Experiments:Two rugby players have come up with an answer to an age-old problem - how to avoid warm drinking water when on the sporting field. The two fifth-years from St Mary's College, Rathmines, have come up with a self-cooling bottle that guarantees a cool drink no matter where you are.
Peter Roche and Killian Grumley Traynor (both 16) took a very scientific approach for their BT Young Scientist project, designing a cooling system that was safe, simple, cheap and could lower the temperature of a litre of water by 10 degrees within three minutes. "We didn't want to have to wait any longer than three minutes," said Peter.
They first studied a range of endothermic chemical reactions that absorb heat, deciding on an ammonium nitrate and water reaction that drops to a chilly minus 10 degrees. They then used computer design software to devise a combination bottle that kept the drinking water safe from an inner chamber containing the chemical.
They also built prototype bottles as a proof of concept to show that a combination bottle could actually do the job. A simple twist is enough to mix the chemicals, and in minutes the water bottle left warming in a sports bag along with muddy boots provided them with a cooling drink. The two are Young Scientist veterans, having participated in last year's event.
A similar scientific approach was taken by Sheelan Youssefizadeh (16) and Linda Marthe (15), transition year students from Our Lady of Mercy College, Beaumont.
They wanted to answer the question why we get burned by the sun but plants do not. Ultraviolet light is the culprit, so they wanted to discover whether UV was absorbed, reflected away or simply passed through a plant's leaves. Their researches took them from the geology department at Trinity College Dublin to the National Botanic Gardens.
They devised simple but compelling experiments using fluorescing minerals and dyes that showed how the plants dealt with UV to prevent a "sunburn". "They absorb the UV, actually," said Linda.
They then delved into the cellular structure of the leaf to see what it was inside that captured the UV. Internet searches revealed that the flavinoid molecule was responsible for UV absorption, but they also found that there was another step in the process. UV was capable of breaking a plant's genetic blueprint, DNA. This damage was instantaneously repaired by an enzyme, photolyase, explained Sheelan.
"It takes less than a billionth of a second to do the repair."
