It may appear that many of the following experiments have been completed. However, in most cases, only a small part of the total potential has been explored. If interested in any of these projects, or if you wish to submit more of your own, go to the Registration Page.
VanderWaal's Force is a rather weak force as compared to covalent and hydrogen-bond forces. Hydrophilic substances form strong H-bonds with each other and exclude molecules that do not share this property. Those become the hydrophobic substances. Oil and water, respectively. How can vanderWaal's Force be demonstrated? Can it be measured? Take a teflon-coated cookie sheet and spray some water on it. The droplets of water bead on it as the water molecules try to exclude the teflon and thereby push themselves to stand as droplets where their surfaces are tucked under the drop. To see if the water actually repulsed (more than "not attracted to") we run an enlightening and VERY simple experiment - turn the cookie sheet upside down. If the water is actually repelled by the teflon, the droplets will then be able to fling themselves totally away from the surface. Does this happen? If it does, then you seem to know all that you need to know. If they remain clinging to the surface, there must be some attractive force. Guess its name! (Suggested protocol and expansions)
Rocket Fuels. The combustion of rocket fuels must be retarded. If it wen too fast, the whole fuel chamber would instantaneously explode. How to measure the speeds of burning becomes the question. One laboratory made long troughs of aluminum foil containing the fuel to be tested. The time elapsed between igniting the fuel at one and when the flame reached the other end was able to be timed on a clock. Liquids were used (e.g.: ethanol and gasoline in various proportions), and then various other compounds were added to see their effects on the speed of the combustion front. This same group also altered the composition of the rocket fuels provided with small rockets purchased in toy stores.
How FEVER works. A collection of high school and university students worked for two years on this before reporting their findings before annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology that under fever conditions most Gram-negative bacteria cannot produce their lipopolysaccharide layers (O-antigen layer) and thereby become sensitive to being perforated and killed to normal non-immune serum complement. These is still much to do on this project especially with regard to Gram-positive bacteria.
Stabilization of heat-labile vaccines. Many of the important vaccines are beyond the reach of a large segment of the world's population because refrigeration is required. If any one type of vaccine can be stabilized such that refrigeration is not needed, thousands of additional lives will be saved yearly. It has been suggested that the vaccines might be kept from denaturing if they can be trapped so tightly in a gel matrix that they cannot unfold. Such gels should be rapidly absorbable by the body without their own being antigens. While it is difficult to deal directly with vaccines and test their stability, many heat-labile enzymes might serve as models.
Catalase. While this enzyme is common classroom experimental material, it is interesting that some important aspects of it are not subsequently studied. During one's survey of where it is found in nature, one should keep note of which organisms where it is NOT found. Then one should tie this in with why an organism would need catalase in the first place. Afterall, when was the last time you saw and cow or a potato swimming in hydrogen peroxide?! This train of thought will lead to - of all things - the evolution of the earth's atmosphere!
Effect of various antibiotics on Lac-Operon induction. Gene expression is a common classroom topic. But how do we know these things? Selected antibiotics inhibit various steps in the gene expression pathway. This can then be correlated with the clotting of blood with and without the addition of these same antibiotics.
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