Eight outstanding seniors from Schreiber's science research program were chosen as semifinalists by the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search (STS), often considered the "junior Nobel prize." Because Schreiber had an exceptional number of semifinalists, Intel announced the list of winners at a special presentation in the high school's auditorium. The Intel STS recognizes America's brightest students and their schools for excellence in science and math. Formerly known as the Westinghouse, this was the 62nd STS. Past finalists hold more than 100 of the world's most coveted math and science honors including five Nobel Prizes, three National Medals of Science, 10 MacArthur Foundation Fellowships and two Field Medals. Many alumni have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the National Academy of Engineering.

The list of semifinalists from Schreiber and their winning projects are as follows:

Elizabeth Flamm- Affect Cognition in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: General Performance and Response Bias on a Match-to-Target Measure.

Jeremy Francis- Sequential and Simultaneous Lineups Under the Cross-race Condition.

Jessica Gross- The Use of Microarray Technology and RT-PCR to Determine the Effects of Echinacea on Gene Expression in Human Lymphocytes.

Jonathan Levin- Object-Based Attention to Pigeons.

Lindsay Levin- The Functional Body vs. the Aesthetic Body: A Health Behavior Analysis.

Jarryd Levine- Identifying Bacterial Genes via Neural Networks.

Melody Malekan- Children's Affect from Infancy to Early Toddlerhood: Developmental Change, Continuity and Relations With Parental Reports.

Nicole Tingir- Cryptic Genetic Changes of c-MYC, BCL-6 and Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain Gene in Lymphoma Development.

The projects are the result of inquiry-based learning methods, which enable students to nurture critical reasoning skills and experience science through the application and use of the scientific method.

With eight semifinalists, Schreiber topped the list of Nassau County high schools. Of our neighboring districts Roslyn has four semifinalists, Great Neck boasts seven and Manhasset five. The schools with the most semifinalists are Stuyvesant High School in New York City with 19, followed by Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD with 12.

Females represented 43 percent of the total number of applicants.

Nationwide there were 1,581 entrants, which represent 14 high schools in 47 sates, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. From this group, 300 semifinalists are chosen. Then these winners are winnowed down to 40 finalists. This group attends the Science Talent Institute in Washington, DC from March 6-11. During their trip to Washington, the finalists will participate in a final judging process and share in $530,000 in scholarships. The winners will be selected on rigorous judging sessions and announced at a black-tie banquet on March 11.

Each of the 300 students named as semifinalists in the Intel STS will receive a $1,000 award for their outstanding science research.

In addition, to recognize excellence in teaching and school support of individual student research, each school will receive an award of $1,000 for each semifinalist named in the competition.

Speaking for the teacher-mentors of the science research program, Phyllis Serfaty said, "Each student in our research programs that wrote a publishable research paper for entry to the Intel competition is to be congratulated for this major accomplishment. Selection by the Intel Science Talent Search is icing on the cake. It is always thrilling when students that you have nurtured for three and in some cases four years are rewarded for their exemplary achievements."

Proud Schreiber Principal Dr. Frank Banta said, "We were delighted about the news that the representative from Intel announced the names of the semifinalists at our senior assembly. All of us applaud the wonderful achievements of these students. We are also very proud of the influence Dr. Cayemitte, Dr. O'Connor, Ms. Serfaty and Ms. Labrocca have had on the research students' achievements. I also want to congratulate the faculty on the impact they have had on these students."

As many schools consider achieving status of semifinalist evidence of exceptional scientific promise, the list is distributed to all universities and colleges in the United States.

The finalists will be announced Jan. 29 and published in the Feb. 1, issue of Science magazine.

For a complete list of semifinalists visit www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/education/sts/winners/htm or www.sciserv.org/sts/62sts/03smis.asp.

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products.