingest these doses of magic mushrooms (grams) and my assistant will record note and analyze each one of my movement.

To conclude the aim of this experiment is to detect possible danger for our future generations to come. As I said before, drug consumption has increased drastically and it is our duty to try and prevent an even higher impact on the society.

The potential problems are that after a certain amount of time my metabolism will no longer afford the fungi ingestion and might procure secondary effects. In that case the experiment would either have to stop or continue but exchanging roles with my assistant.

Aim 2 For this aim the experiment consists in dissecting a mushrooms and test all the chemical that might be in it. For example start by the ones that are in for sure and analyze their effects on our health, especially either they are benefic or dangerous. The first to be extract will be the psilocybin and observed with a microscope in order to better understand its role in the mushroom.

This study will allow us to perhaps improve our medicine by finding new drugs that could be helpful to people in a lot of pain. However they still remain hallucinogens.

I would start by extracting the psilocybin from the mushroom, since it is the main component. In that way I know that what is BASIS: Brown Adolescent Science International Students The Pretend Journal of SciComm

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Grants

Eating Disorders Maria José

Eating disorders are abnormal eating habits and also we can call it mental illnesses, those are when you don’t eat correctly, so the patient starts eating small amounts or excessive amounts. The person starts to miss some of the necessary nutrients, vitamins, and begins to reduce uncontrolled her weight or starts being overweight. We will focus on the two most important eating disorders that we have today. The first one is called anorexia nervosa, is the third most common illness of adolescence. This one appears when the teenager let herself go by her mind, and only think about her body and how she looks. The other illness that affects teenagers is Bulimia nervosa, the bulimia patients are not in their normal weights they are overweight, they can’t control themselves so they start eating everything in large amounts, and then vomits everything they ate, or also use some medications like laxatives, diuretics, and others.

Malnutrition causes many consequences in every patient; it can cause a decrease in the muscle mass including the cardiac muscle, it can bring so many impacts on the person.

This is a theme that doesn’t have any ending, because every day appears more cases about anorexia and bulimia. Fifty percent of deaths in anorexia nervosa may have a cardiac etiology. Chest pain is another consequence of Anorexia Nervosa. They also can have Osteoporosis, the lowest body mass is the best predictor of bone loss, all depends on the duration of the illness. The symptoms of 40

the Bulimia Nervosa are dizziness, fatigue, syncope, palpitations, and seizures. These diseases can cause suicide.

In the Regular article Time Trends in the Incidence of Eating Disorders: A Primary Care Study in the Netherlands by Gabrie¨lle E. van Son, MA1* Daphne van Hoeken, Ph. During 1985–1989 they had a large average of annual patients who had Anorexia nervosa or Bulimia nervosa. For all the patients who had eating disorders, the general practitioner filled out an information sheet regarding eating disorders symptoms. They did the first diagnosis; they did it about the information provided by the general practitioners. There is another article called Prevalence and Correlates of Eating Disorders in Adolescents, Results from The National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement, The NCSA that is a nationally representative interview survey of adolescents in the United States.

NCS-A sample was based on a nationally household and another school. One parent of each participating adolescent was asked to complete a questionary that had questions about the mental health of the patient, and they got some results.

Ultimately the goal of this project is to explain to my peers how we can do experiments, and cause any impact on the people. Also we want to help all the adolescents who have these diseases, help their families, and show them how they can control themselves. I want to know which ones are the main

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Grants reasons of these eating disorders, and also I want to be able to recognize how the mind of any type of teenager can change so dramatically, at any moment.

Aim I I will do a questionary for all the teenagers, asking about their body, their appearance, about the “perfect body”. How they feel when they are unhappy with her body, and when it happens, which ones are the conditions that you take about the situation, also with this aim I want to know what causes on a teenager being unhappy with their body.

Aim II I will take ten female adolescents, five in depression and the other five in the perfect mood. First of all I need to investigate what causes the depression on the teenagers that I have chosen. Learn about how they feel about those situations, and how they can stop it. With this experiment I want to see the amounts of aliments that they would eat, and with these results I can prove which ones are the main reasons that cause these diseases.

Doing this project I will help the society in different ways, the first one is in the decreased of the people who has these illness. Also I can stop any kind of abuse that one of them can receive from their friends or from any person. I want to change the way of thinking of the adolescents, because that is one of the main reasons that makes the adolescents stop eating or make them eat excessive amounts.

Background & Significance In the actual days there are a lot of teenagers who have one of those eating disorders. The specialists can’t even find a cure for it, and there is not a certainly cause for it. For us is so

easy to find a conclusion before knowing about the situation, but the real thing is that if we really want to stop those diseases we need to investigate so deeply, and get to know better what the patients think of themselves, which ones are the reasons that make them stop eating, and all the others reasons that let their mind let themselves go by desires or impulsive moments.

Specific Aim 1: I’ll give a questionary to some adolescents, with five questions; these adolescents have to be teenagers, so it can help me to do it better and would be easier to get the results. The questions will be: 1. For you, what is the most important thing on a woman?

2. What do you think about the fat people and the skinny ones?

3. How much do you care about what others can think of you?

4. Which one are your biggest fears?

5. Have you ever been in depression?

Why? When they fill up the questionary we will divide the reasons, and get to know the causes of their answers better, and then we can describe the main reasons of these illnesses. We will take the best questionnaires and then if the parents allow us we are going to investigate the teenager better. One of the problems that we can have is that the teenagers don’t answer the questions good enough, or without honesty.

Specific Aim 2: I will take ten adolescents, five of them in depression or with another kind of symptoms, and the other five in the normal

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Grants mood. In separated rooms I will put any type of food, sodas, juices, candy, ice cream, and others. But I also need to put a T.V, magazines, and computer. Just to make me sure that if they ate something it wasn’t because they didn’t had anything to do, and then I can see that they ate because they wanted to.

If they ate and do normal things they are totally healthy, but if one of them doesn’t eat anything it means that she is not good at all or all depends in her behavior. Then we are going to analyze all the results and talk to each one, to know why they acted in that way. With this we can prove which one are the main reasons or causes of Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa.

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Grants

Epigenetics Nixon Lim

Introduction/Aims Impact on Human Health Our lives is affected by the genes we have. When these genes change our appearances and immune system and change widely. Epigenetics imprints a permanent a gene that can possibly change the outcome of your life.

If this results in failure when imprinting (Gives you a bad imprint) you may result in obesity or weaker immune system.

Due to the fact that Epigenetics can have a life changing effect on you scientist have studied further into this topic so that they can understand this better. They have tried several tests and experiments, and found discovered many new ideas about Epigenetics. These discoveries can help mankind grow stronger against diseases and other world problems like diabetes. These effects can happen depending on many interferences like what you eat.

Background/Problem The problem from epigenetics is quite large. Since you do not know the result of the born baby. He or she could be affected by the epigenetics in a bad way. The baby could result in a defect in his or her system and cause problems for the baby’s health in the future. In order to prevent this from happening we can further investigate on this function. We can discover something new about epigenetic so that we can help human kind gain from this.

When we discover how to manipulate this and control the effects on the baby’s birth, we can strengthen the human body and repel all the sickness. If we can control this it can have a big impact on our genes making lesser obese people in the world thus lessening the amount of people who have diabetes.

Goal of the Project Aim 1- It can help learn about how we can reduce the obesity of people by learning how the environment effects the baby.

Aim2- Help us learn if the mother and father’s genes affect the baby’s growth when the woman is pregnant.

The Training and society If this project does go through and I receive the grant it would teach me a lot. It would let me feel a great achievement and I would be able to improve the research material on epigenetics.

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Grants On the left shows a table of the list of BMI’s from the volunteers from another experiment. They took some of them who were smoking so that we could see the change in BMI from a person who has a healthy body. We also had people from different races come together so their BMI could also be compared for more accurate data.

They found out many things from this data such as the status difference from smokers and non-smokers. We discovered the birth weight, gender and even education all contribute to the making of the baby when he or she is in the mothers stomach. The epigenetics of the mother when she is outside can greatly affect her offspring especially smoking.

The race of people did not have much of a change compared to other variables.

Procedure 1.BMI stands for body mass index 2.Get a BMI calculator by either downloading one or finding one in the internet 3. Calculate the BMI and look at the patterns from it Potential Problems We may encounter instances when a person is a different race and is smoking and has two types of our variable.

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Grants Aim 2 The Experiment

On top is the double bar graph of is the methylation of the obesity taken from another similar experiment that already has been done. We took analyzed the parent by using two tests.

Tests -Fisherman’s exact testA B

Raw total A+B

-

C

D

C+D

Column Total

A+C

B+D

A+B+C+D (=n)

-Pearson’s Chi squared test The Chi squared test helps determines a person’s goodness of fit and their test of independence.

The fisherman’s test is used mostly to classify two objects in different ways. For this instance it is the dad and the mother of a child. You put their data in a 2 by 2 contingency table.

Above is a scatter plot graph from the mothers and fathers took. Their methylation of their BMI seems to vary in the scatter plot graph.

It tells us what the mean of the graph really is.

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Grants Potential Problems In the tests, we may occur an error because of the many steps we would have to accomplish or a piece of data could not be experimented on because on of our volunteers would not cooperate with our team.

Conclusion In this experience I can further help people gain immune systems that can fight of diseases occurring in genes. This can be fatal for the family if their genes are not changed because the family could end up fat their whole lives, but epigenetics can switch that around. I also can learn a lot from this experiment and gain a new experience of what it is like to feel after you accomplish a great obstacle.

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Stress Improves Dual Tasking Efficiency 1,2 Wong ,

Benjamin and Christopher M 1 Summer@Brown, 2 Communicating Science, Brown University, Providence, RI

INTRODUCTION Mind process and stress plays an important role in our daily lives. Stress has always been viewed as a negative thing. But what if stress is constructive to dual tasking? While undergoing two tasks at once, we often prioritize the first task.

However, a recent study has shown that stress can actually improve our dual tasking efficiency. It is examined to have a relation to multi and dual tasking performance. However, the second task is a form of resistance to the first task because the two tasks are two different information processed by one single brain. This is called the Psychological Refectory Period (PRP). The PRP paradigm is a classical test to analyze the interference between the two completely different tasks. 36 healthy young men were used as test subjects. In this experiment, one test is presented shortly after another and the participants are required to identify the pictures and sounds. It is hypothesized that stress can boost the response speed of dual tasking. It is also known that the effects of punishments will also increase dual tasking. Punishment can be seen as a type of stress. If the effects of punishment is similar to the effects of stress, then we can successfully conclude that stress can improve dual tasking efficiency.

1,2 Ciarleglio

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

Discussion

We collected 36 healthy young man to run this experiment. They were divided into two groups, 18 control and 18 stressed. Participants were tested with two different tests each one after the other with a short duration between each one. They were tested with the letter test and the tone test.

During experiment 1, salivary cortisol, blood pressure, and pulse rate were collected before, during, and again for 5, 20, and 50 minutes after the test.

During experiment 2, we tested for the reaction time of each participant to see if stress really helps with dual task efficiency. The time between stimulus one and stimulus two affected the reaction time.

In experiment 1, the stressed salivary cortisol level is significantly higher compared to the controlled experiment. The pulse rate and blood pressure are all higher when the participant is undertaking stress from the freezing water.

In this current study, we saw the effects of stress in dual tasking. It shows that with stress, one can do a faster more accurate job. Participants improved their efficiency when they are stressed which is faster than the control.

RESULTS

Graph A | Experiment 1 is an introduction to the real test. Participants were to put their feet in cold water shown as stress and another group were to put their feet in warm water shown as control. As shown in graph A, we can see the salivary cortisol release for a stressed person is much higher than control.

CONCLUSIONS

METHODS Experiment 1(Introduction): Participants are to put their feet into cold water (0-2C) for 3 minutes. The staff took their salivary cortisol sample, blood pressure, and pulse rate. Then, another control group were to put their feet into warm water (35-37C) for 3 minutes. The data are compared to see how the water temperature affected stress level.

Experiment 2: Psychological Refractory PeriodThe period of time when the response to the second task is slowed because the first task is still being dealt with.

The method used to conduct this experiment is called the Psychological Refractory Period, also known as PRP. It is the time between one task and the other. It can often create a negative affect when one is required to divide attention for the second task. It is the process in which two stimuli is presented one after the other, this requires a fast response to both of the tasks.

The Two Tests: - Tone test - Letter test The letter test requires the experimental subject to identify the white letters (“H” or “O”) that is presented on a dark screen.

They have to indicate whether the letter shown is an “H” or “O”.

In the “tone test”, sine waves with a pitch of 300 or 900 Hz were sounded. After the “tone test” is presented, it is followed by the “letter test”. Participants used their left hand to respond to the tone stimulus and their right hand to the letter stimulus.

Participants are encouraged to respond to the stimulus as fast as possible. Then, participants are to respond to the second stimulus within 2000ms.

Graph B | Other than salivary cortisol was collected, blood pressure was also one of the subject that is needed. The blood pressure under stress is obviously higher than the controlled. The systolic data is higher because it is when the heart pumps the blood into the arteries. The blood pressure lowers after the stress point because the test is already finished.

Graph C | The pulse rate in this experiment shows a big change when the test subject is stressed. It shows that the pulse rate is much higher than the control rate. This concludes that cold water can have a stress affect on the person compared to warm water.

This is experiment is composed to tell whether stress has an effect on dual tasking. There were two tasks composed, the tone test and the letter test. The white circle indicates task 1 responses in stressed group, The white triangle indicates task 1 controlled, the black square indicates task 2 in the stressed group, the black diamond indicates task 2 in the control group. The graphs show how fast the reaction time is for each test. SOA stands for the time between each stimulus. As the time between each stimulus lasts longer, the reaction time is also slower. It is obvious because the more time between each stimulus, the more time the participant has to get ready and prepare. The shorter the time between stimulus, the longer the reaction time. But for this experiment, we are trying to find out if stress really improves your reaction time. In all the graphs, we can conclude that the reaction time with stress is always faster than the control no matter what time is given between each stimulus.

In summary, we can say that dual tasking performance is enhanced under stress. The results suggest that stress can improve dual tasking efficiency. We can also predict increase in task efficiency is affected by salivary cortisol level. While under stress, people can improve their dual tasking efficiency.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This data table shows the relation between a stressed results and controlled results. In task one, we can clearly see that if the SOA between each stimulus is same, the reaction time for stressed group is much shorter than the controlled group. But in task two, the controlled group had a faster response time.

This research was supported by Coca Cola, McDonalds, and Nestle.

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"Behavioural Brain Research." - Journal. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"Association between Stress, Sleep Quality and Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction: Simulated Mars Mission." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"PayPerView: Group Psychoeducation Normalizes Cortisol Awakening Response in Stabilized Bipolar Patients under Pharmacological Maintenance Treatment - Karger Publishers." PayPerView: Group Psychoeducation Normalizes Cortisol Awakening Response in Stabilized Bipolar Patients under Pharmacological Maintenance Treatment - Karger Publishers.

N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"Hormonal Contraceptive Use Diminishes Salivary Cortisol Response to Psychosocial Stress and Naltrexone in Healthy Women." Hormonal Contraceptive Use Diminishes Salivary Cortisol Response to Psychosocial Stress and Naltrexone in Healthy Women. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"Salivary Cortisol as a Biomarker to Explore the Role of Maternal Stress in Early Childhood Caries." Salivary Cortisol as a Biomarker to Explore the Role of Maternal Stress in Early Childhood Caries. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

Kolodkin, Alexey, Nilgun Sahin, Anna Phillips, Steve R. Hood, Frank J. Bruggeman, Hans V. Westerhoff, and Nick Plant.

"Abstract." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

"The Journal of Experimental Biology." Social Descent with Territory Loss Causes Rapid Behavioral, Endocrine, and Transcriptional Changes in the Brain. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2013.

Eating Disorders in female adolescents 1,2 Ramos ,

1,2 Ciarleglio

Maria Jose Christopher M 2 Summer@Brown, Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, RI

INTRODUCTION

Eating disorders are abnormal eating habits and also we can call it mental illnesses, those are when you don’t eat correctly, so the patient starts eating small amounts or excessive amounts. The person starts to miss some of the necessary nutrients, vitamins, and begins to reduce in a uncontrolled way her weight or starts being overweight.

We will focus on the two most important eating disorders that we have today. The first one is called anorexia nervosa, is the third most common illness of adolescence.

This one appears when the teenager let herself go by her mind, and only think about her body and how she looks.

The other illness that affects teenagers is Bulimia nervosa, the bulimia patients are not in their normal weights they are overweight, they can’t control themselves so they start eating everything in large amounts, and then vomits everything they ate, or also use some medications like laxatives, diuretics, and others. Malnutrition causes many consequences in every patient; it can cause a decrease in the muscle mass including the cardiac muscle, it can bring so many impact on the person.

This is a theme that doesn’t have any ending, because every day appears more cases about anorexia and bulimia.

SUMMARY

RESULTS In the Regular article Time Trends in the Incidence of Eating Disorders: A Primary Care Study in the Netherlands by Gabrie¨lle E. van Son, MA1* Daphne van Hoeken, Ph

Fifty percent of deaths in anorexia nervosa may have a cardiac etiology.

Chest pain is another consequence of Anorexia Nervosa.

They also can have Osteoporosis, the lowest body mass is the best predictor of bone loss, all depends on the duration of the illness.

The symptoms of the Bulimia Nervosa are dizziness, fatigue, syncope, palpitations, and seizures.

These diseases can cause suicide.

CONCLUSIONS These diseases have so many risk factors, and almost all of them are biological.

• Genetic • Puberty • Social Pressures

.

METHODS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the Regular article Time Trends in the Incidence of Eating Disorders: A Primary Care Study in the Netherlands by Gabrie¨lle E. van Son, MA1* Daphne van Hoeken, Ph During 1985–1989 they had a large average of annual patients who had Anorexia nervosa or Bulimia nervosa. For all the patients who had eating disorders, the general practitioner filled out an information sheet regarding eating disorders symptoms.

They did the first diagnosis, they did about the information provided by the general practitioners. After both study periods they conducted the studies that started in 1991 and 2001, at the end they obtained.

References: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Prevalence and Correlates of Eating Disorders in Adolescents, Results From the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement The NCS- A is a national representative interview survey of adolescents in the United States. NCS-A sample was based on a national] household and another school. One parent of each participating adolescent was asked to complete a questionnaire that had questions about the mental health of the patient, and they got some results.

5.

Cassin, S.E., Ranson, K. M., Heng, K., Brar, J., & Wojtowicz, A.E. (2008).

Adapted motivational interviewing for women with binge eating disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Herpertz-Dahlmann B. Adolescent eating disorders: defini- tions, symptomatology, epidemiology and comorbidity. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am 2009; 18 (1): 31-47 Van Son GE, van Hoeken D, Bartelds AIM, van Furth EF, Hoek HW. Time trends in the incidence of eating disorders: A pri- mary care study in The Netherlands.

Int J Eat Disord 2006; 39 (7): 565-9.

Currin L, Schimidt U, Treasure J, Jick H. Time trends in eating disorder incidence. Br J Psychiatry 2005; 186 (2): 132-5.

Van Son GE, van Hoeken D, Bartelds AIM, van Furth EF, Hoek HW. Time trends in the incidence of eating disorders: A pri- mary care study in The Netherlands.

Int J Eat Disord 2006; 39 (7): 565-9.

Magic Mushrooms: how do they affect our mind.

1,2 Ciarleglio

Mara Thomas and Christopher M 1 Summer@Brown, 2 Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, RI

INTRODUCTION Magic mushrooms have been used and spread all over the world since ancient times. They use procures hallucinations, visions, euphoria and a good feeling. In fact besides from the immediate effects such as physical or hallucinations, they also face the person to a chronic toxicity with the possibility of psychosis and psychiatric disorders. In this paper we will detail the effects of these magic mushrooms Magic mushrooms are mainly composed of psilocin and/or psilocybin is producing all sorts of hallucinating effects, on a psychological way as well as physically. “Psilocybin is an indoleamine or serotonin-like hallucinogen and the main psychoactive principle of a group of hallucinogenic fungi of the genus Psilocybin, also often referred to as ‘magic mushrooms’.”(1).The fungi’s consumption has been an increasing problem as the possession of these lasts was not illegal. In this study we will analyze the different effects that magic mushrooms can have on a human metabolism.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

SUMMARY Figure 5 shows us that the higher the doses the more effects it has on our mind. It is as well what figure 1 illustrates with the rating f wellbeing depending on decreasing and ascending doses The physical effects are well seen on a picture of my eye during a trip. The pupils are dilated and on my assistant notes it is written that from a dose higher than 20 grams he observed severe fever and constant throwing-up. In addition my blood pressure has decrease dramatically.

Figure 3: Rating from 1 to 3 on the user of mushrooms in relation to either ascending doses or descending doses, of the increasing well-being and persisting positive mood.

Figure 2: consumption of magic mushrooms and other drugs in Europe

The drawings on figure 4 illustrate the vision occurred to the person ingesting the mushrooms. We clearly see that the first drawing is much more details than the second one. However there are still these circles on the paper showing the confusion and loss f control of the person (in this case me)

RESULTS

CONCLUSIONS

METHODS Since the actual effects and process of the hallucinogens are still unknown, an experiment is required in order to better understand the psychological impact this drug can have on a brain. Therefore, the experience took place as follow.

Humans: Since the ethical rules established in the lab do not allow us to experiment drugs on mice, I decided to do the experience myself.

With the help of my assistant I ingest magic mushrooms at a different dose for two weeks every two days. Following my ingestions my assistant takes notes of my behavior and registers me. Once the effect is gone I analyze the recordings, drawings and sounds I pronounced during my trip. I note every detail and secondary effect that might occur to me: flashbacks the next day, physical effects ext� Culture: I am located in the same room for these two weeks. There would only be a table, chairs a bed and a desk. The importance of not having dangerous objects around is major. Psilocybin produces loss of control so the mind does not function in a logical way and objects such as knives and lighters can be lethal. (caution must apply to smokers as well) Statistics: They are produced with excel. In fact, the day following the ingestion, we used the notes to examine at exactly what time the effects start and finish. Each time a new effect would emerge we count how much time it lasts and if it changes related t the dose of mushrooms.

The effects of magic mushrooms on our health are various and very dangerous.

In fact not only they make us see things that do not exist but also affect our health. Such an interesting experiment allowed me to better understand this drug and analyze it’s danger. Even mushrooms can be lethal we shall not forget it.

Systolic blood pressure (mmHg) 25.9 ± 11.7 Diastolic blood pressure (mmHg)10.0 ± 7.6 Heart rate 10.4 ± 12.6 Table 1. Blood pressure and heart rate changes Mean/SD Figure 4: drawing under the effect of psilocybin.

Did on the 3 of july 2013 and on a dose of 4 grams.+ drawing on a dose of 12 grams on the 7 of july 2013

Table 2: Doses per day ( every two days)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Figure 5: statistics on the duration of the effects in relation with the doses taken

Days doses

1

2

10

15

3 20

4 25

5 30

6 35

7 40

This research was supported by Eddy, my dealer, mr Ciarleglio, my teacher, and my RA (no name.

Mara Thomas

Figure 6: pupils dilated and red eyes, physical effects.

References: R2: Jan van Amsterdam a,*, Antoon Opperhuizen a, Wim van den Brink Elsevier Journal, Harm potential of magic mushroom use: A review

Duration of the effect in relation with the dose of mushrooms ingested

1:

45

Elsevier Journal, 2: SARAH C.E. RILEY AND GRAHAM BLACKMAN, Informa healthcare, Between

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Prohibitions: Patterns and Meanings of Magic Mushroom Use in the UK

3: Erich Studerus, Michael Kometer, Felix Hasler and Franz X Vollenweider, Journal of

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Psychopharmacology, Acute, subacute and long-term subjective effects of psilocybin in healthy humans: a pooled analysis of experimental studies 4: Felix Hasler · Ulrike Grimberg · Marco A. Benz ·Theo Huber · Franz X. Vollenweider O R IGINAL INVES T I GATION, Acute psychological and physiological effects of psilocybin in healthy humans: a double-blind, placebo-controlled dose–effect study

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Doses

25 doses duration 20

6: Kenji Tsujikawa*, Tatsuyuki Kanamori, Yuko Iwata, Yoshihito Ohmae, Ritsuko Sugita, Hiroyuki Inoue, Tohru Kishi elsivier Journal, Morphological and chemical analysis of magic mushrooms in Japan

15

7: TORSTEN PASSIE, JUERGEN SEIFERT, UDO SCHNEIDER & HINDERK M. EMRICH INVITED REVIEW, The pharmacology of psilocybin 8: Leszek Satora*, Dorota Pach, Beata Butryn, Piotr Hydzik, Barbara Balicka-S´lusarczyk Elsevier Jounal, Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) poisoning, case report and review

10

9: Miran Brvar1, Martin Moˇzina1, and Matjaˇz Bunc2, case report, Prolonged psychosis after Amanita muscaria ingestion.

5

Figure 1: picture of a magic mushroom

5: Errol Raff, MD; Philip F. Halloran, MD, FRCPC; Carl M. Kjellstrand, MD, PhD, FACP, FRCPC, case report, Renal failure after eating "magic" mushrooms.

0 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Epigenetics

12 WJ ,Donnie

Nixon Lim NA and Christopher M 1 Summer@Brown, 2 Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, RI

INTRODUCTION

2,

1,2 Ciarleglio

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

Our lives is affected by the genes we have. When these genes change our appearances and immune system and change widely. Epigenetics imprints a permanent a gene that can possibly change the outcome of your life. If this results in failure when imprinting (Gives you a bad imprint) you may result in obesity or weaker immune system. Due to the fact that Epigenetics can have a life changing effect on you scientist have studied further into this topic so that they can understand this better. They have tried several tests and experiments, and found discovered many new ideas about Epigenetics. These discoveries can help mankind grow stronger against diseases and other world problems like diabetes. These effects can happen depending on many interferences like what you eat.

SUMMARY Our experiment was about epigenetics and how it would affect a babies life style in the future.

We tested it on different people doing different things in their lives or how healthy the parents are such as smokers and obesity.

Figure 3 | The baby inside of the mother closing into birth

RESULTS

METHODS Who were the test subjects: We had mothers and fathers who voluntarily participated in our experiment come to our lab. Ran some tests on them so we could find out about their health. We also had children come with their parents. We changed variable in this was what they ate, if they were smoking, and their BMI.

How was the test conducted: We used tests such as the Chi square test, Fishers exact test and the BMI test (Body mass index). We had pregnant mothers that had each different environment. Then we used the difference from each family and compared it to the other environment. We looked for patterns to create a conclusion with.

A

Figure 2 | The Table | Below shows the BMI of the mother’s father’s and children who voluntarily participated inside the experiment. The differences such as smoking, age, weight and even race are added to be noticeable. This Graph can help us determine the pattern between these epigenetics.

CONCLUSIONS We can see the impact of epigenetics to the offspring of a mother and the imprints that are made on the baby during birth.

Our experiment shows that epigenetics can effect the child's health in the future.

Figure 5 | Scatter plot Graph | We used the scatter plot graph to find out the mean of the BMI’s this is similar to figure 3 Instead of using a bar graph a scatter plot graph was used.

B ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was supported by Ben & Jerry’s, Burger King and Skippy

C

D

Figure 1 | Experimental endpoints. a | The mom is pregnant with the baby in her womb and growing through epigenetics b | A scan of the babies growth inside of the mothers womb c | Some samples from the children and the mother to test

Figure 3 | Double bar graph Analysis | We used looked at the IGF2 (Insulin Growth Factor 2) and the H19 (A gene) we compared the methylation to each other so that we can see how it effects people in epigenetics and weather or not it can really make people obese.

References: 1.

Ohta, H., Mitchell, A. C. & McMahon, D. G. Constant light disrupts the developing mouse biological clock. Pediatr Res 60, 304-8 (2006).

2.

LeVay, S., Wiesel, T. N. & Hubel, D. H. The development of ocular dominance columns in normal and visually deprived monkeys. J Comp Neurol 191, 1-51 (1980).

3.

Dulcis, D. & Spitzer, N. C. Illumination controls differentiation of dopamine neurons regulating behaviour. Nature 456, 195-201 (2008).

4.

Wiesel, T. N. & Hubel, D. H. Effects of Visual Deprivation on Morphology and Physiology of Cells in the Cats Lateral Geniculate Body.

J Neurophysiol 26, 978-93 (1963).

5.

Wiesel, T. N. & Hubel, D. H. Single-Cell Responses in Striate Cortex of Kittens Deprived of Vision in One Eye. J Neurophysiol 26, 1003-17 (1963).

6.

Wiesel, T. N. & Hubel, D. H. Comparison of the effects of unilateral and bilateral eye closure on cortical unit responses in kittens. J Neurophysiol 28, 1029-40 (1965).

7.

Foster, R. G. & Roenneberg, T. Human responses to the geophysical daily, annual and lunar cycles. Curr Biol 18, R784-R794 (2008).

8.

Gorman, M. R., Borman, B. D. & Zucker, I. in Handbook of Behavioral Neurobiology: Circadian Clocks (eds. Takahashi, J., Turek, F. & Moore, R. Y.) 481-510 (Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, NY, New York, NY, 2001).

9.

Kuhlman SJ, JE Quintero, DG McMahon (2000). GFP fluorescence reports Period 1 circadian gene regulation in the mammalian biological clock. NeuroReport. 11(7):1479-82.

10.

Ohta H, S Yamazaki, DG McMahon (2005). Constant light desynchronizes mammalian clock neurons. Nat Neurosci. 8(3):267-9.

11.

Vanderleest et al. (2007). Seasonal encoding by the circadian pacemaker of the SCN. Current Biology. 17:1-6.

12.

Inagaki et al. (2007). Separate oscillating cell groups in mouse suprachiasmatic nucleus couple photoperiodically to the onset and end of daily activity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 104(18):7664-7669.

13.

Naito et al. (2008). Reorganization of the suprachiasmatic nucleus coding for day length. J. Biological Rhythms. 23(2):140-9.

Obtaining Clean and Sustainable Energy From the Ocean of Tokunoshima Island in Japan 1,2 Dean ,

Emmanuel Bob and Christopher M 1 Summer@Brown, 2 Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, RI

INTRODUCTION

2 Arther ,

1,2 Ciarleglio

The problem

Without a doubt, human beings need energy and electricity to function in everyday life. Whether it is for work or for leisure, in the future, more and more energy and electricity will be needed.

There has been many different ideas on the techniques upon obtaining sustainable energy. But this technique has been tested and developed for over 100 years and is most likely the most probable technique available today.

This technique is called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.

Discussion

Figure 2. This map of the world shows how much oil our earth has left in 2009 according to Bp’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

These are the oils that have been registered. There may be some out there which have not been found or legal registered. There is only 1333 billion gallons of oil left. There is not a lot left. So little that all of this will run out in just a mere 40 years at the current usage.

Despite the likely hood of this technique, there are still speculations on the cost of this power plant. This is because a Power plan could roughly cost about 71 million dollars not including maintenance.

Other marine animals will be affected by the disturbance of a huge pipeline going straight down in the deep oceans There has also been some speculations of the affects of this power plant on the economics?

Will there be a crash or a rise due to a new source of clean energy If this energy cannot compete against the energy of Oil, will it be as efficient as it is wanted and will people want to use it? Prices must be able to compete with Oil What other locations are there in the world which could support a OTEC power plant.

OTEC Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion is the process of which sustainable energy can be obtained. It exploits the different temperatures of the surface ocean water and the deep ocean water to evaporate and condense ammonia. The hot water of the ocean will evaporate ammonia due to its low boiling point.

The vapor will pass through a turbine which will turn and create energy. Lastly it will be condensed by the cold water and turn back into liquid form. Then the cycle continues again.

Proposed Solution

Figure 3. To the right is a graph of the prediction of the world population done by the United Nations. They have three predictions, high, medium and low. The most likely outcome will be high. So they are predicting that our maximum carrying capacity is at around 10 billion. When we pass 10 billion people, we can see that there is a plateau. Meaning that they are predicting that at this point, the earth will start to not be able to support the people that inhabit it. This is the point where scarcity will be a big problem.

CONCLUSIONS

Figure 1. This is a simple diagram on how the OTEC will work.

The warm water (1) will come through a pipe in which it will evaporate the ammonia (2). Next the vapor will pass through the turbo generator (3). This will cause it to spin and generate energy. At (4) the vapor will then condense due to the cold ocean water. It will change back into liquid form and re-pump through the feed pump the cycle starts again (5)

Method Structure of Power Plant The power plant was situated on the south west bay of Tokunoshima Island. 7.6 m in diameter and 9.5m in height.

The structure was also 4 meters above sea level.

Conditions of water Warm seawater: 26ºC – 0.7m Cold seawater: 6.1ºC – 670m deep and 2,040m away Power Budget Generator Terminals: 210kW Vacuum pump: 40kW Discharge pumps: 63kW Supply Pumps: 35 kW Essential auxiliaries: 12 kW Net power: 60kW How data was collected The generator was turned one every single minute of the data, but the data that will be presented in this poster only shows a 34 minute stretch. Starting at 14:33:19 until 15:17:19. The data is recorded every single minute.

The variable we are interested in is whether or not the different temperatures of the cold and hot water will affect the amount of energy that will be generated. So, we changed the depth of the water taken to see the difference.

Figure. 4 This will most likely be how the power plant will look like. Situated at the coast of an island with a supply of warm and cold ocean water. Some of the characteristics of the power plant is that it needs to be at the bay. The water must also have a difference of at least 20ºC to ensure efficiency.

Figure 5. This is a plan of how the water will be pumped out of the ocean from the two different locations. The first, which is closer to the surface and the second, which is deeper in the ocean. The pipelines will be support by a ring an buoy to ensure that the pipes will not move around and harm any other creatures in the sea.

Results

Figure 6. Contour and depths of Tokunoshima Island.

Tokunoshima Island is one of the few island which OTEC can actually be performed. Due to the good strong GDP of Japan, This makes Tokunoshima a very viable island for OTEC.

This technique is a very possible technique, but due to costs, its still has a lot of things that can be developed If this technique is possible, Tokunoshima will be the best and most viable location for a OTEC power plant Different temperatures of the cold or the hot water will affect the efficiency of the OTEC This will one day in the future, make a huge difference in dealing with the shortage of Oil. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was supported by Disneyland, the United Nations and Brown University

Figure 7. These two graphs represent the data that has been collected if there is a difference in the temperature of the cold or the warm water that is retrieved for OTEC. As we can see from the results, a slight difference in the temperature will affect the outcome of the energy. Therefore to be as efficient as possible, it is suggested that the bigger the difference in the temperature, the better the output will be. Some suggestions that we have proposed is to try and make a power plant located in the middle of the ocean. Therefore we can reach for trenches which have water temperatures which are very low. For example, the Mariana trench.

References: 1.

Coastal Response Research Center. 2012. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: Information Needs Assessment.

University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, 25pp and appendices.

2.

Cavrot, D. "Economics of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)." Renewable Energy 3.8 (1993): 891-96.

Print.

3.

Lee, C. K. B., and S. L. Ridgway. "Vapor/Droplet Coupling and the Mist Flow (OTEC) Cycle." Journal of Solar Energy Engineering 105.2 (1983): 181. Print.

4.

Nihous, Gérard C. "A Preliminary Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Resources." Journal of Energy Resources Technology 129.1 (2007): 10. Print.

5.

Penney, Terry R., and Desikan Bharathan. "Power from the Sea." Scientific American 256.1 (1987): 86-92. Print.

6.

Verhaegen, M. "Aquatic Ape Theory, Speech Origins, and Brain Differences with Apes and Monkeys." Medical Hypotheses 44.5 (1995): 409-13. Print.

7.

Gritton, E. C., R. Y. Pei, J. Aroesty, M. M. Balaban, C. Gazley, R. W. Hess, and W.H. Krase, a quantitative evaluation of closed cycle ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technology in central station applications, The Rand Corporation, R-2595-DCE, May 1980 8.

Gritton, E. C., R. W. Hess, and R. Y. Pei, Projected Engineering Cost Estimates for an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Central Station, The Rand Corporation, N-1788-RC, January 1982 9.

Comfort, CHristina M. "Environmental Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in Hawaii." (2011): 8.

Print.

10.

Takahashi, Masayuki M. "OTEC Is Not a Dream." DOW Deep Ocean Water as Our Next Natural Resources. Trans.

Kazuhiro Kitazawa and Paul Snowden. Tokyo: Terra Scientific, 2003. 31-41. Print.

Student Reflections Benjamin Wong Communicating Science class was different from what I anticipated. It was different in a good way.

I had a lot of fun attending this class and I also learned many things about how to publish a paper. We learnt how to research on a scientific database such as PubMed. After researching, we learned how determine which ones are the primary and secondary sources and categorized them into groups. With the sources, we started to write about reviews on our topic. We also designed scientific posters to present our research. Lastly, we learnt the importance of a grant and how it can be constructive to our research. Ultimately, I enjoyed this class and I feel like it has changed my way of thinking about science. Occasionally, our teacher will make jokes which would make us relaxed. Even though we had a heavy homework load, I still had a great time in this class. We had to read difficult text and do sophisticated projects, but I feel like all the training was worth it. I feel like I am already in front of most of my classmates in the field of science back at my school. In conclusion, I really enjoyed taking this class.

Wei Jie Nixon Lim I have learned a lot in communicating science this summer such as to research in a database for primary sources, learn how to write reviews and critique them. We also learned how to make a scientific poster which was fun and presented them. Our class teacher gave tips on how to present with confidence on a well-made PowerPoint. He also taught us how to write a grant and to turn everything that we did into one big journal we called “BASIS” which stands for Brown Adolescent Science International Students.

I have enjoyed the great time I had in communicating science, reading other reviews gave me the chance to learn how to write better and read difficult texts. We were all given challenges to overcome, for me it was to understand the confusing reviews and in the end I overcame it. All in all, my writing skills have been improved and my knowledge of science has been put above my classmates. As a high school

52

student I am glad that I know so much now, and I am glad that I took this course.

Emmanuel Dean Taking a college course is not a very easy thing.

But I suppose there are many benefits towards taking up a challenge and going out of my own comfort zone. We had to do a lot of work and write a lot, but we also had a lot of fun as a class and had many unforgettable moments laughing about DOUBLE RAINBOWS!! But I would also say that this class is very beneficial because it helped me to improve my writing to be concise and precise. I also had to be able to make a scientific poster that was 1 thing that was entirely new to me, but now is a breeze when I need to do it in college. But overall, this is an experience that is worthwhile and fun. We get to meet great friends, great professors in a great school and have a lot of fun while studying something substantial.

Maria Jose Ramos Villanueva I really liked this class, because I learned so many things. Also it’s a different class, I had never been before in a course like this one. This class is going to help me with my future, because now I know how to research for any type of paper. And also it helps me to decide if I really want to be a nutritionist.

Mara Thomas At first, I chose this class because I was interested in science. Then when I came here I discovered a class where you learn all the different steps of a paper in science and way more. It was very interesting and I learned a lot in these 3 hours per day. The Communicating Science class was intensive, as we had to write a lot of essays and read difficult reviews. However I had a really good time in this class where all my classmates and the teacher were very nice. I really recommend this class, it was amazing and definitely a lot of fun.

Awesome experience!

BASIS: Brown Adolescent Science International Students The Pretend Journal of SciComm