Reserch Fair

Since I'm a hopeful psychology major I wanted to find a table that was somewhat psychology and or neuroscience related, so when I came across the "Relating Executive Functioning Task Performances to ADHD Subscales" table and I was interested. The idea was that kids from areas of high lead concentrations (such as East Omaha) in the soil had a higher risk of being diagnosed as ADHD. They studied this by having families all over Omaha fill out ADHD diagnostics tests and get fMRI scans, and then went over the data to find any correlations. Researches found that there was in fact a correlation between ADHD like behaviors and the fuctioning scores of the East Omaha children.

Political Science/IR

I was able to talk to Professor Hendrickson from the Political Science/International Relations department. He described the process of getting on a research project, whether it is one you created or you joined. In political science you have to create a research project by the end of your senior year, so there are several classes you must take that expose you to research. Professor Hendrickson suggested that I talk to professors and classmates if I was interested in getting into poli sci research in my freshman or sophomore years.

The Mathematics of Computing

    My visit to the research fair left me in the seat of our very own John Mangles. He spoke of a very interesting topic, quantum computing, the ability to use small particles such as photons in place of open and closed circuits in binary. He claimed that such a computer would be able to compute many times faster than any computer built today. Honestly, I understood none of the actual math displayed, and I did not wish to ask him about it. Though this concept is very intriguing, the actual development of this technology would be quite valuable to me. I hypothesize, not only would the processing power of computers dramatically increase, so will the storage capabilities of computers. It may allow a single computer to hold, rather than a few terabytes TB, exabytes EB of data, a million times more data than we can store now. This concept is very intriguing to me for various reasons.
Needless to say, I enjoyed my visit.

Research Fair

At the research fair I took interest to the study conducted on rats and how their social environments effect their usage of self administered drugs. There were two conditions the rats were subject two. The first condition was the isolated group; these rats were kept away from other rats, handled little, and had no toys. The other group was the social group; this group was exposed to other rats, handled often, and had toys switched out everyday. These two groups were tested to see which hit the lever more to self-medicate. The results are skewed. The rats in the isolated groups did medicate more but neither of the groups hit the lever enough within the time frame to get clear results. A better study would have to be conducted, with the rats having better training to learn how to use the lever, to see the effects of social groups and self-dosing. 

Research Fair

At the research fair I was talking to the people at the History both. They told me about their research and how they are trying to explain how population control Democratized American Eugenics. This research will examine historical connections between the population control movement of the United States during the nineteen sixties and seventies, set with larger American Democratic values. By examining many sources, they plan to establishes the degree to which the population control movement played a role in democratizing eugenics in the United States. This study fills the blank spot between this movement and eugenics. This research contributes to the understanding of eugenics and the American perception of fertility and citizenship which are subject to change in contemporary life. I really enjoy history and this seemed like a really fascinating topic that I could possibly research.

Research Fair

At the research fair I talked to Rachel Busselman about her psychology research. The research was on rats and their self-administration of d-amphetamine based on different factors. These factors included having half the rats isolated and the other half enriched, meaning they received human contact, were in one large cage, and had toys. The results between these two groups of rats showed that the isolated rats were more likely to self-administer the d-amphetamine compared to the enriched rats. To prevent random error. The researchers put the lever for the d-amphetamine on a timer to make sure they were not randomly pressing the lever. This was just the first part of this research and they are planning on doing more in the future.

Research Fair

At the Research fair, I was able to have a conversation with Dr. Haas and Dr. Dopperpuhl from the chemistry booth.  They discussed the details of their research and gave insight on the value of student research.  In order to get a research opportunity, they advised me to consult the director of Curas and begin to ask professors for a chance in the lab.  They also mentioned that the biology and chemistry labs were always competitive, making it very hard to obtain research project.  I also asked why they do research and how they pick topics to study.  Dr. Dopperphul told me, "you do research because you're pissed off that you don't know something."  In my head I thought this the most concise answer I could have received.  As for finding a topic or subject to study, he stated that it varies from person to person based on their interests and strengths.  He recommended taking basic intro to science courses for me to get a feel of what I would enjoy.  Even though I had no prior intention of going the event, I'm glad that I went and was able to get a better understanding of how important research is.