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Monitoring Your Brainwaves at Home with EEG

Electroencephalogram (EEG) machines are often used to diagnose and monitor seizures, brain abnormalities, and sleep disorders, as well as for biofeedback. Versatile personal EEG machines oft…

Monkeyface Prickleback Reaction to Predators

Zoology

Objectives/Goals Fish may use scent to sense their environment. Last year I studied homing behavior in Monkeyface prickleback based on scent. This year was focused on predator avoidance. My…

Monterey Bay: Sanctuary for Microplastics?

Environmental Science

Objectives/Goals The objective of this study is to determine if there are microplastics in Santa Cruz ocean waters on Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. I decided to do this after reading about…

Moringa oleifera and Boswellia serrata, Natural Calcium, and BMP-6 Inducers to Treat Osteoporosis

Biochemistry/ Molecular Biology

Objectives/Goals The objective was to explore alternative anti-osteoporotic treatment that is more efficient and natural than presently available by conducting several in vitro experiments,…

Motion Detection in Video Surveillance

Mathematics & Computer Science Honorable_mention Award

Objectives/Goals Video surveillance cameras are not effective if there is no one to monitor them all the time. Therefore, it would be greatly beneficial if the cameras or computers can autom…

Motor Vehicle Driver Injury and Death in Orange County: Who Is Most at Risk?

Behavioral & Social Sciences

Objectives/Goals Describe motor vehicle traffic accident (MVTA) driver injury and death using emergency department (ED), hospitalization, and death data from 2014 in Orange County, Californi…

Mouse Runner: An Investigation on the Effects of Energy Drinks on Mouse Capability

Mammalian Biology Second Award

Objectives/Goals Commercial energy drink companies advertise that products will provide consumers with energy, increased performance, alertness, etc. This project was designed to determine w…

Moving Towards the Cure: The Effect of Neuroinflammation and Microglial Activity on Alzheimer's Pathology and the Development of Therapeutics for Their Mitigation in the TG4510 Mouse Model (A Third Year Study)

Translational Medical Science

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the effects of neuroinflammation and microglial activity on the progression of Alzheimer’s and to develop therapeutics with RNA-Interference…

mTOR Regulates the Phenotypic Modulation of De-differentiated Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Vascular Disease

Translational Medical Science Fourth Award

Atherosclerosis, a form of cardiovascular disease, accounts for 17.3 million deaths/year(Mozaffarian,2014). Characterized by plaque formation in arteries, it leads to myocardial infarctions…

Multi-Goal Motion Planning for Steerable Surgical Needles

Steerable needles allow minimally invasive yet precise surgical procedures by reducing the size of incisions and the disturbance of tissues during the operation. Bevel-tipped steerable needl…

Multirotor Disabling Net Launcher

Applied Mechanics & Structures Fourth Award

Objectives/Goals My goal is to develop a multirotor mounted net launcher that can disable unwanted multirotors. The technology must be robust, light and cost effective for wide implementatio…

Musa paradisiaca Peelings an Ingredient that Strengthens the Biodegradable Plastic

This project is important due to its nature of global impact since it presents an alternative do reduce contamination worldwide. The problem question in this study is, are the peelings of Mu…

Muscles, Movement and Microvolts

I had a desire to understand how muscles compensate following a surgery or injury. I competed at Trampoline and Tumbling Nationals months before I discovered I had cancer. A 13 cm x 10 cm x…

Music and the Induction of Emotions

Behavioral & Social Sciences

Objectives/Goals This study focuses on how listening to film music without viewing the concurrent film may induce similar emotions in the listener. This involved the use of a survey in which…

Music in My Mind

Systems Software

I attempted to determine if any connection exists between personality as measured by the Big 5 test and music preferences. This was accomplished by test subjects completing the online Big 5…

Mustard Algae: Swimming Pool Pest or Vegetable Garden Growth Enhancer?

Environmental Engineering

Objectives/Goals To prove that if polyphosphates enhance a plant's growth, then mustard algae, a prevalent swimming pool pest containing polyphosphates could be used to enhance the growth of…

Mutants of Leucine Rich Receptor-like Kinase Proteins Show Increased Biomass: A Proteomic Study

Plant Biology Honorable_mention Award

Objectives/Goals The objective was to manipulate plant biomass through determining membrane protein interactions with cellulose synthase interactive protein and characterizing the mutants of…

Mutants of Leucine Rich Receptor Like Kinase Proteins Show Increased Biomass: A Proteomic Study

Fourth Award

Cellulose synthase (CESA) complexes, which are essential for cellulose biosynthesis, are bridged to cortical microtubules that enable them to reach the cell wall by the CESA interactive prot…

Mutations and Drug Response

Mammalian Biology

Objectives/Goals The objective of this big data project was to determine if gene mutations impact response to Atorvastatin. Hypothesis was that if the genes involved in the biological signal…

Mycobacterium Indicus pranii: A Novel Approach to Treat Asthma

Asthma is one of the most common and significant cause of illness and deaths around the globe affecting millions of people per annum. 15% of world’s total population i.e. about 300 million p…

MyHealth: A Wearable for Detection, Monitoring, and Control of Parkinsonian Tremor

Third Award

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most commonly seen neurodegenerative diseases in our society. Parkinson’s has no cure and it worsens over time, leading to severe impairments, a smalle…

Nanobubble: Generation and Applications

Second Award

This study provides a low-cost and high-yield method for fabricating nanosized gas bubbles. By purging pure nitrogen gas into de-ionized (DI) water together with a sonication treatment, I su…

NanoGLASS

We synthesized silica (SiO2) nanoparticles: we applied them onto glass surfaces in order to verify if nanoparticles give them some extraordinary properties. For the synthesis we followed the…

Nanoimage Characterization of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 3 Signaling in Bladder Cancer Development

Translational Medical Science

The overall goal of this research is to characterize the functional consequences of mutations in FGFR3 that have been identified in cancer. Fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFR) belong t…

Nano Is Novel: Improving Antibiotic Efficacy for S. epidermidis with Structurally Modified Silver

Third Award

With the WHO predicting antibiotic-resistant infections to claim 300 million lives by 2050-a number that exceeds the rates of cancer and heart disease combined-, our society is facing a daun…

Nanowire Sensing of Iron (III) in Millimolar Concentrations

Chemistry

Objectives/Goals The goal of the prototype was to test the detection of a metal ion, specifically of iron (III), using a nanowire array in millimolar concentrations, instead of standard expe…

Natural Antiperspirant: CKS

Biomedical Engineering

Over-sweating is a very common problem of many people especially during summer, while antiperspirant is a vital tool for people to alleviate this problem. However, using commercially availab…

Natural Attenuation of the Photo-catalytic Characteristic of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles

Disposal of domestic products containing engineered titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2-NP) result in their release into sewage collection systems and partial discharge into downstream aqua…

Natural Feed to Improve the Production and Quality of Eggs in Egg Laying Hens

Biochemistry

Our purpose is developing an ecologic product for feeding poultry (egg laying hens) with low cost and high quality results, using local weeds. Our feed includes a high protein content and at…

Natural Foods: Better to Fight Angiogenesis than Cancer Drugs?

Product Science (Biological) (Junior Division Only) Honorable_mention Award

Objectives/Goals The objective of this project is to test if natural foods are just as effective as cancer drugs in stopping the growth of a cancerous tumor at its different stages. Methods/…