FEW schoolgirls can claim they have assisted the FBI with advice on preserving corpses. Fewer still have offered their expertise to the RUC's forensics department following the discovery of a human skull, or have spent leisure hours burying dead piglets in bogs.
But then Emma McQuillan (17), from the Dominican College in Belfast, and her friends Fiona Fraser and Ciara McGoldrick, are hardly run of the mill students. Their project on how bogs preserve cadavers, which led to that phone call from the FBI and a spot of extra curricular skull examination for the police, has attracted the attention of university researchers as well as law enforcement agencies. It is also one of the more unusual projects submitted for this year's Aer Lingus Young Scientists Exhibition, which starts tomorrow in the RDS, Dublin.
The exhibition, now in its 33rd year, has attracted entries from 535 second level students around Ireland this year and includes examinations of the intricacies of, time travel and the mathematics of Alice in Wonderland, in addition to the Belfast schoolgirls' potentially appetite disrupting study of preservation by bogs.
"The FBI contacted us to find out some information about decomposition," said Emma. "Now they want our results because they've never carried out any work on bogs before."
The purpose of their unique [project was to try to establish the qualities of the bogs that enable them to preserve bodies so well. "For the first time, we've proved that there are three major factors: anerobic conditions, antiseptic qualities and acidic qualities", said Emma.
There was a gruesome side to their experiments. In their efforts to find out the qualities of bogland which aided preservation they buried dead piglets in hogs in Down and Donegal, as well as keeping a decaying piglet in a secluded corner of their school's nature garden for comparison purposes.
Marginally less disturbingly, US chat show host Oprah Winfrey was the unlikely catalyst for a project on the comparative emotional intelligence of girls and boys by Karen Collins (16), a student in Hartstown Community School in Clonsilla, Dublin. "I was just watching Oprah Winfrey and I saw a feature about emotional intelligence, she said. "I thought it would be more obvious in girls because fellas don't cry. I just wanted to see if that was real."
Karen devised a 30 question test and gave it to 200 students in her school, 100 male and 100 female. The test analysed 10 areas, including self awareness and delayed gratification, and assessed the intensity of feelings.
In the end there were considerable differences between the sexes, with girls scoring consistently higher in terms of emotional awareness, although there was some hope for males.
"Some of the answers were quite surprising from the boys' point of said Karen. "I expected a lot lower response from the boys. I expected they might be worse than they actually are."
In Cork, a study of the action of a forest fungus could have considerable relevance for the Irish forestry industry. Tadgh Horgan (18), from the Patrician Academy, Mallow, found that mycorrhiza, a type of fungus which grows on tree roots, was responsible for increasing the growth of sitka spruce trees by up to 57 per cent within two years when the spruce was grown beside a douglas fir.
"Sitka spruce can't get mycorrhiza," said Tadgh. "It just doesn't seem to get it, but it can get the nutrients that other plants, like the douglas fir, get from mycorrhiza. It takes the nutrients from their roots and grows faster itself, but it doesn't affect the growth of the fir." The result is taller, healthier seedlings.
Finally, Why Can't Jack Digest the Beans from his Beanstalk? is the intriguing title of a project from 14 year old Rouli Antoniou, a student at Pembroke School, Dublin, which explains why we have to cook beans before we eat them.
Her project studied legumes (peas, beans and lentils) in an effort to find the degree to which each variety inhibited the enzyme trypsin, which is contained in the pancreas and without which legumes prove hard to digest.
"Some legumes have a high level of inhibition and you can't digest them", said Rouli. "Beans have a high percentage of inhibition and are hard to digest, so that's why we cook them."
The Young Scientists Exhibition is open to the public on Friday, January 10th, and Saturday January, 11th, when beans, firs, tear free males and the matter of preserved piglets will be on view.