A closer look at science

At last week's Young Scientist Exhibition in Dublin, TY students explored everything from smell to subliminal messages, writes PETER McGUIRE

DOES FEAR have a smell? How has the Irish language influenced the English we speak today? Can your home address affect your exam performance? These questions and more were posed by secondary students all across Ireland at last week’s BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in the RDS in Dublin.

The exhibition began in 1965 and, alongside the Young Social Innovators competition, has become one of the major highlights of the transition year calendar. The competition has led to many useful inventions and scientific insights, including the research and development of emergency shelter sandbags and the creation of a simple apparatus to help farmers test their milk.

This year, 1,588 entries were received from 329 schools, with 520 of these chosen for the final exhibition. Richard O’Shea, a student at Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál, took top honours for developing a biomass-fired cooking stove which can be used in developing countries. Like many previous winners, Richard may now find new opportunities opening for him.

Dr Thomas Gernon, a lecturer in Geology at the University of Southampton, won the competition in 2000. “My project studied the geography and maths of European cities, looking at how they grow and devising a series of mathematical models to predict future patterns of European urbanisation,” he recalls. Winning the overall competition was “a great, and very welcome, surprise. It meant a lot to me, and it really helped me to build my confidence, develop my organisational skills, and understand the research process.”

Gernon graduated from UCD with a degree in geology; Today, he explores some of the most active volcanoes on the planet. “I’ve had lots of opportunities to go on research cruises in the Arctic and the Caribbean regions, where we drilled into the ocean floor and discovered how it is formed. A volcanic eruption in parts of the planet, such as the Yellowstone supervolcano in the US, could be catastrophic for life on the planet, so we need to study volcanoes, make predictions, and understand the risks.”

Window power

Ami Myers (15) and Jenny Murphy (16), both Transition Year students at Christ King Girls Secondary School, developed a prototype for solar panelled windows, and it is showing early promise.

“There have been some efforts to develop this before, but the same problems kept arising: how can you keep the transparency of the windows?” says Ami. “We looked at the idea of putting freon gas between the window panes, which could capture the solar energy. Then, we looked at using an extractor to take this heat and heat the water.”

If their project is successful, the girls could potentially reap a whirlwind fortune. “Hopefully this could become a successful business,” says Jenny. “There is a big push for energy efficiency and we think there could be a market for a product like this.”

Sleep signs

Caroline O’Callaghan and Emer O’Brien, both 16-year-old students at St Wolstan’s Community School in Celbridge, Co Kildare, embarked on a project to discover if deaf or hearing impaired people can hear in their dreams.

“My uncle is deaf and I thought this might be an interesting area of study,” says Caroline. “We wrote questions for surveys which we distributed to profoundly or partially deaf people, asking them to fill in their age, gender, and whether they hear in their dreams, or if perhaps they sign. I have an aunt who is partially deaf and she hears in her dreams, but some of her profoundly deaf friends all sign. We’re hoping this project may give an insight into the thoughts and experiences of deaf people.”

Suggestive videos

Pearce Condren, Eoghan Rutherford and Dilan Hayes, all students at Skerries Community College, carried out research into how subliminal messages influence our behaviour. Inspired by the mind-control techniques of Derren Brown, the boys inserted very brief, single-shot messages into videos, which they showed to volunteers. The results demonstrated that the hidden messages had an influence on those who saw them.

The smell of fear

Hannah Gibney and Roisin Carroll, also students at Skerries Community College, explored the physiological effects of fear in their project, The Stench of Fear. Volunteers were confronted with videos of their fears, including open wounds, spiders and needles, and scientific equipment was used to test their responses.

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