Three hundred of America's high school seniors, including four from Syosset and three from Jericho, were recently honored for their excellence in science as they reached the semifinals of the Intel Science Talent Search (STS). Often considered the "Junior Nobel Prize," the Intel STS is America's oldest and most prestigious pre-college science competition.

Each of the 300 semifinalists will receive $1,000 in recognition of their scientific achievements. In addition, schools will receive $1,000 per semifinalist to support their science and math programs.

Students were judged on their individual research ability, scientific originality and creative thinking. The research projects cover all disciplines of science, including chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, social science and biology. All Intel STS entries were reviewed and judged by top scientists from a variety of disciplines.

The Intel finalists will be announced on Jan. 28.

Daniel Choi, Neil Haranhalli, Kun Li and Todd Rubin were the semi-finalists from Syosset.

Syosset senior Daniel Choi's project was entitled "DNA Microarray Analysis of Shewanella oneidensis Grown for Fuel Cell Use." According to Choi's project, fuel cells are emerging as a means of clean and safe electricity generation. "I am trying to make a sugar-powered fuel cell," said Choi. "I used bacteria because bacteria typically eats sugar. When the bacteria breaks down the sugar, it releases electrons from the sugar. I'm devising a way for them to make proteins on their membranes so they can transport the electrons out of their system and into a fuel cell system. It is basically a bacteria-powered fuel cell that can use sugar as a fuel."

Choi explained some of the uses for his research. "You can implant this into a human body, for example, and it could use sugar that is in the blood stream that could directly power a medical device, like a pace maker for example so you wouldn't need any bulky outside batteries," he said. "Since it uses sugar and something living, it wouldn't die on you either."

The idea for the project came when Choi was reading the novel version of the movie E.T. He became interested in how the alien managed to hook up his communicator to a plant and power his communicator using life-energy from the plant. "I was wondering if you could actually harness life energy like that," he said.

Choi started with some literature research and found out that some people have actually started work using bacteria batteries. He worked with mentor Dr. Anil Dhundale at Stony Brook University.

"This research experience has really helped me grow up and think independently," said Choi. "I think it is one of the most valuable parts of my high school experience. I am so fortunate to have had the chance to work with Dr. Dhundale and also work independently on my own project. It made me pull my hair out at times, but it was overall very satisfying. I came into this looking to increase knowledge and improve what's already been done."

Choi was accepted to Harvard University and would like to study bio-medical engineering.

Senior Neil Haranhalli's project was entitled "Analysis of Orthology and Molecular Evolution of the Carbonic Anhydrase (CAH) Gene of Dioscorea Species, Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa."

Haranhalli studied the molecular evolution of an enzyme called Carbonic Anhydrase, which is in all living organisms.

"To process needed energy, plants utilize carbon dioxide (CO2)," Haranhalli wrote in his project. "However, plants can only use CO2 in the form of bicarbonate. The enzyme carbonic anhydrase (CAH) performs this conversion. CAH has also displayed storage of ions such as nitrogen in yams. DNA from several of the over 500 varieties of yams was examined to decipher differences between the enzyme in each variety. Patterns among the sequences were detected using computer programs and were used to determine which varieties were most closely related. These relationships are stepping-stones to better understanding the evolution of the yam plant over the last 3,000 years."

Haranhalli worked at Stony Brook University with Dr. Geeta Bharathan. The idea for the project came from previous research. "I am very interested in the botany and ecology field of research," said Haranhalli, who plans on continuing this research over the next few months. "The study that I have been doing is an ongoing topic and there is always more to learn about it."

"I learned a lot through this project," he said. "I was interested in the topic, but didn't know too much about it when I first started. Once I got into the research, I learned there was a lot more to it than I realized. It was a very interesting study for me.

Haranhalli has been applying to combined medical programs and would like to attend medical school.

Senior Kun Li's project was entitled "Policy-Oriented Issues, Concern and Human Interest-Based Solidary Incentive as Factors in Political Activism in High School and College Level Activism."

He studied political activism in high schools and colleges. "I wanted to study what kinds of motivations inspire activism between high schools and colleges," said Li. "On one hand there's motivation derived from companionship. There is another kind of activism motivation - it is derived from actual interest in the political issues at hand or interest in what you can do to affect politics. Those are two different kinds of activism that I believe can manifest themselves in different ways or to different ways or different degrees when it comes to comparing high school and college level activism."

When Li first started his research, he intended to find out if high schools or colleges were more inclined to focus on the issues or on friendship/companionship/background. Eventually his research extended it to include looking at what kind of factors and issues influence people.

"I follow the news and read political journals," said Li. "I noticed that recently there is a lot of activism in high schools and colleges. I started to compare what is going on now in high schools and colleges to what went on in the 1960s and 1970s with the Vietnam Era protests. I was wondering if there was a noticeable difference in what kind of motivation those students had compared to now."

Li used surveys conducted at Binghamton University, Stony Brook University, Nassau Community College, Suffolk Community College and Jericho High School. He also worked with Professor Qiqing Yu from Binghamton University.

Li said he certainly wants to continue this research. "Political activism is still a very big factor in current day politics and is always changing so I would like to continue the research," he said. Although Li is undecided where he will attend college at this point, he would like to study international relations.

Todd Rubin's project was entitled "The Rise of the Right: An Analysis of European Politics."

"I examined the characteristics of extreme right-wing parties in Italy from the 1970s - 1999," said Rubin. "Right wing parties can be classified into two groups - Fascist or Populous parties. I wanted to see if the Populous parties of today are entirely different from the Fascist of the 1960s or 1970s or are they the same."

Rubin looked at the people voting for each type of party, what their values were and what they thought about the government in their county. "I concluded that, in the case of Italy, the people who voted for the Fascists in the 1960s expressed similar characteristics to those who supported the so-called Populous right-wing parties in the 1990s," he said. "Even though the Populous parties claim that they are different from their fascist pre-cursors, in fact the statistical analysis proved that they were very similar."

Rubin got some ideas after working with Professor David Green from Hofstra University for a few days. From there, he conducted extensive internet research and analyzed the data.

"I plan on continuing my research and would actually like to extend it to other European countries especially Germany, where I believe there is a more clear-cut distinction between the Fascist right and the Populous right," said Rubin. "I hope my analysis of Germany will show that there is this distinction as opposed to Italy where my project showed that there really was no distinction. That is what I thought going into it."

"I enjoyed the experience of doing the research," he said. "It really opened up my mind and made me more disciplined. There were a lot of road blocks along the way, but I stayed with this with persistence."

Rubin will be attending the University of Pennsylvania and wants to study history or political science.

They are outstanding young people," said Syosset High School Research Facilitator Angela Lukaszewski. "They have been in our research program for at least four years. In the beginning, they learned how to do literary research investigations and then they work with many different teachers including technology, business, math, statistics, science and social science. They have devoted hundreds of hours to their research and we are very proud of them."

Allison Ivans, Jeremy Price and Justine Shum, all Jericho seniors, were named semi-finalists.

Allison Ivans's project was entitled "Introversion and Anxiety Among High Achieving High School Students: An Empirical Analysis."

Ivans studied the correlation between introversion and anxiety among high school students and used surveys to collect the research and perform the correlation.

"I found that there was a really high direct correlation between introversion and anxiety," said Ivans. "More introverted students felt a greater amount of anxiety, which was my hypothesis."

Ivans collected surveys from Jericho high School and Townsend Harris High School in Queens.

The idea for this project came from personal experiences as Ivans said she is shy and wanted to study the behavior in others.

Ivans worked independently with Anthony Scarnati, a teacher at Jericho High School. She is finished with her research on this subject,

Although she is unsure where she will be attending college in the fall, she is interested in majoring in English.

Jeremy Price's project was entitled "Cell Culture Studies as a Model of the Interaction between Two Inflammatory Disease: Periodontitis and Coronary Artery Disease."

"It has been hypothesized that there is a link between gum disease and heart disease," said Price. "I took blood cells and exposed them to certain proteins, which is the leading indicator of heart disease and exposed it to other factors, including cholesterol."

Last summer, Price did research in neuroscience but had experience in cell culture. "I contacted mentors and Dr. Lorne Golub from Stony Brook University was interested in working with me. His lab has been trying to prove the link between gum disease and heart disease."

Price said he plans to continue the research, as it is always ongoing. He will be attending the University of Pennsylvania in the fall and plans on majoring in biology or pre-med.

Justine Shum's project was entitled "Studies of the Reactivity of Copper-Zinc Superoxide Dismutase and Hydrogen Peroxide."

"I studied an enzyme related to Lou Gehrig's disease," said Shum. "I tested the enzyme to try and disprove assumptions that were always made. I found what I set out to find - the enzyme Copper-Zinc Superoxide Dismutase followed a different slope of activity than what was previously assumed."

Shum's mentor, Dr. Diane Cabelli at Brookhaven, helped her come up with the idea. "This was a great experience and I learned a lot throughout the research project," said Shum, who is undecided about her college plans at this time.

"This year's entire group of 16 entrants performed outstanding research," said Jericho's Independent Research teacher Allen Sachs. "The three semi-finalist winners represent just the tip of a wonderful research iceberg. All of these students worked incredibly long and hard to produce their post-graduate level research papers and I am extremely proud of each and every one of them."