What is the role of cholesterol in humans? Don't be fooled into thinking it is an evil chemical. It has a very important and complex role. Further, (and what might be tougher to find) what is the role of cholesterol in other animals? Do non mammals even produce cholesterol? More importantly from a student research perspective... do invertebrates produce or use cholesterol?

Always realize that when you're looking at the intersection of these two elements:  human subjects & chemicals...  your chances for authentic research are limited. Perhaps impossible.  That does NOT mean this topic cannot lead to authentic student research...  it just means that you have to work to distill some element of this topic down... and transfer it to another topic/test subject/scale, etc.

What does this dichotomy have, if anything, in common with the similarly-named dichotomy between political "hawks" and "doves?" I remember as a kid, the first time I heard the term was in elementary school when my Dad asked why I thought I was such a "hawk" ...  interested in war, weapons, battles, etc.  Funny today how much of a "dove" I would be seen to be in a political sense.  I wonder if one could look for correlations between those two facets of human behavior.