Skip to main content

Home/ Bobcat Research Institute 2025/ Group items tagged projects

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Sean Nash

Regeneron ISEF 2023 - Finalist Project Portal - 0 views

projectboard.world/...categories

fair projects ISEF ISEF2023 HSR HSR-2023 science potential research idea HSR-2025

shared by Sean Nash on 11 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Choose a category to begin
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 11 Jun 24
       
      This is a really good way to dive into specific categories and explore the projects that made it to this year's ISEF. What I would do is start with what immediately interests you for now... and pick up some tips. You might get ideas for areas/topics to research. You might see creative methods used in various studies. Pay particular attention to the fact that some utilize equipment only available at a university or corporate lab, but... many also feature creative methods done by students at home or in school labs as well! Once you get inside projects that you get ideas from, feel free to save them in Diigo for later, or share really interesting ones with others you think might benefit from seeing it. One final thing: you might also get some tips for elements of their presentation that appeal to you.
  • Sean Nash on 11 Jun 24
     
    This is a digital version of a fair- almost like being there
Sean Nash

Study traces an infectious language epidemic | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240513105214.htm

LLM ChatGPT language trace cause & effect study Reddit COVID words potential research idea computer science statistical analysis mathematic behavioralscience questions HSR HSR-2025 science

shared by Sean Nash on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • Rho's work is grounded in a social science framework called Fuzzy Trace Theory that was pioneered by Valerie Reyna, a Cornell University professor of psychology and a collaborator on this Virginia Tech project. Reyna has shown that individuals learn and recall information better when it is expressed in a cause and effect relationship, and not just as rote information. This holds true even if the information is inaccurate or the implied connection is weak. Reyna calls this cause-and-effect construction a "gist."
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 May 24
       
      Fuzzy Trace Theory looks interesting for this, and perhaps many other reasons. I want to learn more about this myself, and I'm wondering if this theory could be put to work in other potential behavioral science projects. What do you think?
Sean Nash

Applied Sciences | Free Full-Text | Method for Prolonging the Shelf Life of Apples afte... - 1 views

www.mdpi.com/3975

agriculture apples fruit ripeness quality HSR HSR-2025 science botany biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 23 May 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 23 May 24
     
    (A pretty fancy piece of equipment is needed here, but I like the concept of this sort of project. Rigorous life science concepts, ability to generate a ton of data, super applicable to real life immediately, etc.)
Sean Nash

Rocks beneath our feet could be key to carbon-neutral cement - 1 views

www.anthropocenemagazine.org/...-for-reducing-carbon-emissions

climatechange carbonsequestration carbondioxide concrete olivine peridot HSR HSR-2025 science environmental engineering chemistry potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 15 May 24
     
    This sort of thing isn't exactly my specialty, but I HAVE had a student do an award-winning project that dealt with engineered concrete...
Sean Nash

Tools to illustrate your scientific works! (open source web-based) | by Dr. Veronica Es... - 0 views

medium.com/...-source-web-based-c5bd12aaec5b

GoOpen CC creativecommons HSR HSR-2025 science illustration images art illustrations modeling models diagrams free opensource

shared by Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • 1.-ChemixChemisc is an educational app that lets you easily draw lab diagram setups and explain your experiments. It has a large library of highly customisable apparatus and various features to help you draw diagrams with ease [3].
  • 2.-SmartSince its launch in 2001, Servier Medical Art is a trusted and internationally recognized resource used in respected journals, textbooks, online resources, and more. [ In this website you will find 3000 Free medical images to illustrate your publications and Powerpoint presentations!
  • 3.-BioiconsBioicons is a free library of open source icons for scientific illustrations using vector graphics software
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24
       
      This one I already knew of and used. Several students made use of this resource last year.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 4.-Health IconsHealth Icons is a volunteer effort to create a ‘global good’ for health projects all over the world. These icons are available in the public domain for use in any type of project.
  • 5.-SciDrawSciDraw is a free repository of high quality drawings of animals, scientific setups, and anything that might be useful for scientific presentations and posters [9].
  • 5.-Draw.ioDraw.io is a free, online diagramming tool that allows you to create flowcharts, diagrams, mind maps, organisation charts, and much more. A web-based application, Draw.io is fully integrated with Google Drive. This means that you can automatically save the results of your work in your Google Workspace or Gmail account [10].
  • Sean Nash on 01 Jul 24
     
    Save these for later this year. You will likely use resources like this to aid in your diagrams/models for your display.
Sean Nash

Bioart Source - 0 views

bioart.niaid.nih.gov

Bioart images NIH digital photos art modeling models display project hinorsbiology research ISEF GKCSEF HSR HSR-2025 science environmental botany mathematics biology chemistry

shared by Sean Nash on 29 Oct 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 29 Oct 24
     
    A new NIH product that includes free-to-use biological art
Sean Nash

Foraging ants navigate more efficiently when given energy-drink-like doses of caffeine ... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240523112447.htm

ants learning memory caffeine navigation poison bait uptake efficiency invasive insects zoology HSR HSR-2025 science behavioralscience biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Ants who receive a caffeine-laced sugary reward become more efficient at navigating back to the reward's location compared to ants that only receive sugar. Researchers report on May 23 in the journal iScience that caffeinated ants move toward the reward via a more direct path but do not increase their speed, suggesting that caffeine improved their ability to learn.
  • "The idea with this project was to find some cognitive way of getting the ants to consume more of the poisonous baits we put in the field,"
  • it pushes them into having straighter paths and being able to reach the reward faster
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Control efforts, which focus on using poisonous baits, have proven ineffective, likely due to low bait uptake and bait abandonment. The researchers wanted to test whether using caffeine, which has been shown to improve learning in honeybees and bumblebees, might improve the ants' ability to learn the bait location and guide their nestmates back there
  • The ants walked down a Lego drawbridge onto a testing platform -- an A4 sheet of paper overlaying an acrylic surface -- on which the researchers had placed a drop of sucrose solution laced with 0, 25 ppm, 250 ppm, or 2,000 ppm of caffeine
  • The lowest dose we used is what you find in natural plants, the intermediate dose is similar to what you would find in some energy drinks, and the highest amount is set to be the LD50 of bees -- where half the bees fed this dose die -- so it's likely to be quite toxic for them," says Galante.
  • Overall, they tested 142 ants, and each ant was tested four times
  • Foraging time dropped by 28% per visit for ants that received 25 ppm of caffeine and by 38% per visit for ants that received 250 ppm of caffeine, meaning that if an ant took 300 s in its first visit, by the final trial, it would be expected to take 113 s at the low caffeine dose and 54 s at the intermediate dose. This effect was not seen at the highest caffeine dose.
  • The researchers showed that caffeine lowered the ants' foraging times by making them more efficient, not by making them speedier. There was no effect of caffeine on the ants' pace at any dosage, but ants that received low to intermediate doses of caffeine trips traveled by less tortuous paths. "What we see is that they're not moving faster, they're just being more focused on where they're going," says Galante. "This suggests that they know where they want to go, therefore, they have learned the locations of the reward."
  • Henrique Galante, Massimo De Agrò, Alexandra Koch, Stefanie Kau, Tomer J. Czaczkes. Acute exposure to caffeine improves foraging in an invasive ant. iScience, 2024; 109935 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109935
Sean Nash

Scientists develop visual tool to help people group foods based on their levels of proc... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240530182042.htm

images photos data VirginiaTech visual tools food biomedical health diet group people tool scientists potential research idea behavioralscience biology chemistry HSR-2025 HSR science

shared by Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Scientists studying ultra-processed foods have created a new tool for assessing the rewarding and reinforcing properties of foods that make up 58 percent of calories consumed in the United States. The foods have been linked to a wide range of negative health outcomes.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      I couldn't locate this imageset and associated tools online, but I am willing to bet they might make it available to us, and the generation of more future research in this area is a key purpose of this work.
  • provides a collection of carefully curated images of minimally processed and ultra-processed foods matched on 26 characteristics, including macronutrients, sodium, dietary fiber, calories, price, and visual characteristics such as a color and portion size
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      Perhaps we just need to get the full journal article to get the raw materials (images) created and used.
  • The scale has its detractors. "A major criticism of the NOVA scale is that it's difficult to use or that foods are classified differently by different people," said Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, corresponding author and assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. "We found that people with education in nutrition generally agreed on the food classifications, providing some data that it might not be a valid criticism."
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      See... this is the sort of thing I see as an opportunity. If the scale has detractors or isn't yet perfect, perhaps there is an opening here for a project. Perhaps there is even an opening to create something focused on teens (who I would argue are at most risk for the consumption of ultra-processed foods). This is an interesting area to me, not only behavioral science, but human diet in general.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • To develop the picture set, a team of psychologists, neuroscientists, and registered dietitians selected foods to represent either minimally processed or ultra-processed foods.
  • The foods were prepared in a lab, visually represented through professional photography, and controlled for consistency. Researchers also gathered price, food weights, and nutritional information -- calories, macronutrients, sodium, and dietary fiber -- for the food in each image.
  • researchers recruited 67 nutrition professionals and asked them to classify the foods as minimally or ultra-processed
  • "There is very little experimental research on ultra-processed foods, and part of what's been holding us back is better tools for measuring and assessing their effects,"
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      Another big GREEN flag that this is an area ripe for new and creative approaches!
  • The Virginia Tech team is making the pictures and associated data accessible through the Virginia Tech Data Repository of the Virginia Tech University Libraries. This will allow scientists to test hypotheses in behavioral economic and neuroimaging studies.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      This states that the images/research tools WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE (if not already). This is very cool. So, could the already-existing tool be leveraged in a novel way compared to what the researchers used it for, or does this provide somewhat of a template for someone to create a better or more-helpful tool perhaps for teens?
  • Story Source: Materials provided by Virginia Tech. Original written by Leigh Anne Kelley. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
  • Journal Reference: Zach Hutelin, Monica Ahrens, Mary Elizabeth Baugh, Mary E. Oster, Alexandra L. Hanlon, Alexandra G. DiFeliceantonio. Creation and validation of a NOVA scored picture set to evaluate ultra-processed foods.. Appetite, 2024; 198: 107358 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107358
Sean Nash

Study suggests 'biodegradable' teabags don't readily deteriorate in the environment and... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240528115039.htm

biodegradable teabags manufacturing ecology environment polylactic acid plastic cellulose soil potential research idea engineering biology chemistry environmental science HSR-2025 HSR

shared by Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • The research looked at commonly available teabags made using three different compositions of polylactic acid (PLA), which is derived from sources such as corn starch or sugar cane.
  • The teabags were buried in soil for seven months, and a range of techniques were then used to assess whether -- and to what extent -- they had deteriorated.
  • The study also examined the impacts of the discs cut from the teabags on a species of earthworm, Eisenia fetida, which has a critical role in soil nutrient turnover as it consumes organic matter.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Researchers found that being exposed to three different concentrations of teabag discs -- equivalent to the mass of half, one and two teabags -- resulted in up to 15% greater mortality, while some concentrations of PLA had a detrimental effect on earthworm reproduction.
  • It used analytical techniques such as size exclusion chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance, and scanning electron microscopy allowing scientists to examine not just how the teabags had changed visibly but also structurally.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      This sort of work could be done by visual analysis alone with a rubric of sorts, but once data is derived, reaching out to a local lab might provide access to some of these tools for a tighter analysis and an even more convincing project,
  • we've shown that when it is not properly disposed of, for example after seven months in the soil, its molecular structure remains intact
  • But it is with immense frustration that I see alternative and substitute materials entering the market without clear guidance on how their benefits might be realised. Even if consumers understand how to dispose of these products only around half of households in the UK currently have access to the necessary waste streams for the type of composting required.
  • It is essential we learn from the mistakes we made with plastic materials by testing and labelling these novel materials in relation to the prevailing waste management infrastructure.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24
       
      Again, when you find a call for more research (aka: "learning" in this case) it is a good sign that you have found an area ripe for more work to be done.
  • "In this study PLA-based teabags did not fully deteriorate, and it seems that composting worms may be harmed by them. The lack of clear labelling can lead to consumers disposing of teabags in their compost, where any limit to complete degradation of the material raises the potential for plastics to enter the soil when compost is added to the garden, with potential impacts on garden wildlife and uptake by food plants."
emmarrogers

Biodegradation of polyethylene by the marine fungus Parengyodontium album - ScienceDirect - 1 views

www.sciencedirect.com/...S0048969724029668

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea botany

shared by emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • UV light
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      If we were to use X or Gamma rays, would that speed up the process?
  • Graphical abstract
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      Why does it need the 9 day incubation period? Could we lower that
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      So, could we just do this with a plastic bottle?
  • degradation
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Other important plastic types afloat in the sea are polypropylene (PP) and to a lesser degree polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      Does/ Could this fungi degrade these as well
  • Zalerion maritimum (Paço et al., 2017), Alternaria alternata FB1 (Gao et al., 2022) and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa (Vaksmaa et al., 2023a), while Cladosporium halotolerans 6UPA1 was shown to degrade PUR (Zhang et al., 2022).
  • Sean Nash on 05 Jun 24
     
    Strange.... when I go to this article, I can see your highlights, but I cannot see your comments. Usually, when I can see those, I can comment back right there as opposed to saving it myself. Grrrr...
  • Sean Nash on 05 Jun 24
     
    Super interesting topic (I saw this one last week). The work with isotopes they did here is well beyond feasibility for us, but that doesn't mean there isn't something here that could be done. You'd have to work through the set up of marine environments (tanks) and acquisition of these fungal strains. I'm betting the one they recently recovered from biofilm on plastic trash in the ocean would be super difficult to get our hands on, but they do mention several others that have previously been found to degrade plastics. perhaps those are more easily obtained. (?) Degredation fo plastic by microbes is EXACTLY what the cheater-guy did in lasy year's winning ISEF project, but like this article says, most of this work has been done with bacteria, not eukaryotic organisms like fungi. I also thing the area of biofilms is super interesting. The analysis (beyond weighing the plastic pre/post) is rather instrumental and that might be difficult depending upon our ability to find someone to help us analyze instrumentally. I like the idea, but feasibility is unknown at the moment. You might want to keep reading down this area. It is certainly interesting and important. Keep an eye on feasibility as you go forward.
emmarrogers

Glyphosate in food and water | The Detox Project - 0 views

detoxproject.org/glyphosate-in-food-water

crayfish HSR-2025 glyphosate environmental

shared by emmarrogers on 11 Apr 25 - No Cached
  • emmarrogers on 11 Apr 25
     
    "that showed more than 80% of urine samples drawn from children and adults in a US health study contained glyphosate, a finding scientists have called "disturbing" and "concerning"."
1 - 11 of 11
Showing 20▼ items per page