NEWS FROM COSMOS-UCI, WEEK 2

We are enjoying getting to know all the students and their diverse personalities and talents in this, our 8th annual summer academy. There seems always to be something to celebrate! We also have a number of “cosmos” birthdays. These students (birthdays from July 8 - Aug 3) are: Priyam, Trang, Warren, Yang, Elizabeth, Jason, Eduardo, Wonsang, Ahmed, and Rommel. Each dorm and suite does its best to celebrate birthdays.

Students who have passed the required swim test and have opted to go, will be off Saturday morning to Catalina Island. It promises to be a memorable day -- and a good way to beat the heat.

The faculty of several clusters have created COSMOS internet sites through their departments. One of these is the Astronomy link through the Physics Department, which has the student project titles and groups. If your son or daughter is in this cluster, check it out: http://www.physics.uci.edu/%7Eobservat/cosmos_index.html

PHRASE OF THE WEEK--
"My brain hurts and I love it!"

Last week, we introduced our faculty and our resident advisors who are assigned to each cluster. This week, we introduce our Teacher Fellows, who teach Science Communication: Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking, and our Night Residential Advisors who oversee for evening activities, among other duties.

COSMOS TEACHER FELLOWS: Each cluster has an assigned science or math teacher from area high schools, except for the engineering cluster, which has a UCI Ph.D. who will begin her teaching career at CSU Los Angeles this fall. Our fellows work in tandem with university faculty, and often fill in “conceptual gaps” following the lectures. They are, counting from clusters 1 through 7: Mark Cygan, Estancia HS, Costa Mesa, CA; Reena Pandhi, University HS, Irvine, CA; Roberta Johnson, Long Beach USD; Mike Antrim, Woodbridge HS, Irvine, CA; Dr. Trinh Pham, Assistant Professor, California State University, Fullerton; Barbara Hudgins, University HS, Irvine, CA; and Lisa Fox, Northwood HS, Irvine, CA. Teacher Fellows are supported by private foundations, in cooperation with the UC Office of the President, and form an invaluable part of our teaching community.

OUR NIGHT and WEEKEND RESIDENT ADVISORS: Our exuberant and creative resident advisors are experienced staff who engage COSMOS participants in a variety of recreational and social activities. Each student’s major is shown in parentheses:
Kevin Black (History), Esther Canal (Chicano Studies), Abigail East (Biology), Sean Glover (Mathematics), Jessica Gutierrez (Political Science), Wen Jen (Criminology, Law & Society), Chammarra Johnson (English and Sociology), Jennifer Le (Biology), Saul Martainez (Criminology and Chicano Studies), Dennis Nguyen (Biological Sciences), Vivie Nguyen (Psychology), John Quiamas (Biological Sciences), Ervin Rodriguez (Studio Art), Anabel Ronquillo (Civil Engineering), Shatina Williams (Sociology & Psychology), Ryan Wong (Chemical Engineering).
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SPECIAL GUEST PRESENTATION:
“What’s so special about 50? It’s half of 100!”
This is one of many interesting points that punctuated a lively presentation by our guest speaker, Dr. Arthur Benjamin, Professor of Mathematics, Harvey Mudd College, who shared math wizardry with all COSMOS students Wednesday. This year marks Dr. Benjamin’s eighth presentation to COSMOS students, and he is a perennial crowd pleaser with surprising feats of mental math ability. Mathematics and magic – these are combined in an amazing display called mathemagics. He demonstrates (and shares the secrets of) rapid mental calculation and fosters an enjoyment of mathematics as never before. He says, “I do all multiplying in my head from left to right - the opposite of what you’re taught in school.” He adds, “By doing it from left to right, you can start your answer while you’re still calculating.”
He enjoys speaking to COSMOS participants because, he says, ”Not only do I get to show you how, I get to show you why -- you think like a college student.”
One student asked, “Where do you get your inspiration?” Dr. Benjamin’s reply: “As a professional mathematician, I’m inspired by the Fibonacci Numbers. There are oodles and oodles of patterns that live inside this universe of numbers. You could spend your life (and I do!) finding beautiful patterns in these numbers.”
Dr. Benjamin, who received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University, is co-author of several books on teaching mathematics and is the inventor of the Mathematics course in rapid mental calculation. His latest book is “The Secrets of Mental Math.” Learn more at hmc.edu

 SOCIAL ACTIVITIES:
Knott's Berry Farm: On Saturday, July 14, more than 85 excited COSMOS students and residential advisors departed campus at 10:00 a.m. to enjoy the thrill rides at Knotts, the local amusement park that features Jaguar! (a “ferocious journey high above”), Montezooma’s Revenge, with giant, seven-story loops, which blast from 0 to 55 in just 3 seconds, Wave Swinger, suspended swings and Dragon Swing, and then there’s the Xcelerator, SideWinder and Boomerang -- the “scream machine” and Perilous Plunge -- billed as “just 34 feet shorter than mighty Niagara Falls. Plenty of rides for everyone’s sense of adventure! Program Coordinator Griselda Rodriguez made sure that everyone stayed hydrated (including our very own COSMOS water bottles), and had an extra serving of fresh fruit or granola bars for the students.
Word Games: The Shire and Lorien dorms hosted a game called The Game with No Name -- a combination of pictionary, taboo and charades on Monday and Tuesday night -- enthusiastic groups taking a break from homework. Teams played some very competitive rounds, and had great success in discerning words such as virga, Newton, sequester, and onomatopoeia. Tuesday evening activities offered “The Bacon Game,” in which students worked in teams to “bring home the bacon.”
Crafts: For those who’ve finished homework and not caught up in team sports (especially the basketball marathon each night), Thursday evening there was an opportunity for students to paint & decorate wooden picture frames (a la Ikea), resulting in a colorful and creative array of frames to give as gifts or display a favorite photo. One of these favorites is the Astronomy cluster group photo taken at the UCI Observatory.
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CLUSTER HIGHLIGHTS-- Thanks to the Faculty and Teacher Fellows for assisting with many of these highlights:

ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS: In our second week, the students already have established their routines and are working very hard. All groups have begun gathering data for their projects at the UCI Observatory, and many groups have already started developing the structure of their final presentations. In the Science Communication course, students refined their research question and hypothesis. In the computer simulation lab, students constructed and utilized an H-R diagram to determine the distance to the Pleiades star cluster. Lecture topics included the physics of light and objects of the cosmos, including black holes. This week’s highlight was our field trip to see the 5-meter telescope at Palomar Observatory in San Diego County. For many years, this telescope was the largest in the world, and even today it is still doing cutting edge astronomical research every night, including pioneering the use of adaptive optics that counteracts the blurring caused by starlight passing through the Earth's atmosphere. We capped the day with a stop at the beach, where students and staff relaxed in the beautiful San Diego sunshine.

ATMOSPHERIC & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES: This week, the environmental science cluster was fortunate enough to tour the Blake lab here at UCI, one of the top labs in the field of Gas Chromatography. The group travels the globe, taking air samples from Greenland to Baja Mexico to Antarctica, and data from these air samples is used in computer models to predict sources and mixing patterns in the lower atmosphere, amoung other things. It seemed the students enjoyed the end of the tour the most, when Dr. Blake began pouring "mysterious smoke" all over a few selected students' heads. Again, not to fear, the "mysterious smoke" was just supercooled water vapor. Two of Dr. Blake's graduate students also presented data from their Ph.D. research, and Dr. Stan Tyler from the UCI Earth System Science department began his series of visiting lectures about global climate change. In the lab, the students made acid rain and attempted to prepare biodiesel fuel from used vegetable oil. On Friday the students will be participating in a mock environmental summit, where as teams they will represent Austrailia, England, Germany, The United States, India, Russia, and China and discuss global pollution issues and attempt to come to some type of world resolution.

BIOINFORMATICS & PROGRAMMING IN PYTHON: In the Bioinformatics lectures this week, students continue to learn basic molecular biology and to develop an understanding of how advanced computer programs are used to help biologists deal with complex problems such as a) assembly a genome, b) locating the genes, c) determining the function of a gene, and d) determining the regulatory switches that control whether a gene is made into a protein or not. In the Python programming class, students are learning how to write programs that solve basic versions of these problems. In the Bioinformatics labs, students are using several professional computer programs, such as Cap3, BLAST and WEKA, to solve problems involving , gene sequencing, gene assembly, gene function identification, and medical diagnosis from gene expression data. As an example, in one lab students were given sequences of DNA fragments and were able to assemble these into genes, determine the protein produced from that gene, and then actually determine the organism from which the gene originated. Students are also writing their own gene finding programs in the Python lab. In Science Communication class, a primary focus has been on technical writing. Students are developing their project ideas and have begun their background research. Projects topics include using algorithms for medical diagnosis for predicting specific diseases such as colon cancer and breast cancer, developing algorithms to discover the how genes are regulated, writing programs to determine the similarity of genes and proteins, and writing programs to demonstrate how evolution might occur.

CHEMISTRY At the Space/Time Limit: The journey into the heart of chemistry continued in the second week with an in-depth view of the properties of light. Seeing atoms and molecules is not an easy task, but light waves can help us a great deal. It was first discussed what light actually is: is it a particle or a wave? Several lectures highlighted advanced methods and tricks to manipulate light waves such that molecules can be visualized, from simple diatomics to huge protein structures! Lab courses zoomed further into how optical microscopes can be used to study molecules. After having unraveled the mysteries of light, the students learned about another visualization tool: the scanning electron microscope (SEM). The SEM is the type of machinery so specialized that you won't find it outside of the expert's research laboratory. Fortunately, COSMOS made exclusive arrangements which made it possible for the students to tune the knobs of this instrument and shoot crisp electron micrographs. Finally, the students learned about the crème-de-la-crème among the molecular binoculars: the scanning tunneling microscope. With this device switched on the molecules can no longer hide as their forms and shapes are readily unveiled. Students have selected their research project titles, and are working in pairs or small groups of three.

 ENGINEERING - Rockets ‘N Rollin: This week, we learned about rockets and gas turbine engines, and about the stability of aircraft. In the aerospace lab, students have completed the design and construction of their airplane wings and the preliminary assembly of their airplane bodies and control hardware. Students also learned about the science behind the operation of electric motors, and how this relates to the motion and control of wheeled robots. They then applied this knowledge in the robotics lab, where they have created designs for their battlebots, and have begun initial construction efforts. Additionally, lectures explained the physics of sailing, and students will apply their knowledge of aerodynamics during their field trip where they will get a chance to ride and navigate sailboats. At this point, the students have already selected their group project topics, which relate to either unmanned air vehicles or commercial wheeled robots. By the beginning of next week, they will have created an outline of their work, which thus far comprises of literature surveys and ideas for experiments to test their hypotheses.

MATERIALS SCIENCE/MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF CRYSTALS: During the second week of COSMOS, the students in the Mathematical and Materials Science cluster were introduced to new ways of graphing scientific data using polar plots and parametric plots. They used Mathematica, a mathematical software, to make all kinds of beautiful figures. We voted to select the most beautiful, interesting, and wacky pictures. Congratulations to Chris, Umar, and Austin for winning the contest! We also learned about various states of matter (vapor, liquid, amorphous, crystalline solid), and how anisotropy in materials properties can arise by viewing an animation of solidifying crystals. The students then learned about equilibrium shapes of crystals, and constructed these shapes using "Wulff construction" both by pen and paper and using Mathematica. We continued our discussion from the first week regarding how atoms arrange themselves in solids, and how the properties of crystalline materials are related to the atomic structure, symmetry, and imperfections in the crystalline arrangements. We discussed materials that are being developed for alternative energy systems (solid oxide fuel cells), and how these materials are 'designed' at the atomic scale. In the experimental labs, we used a 'glycine-nitrate combustion synthesis' approach to make crystalline ceramic powders containing samarium, strontium, cobalt and oxygen from liquid sources, and then used electron microscopes to explore the structure of crystalline materials at very high magnifications (seeing features as small as 20 nanometers). Many of the students even had the chance to drive a scanning electron microscope!

 NEUROSCIENCE/ PHYSIOLOGY OF EXERCISE: This week in Neuroscience, students visited the UCIrvine Transgenic Mouse Facility at the School of Medicine, where Dr. Fielder led a discussion on transgenic mouse models and the ethics of animal research, and gave a tour of the tissue culture lab. Students gained a greater appreciation for the specific talents and skills required of researchers; for example, it takes 3-6 months of training to become proficient at injecting nuclei into mouse eggs. Dr. Leon, UCI faculty member in the department of Neurobiology and Behavior, was a guest speaker on addiction, lending insight on how current research could be applied to medical and rehabilitation practices. In the lab, students performed neurological exams similar to those that would be used to diagnose neurological disorders. In Exercise Physiology, students learned how various strength training regimes could be utilized to attain various goals of strength, muscular endurance, power, and muscle size. Students also learned of the varied energy sources required of these forms. Students discussed current research on the immediate effects of passive stretching done prior to athletic performance. Many were surprised to learn that contrary to popular understanding, some traditional stretching regimes can actually decrease athletic performance in sprinters. Students extended the research into their own lab activities to see if this effect extended to other forms of athletic performance such as the standing long jump. Additionally, students measured lung capacity and VO2 max in the lab.

last updated: 7/23/07
Resident Advisor Quotes
“As a head female RA I have learned that my most enjoyable experiences with the students have turned out to be my most educational.”
--Christian Bryant

“The greatest thing about being an RA is to be able to give back what you know.”
--John Quiamas
“I like how our suite is really tight knit. We created “suite sisters” with the downstairs girls. The program is really awesome. I’m enjoying being a night RA and all the activities.”
--Abigail East

“There’s a sense of teamwork in COSMOS, and I think the other RAs are the kinds of friends you make for life, because we all love the program.”
--Jennifer Le
Student Voices
COSMOS 2007 students represent 24 California Counties and 107 high schools from throughout the state. Here is a sampling of what students are saying this week:

“It’s great being at the observatory at 2 a.m. -- I’m usually up at this time anyway, milking cows at the dairy. The stars are out and it’s so peaceful.
--Miguel Padilla, Cluster 1

“COSMOS is really great! I’m having fun. I’ve never done a program like this before. Bioinformatics is very fast-paced and we cover a lot of material every day. It’s really interesting, learning about the sequencing of the human genome.”
-- Evelyn Zuniga, Cluster 3
“I dissected the sciatic nerve of a frog. When I cut the spinal cord, one leg went shooting off the plate!”
--Blaine Harper, Cluster 7

“The dorms are nice and the food is good. Ours is the best cluster -- we get to build robots and airplanes.”
--Mark Keilbach, Cluster 5
“It’s been cool. The labs have all new stuff and we get to play around with sophisticated equipment, for example, class three lasers.”
--Yusuke Harada, Cluster 4

“I like it! The labs are interesting and I’m learning new things. I like the instructors.”
--Brenda Hernandez, Cluster 2
“It’s interesting the way they, our professors, teach. it’s not like high school, not all textbook, but a lot more labs and hands-on.”
--Christine Kyauk, Cluster 7

“It’s been really challenging but I’ve had fun and have learned a lot.”
--Sarah Hester, Cluster 5
“I’ve made some great friends. In my group project, we’re learning about number counts of distant galaxies and using that to determine the shape of the universe. The lectures are full of information.”
--Desiree Webster, Cluster 1

“I’m enjoying the game room, especially pool and foosball. I’m making friends, and enjoying the learning experiences in Cluster 5.”
--Ruel Rabbon
“I like the food. Professor Ryan (McKeachie) is really cool.”
--Khai-Hoan Huynh, Cluster 2

“It’s really great. It’s going to help me next year (in school). I like the hands-on labs. They involve lasers and how to identify the elements.”
--Stephanie Chhan, Cluster 4

“It’s a great way to meet people, and really fun. There are great activities to enjoy every day. The professors are really cool. If you’re having trouble, they explain things in a way you can understand.”
--Kyle Slaugh, Cluster 1
“I like the freedom and the chance to get away from home.”
--Charles Hewett, Cluster 7


“There are a lot of activities, and it’s so fun. The professors are so nice. They explain everything so well.”
--Susana Granados, Cluster 6
“My experience in COSMOS is great. The professors help you understand college life and they give you an advantage - to help you get ready for college. My robot is going good. We started the frame and putting wheels and the motor together.’
--Marcos Valencia, Cluster 5

“It’s really fun and interesting. We’re studying how people have affected PFCs in the environment the past 100 years. At the marsh we took water and soil samples. We put water in a big bottle, added weeds and chemicals, and let the organisms grow bacteria.”
--Emily Brechlin, Cluster 2
COSMOS CONTACTS
Marjorie DeMartino, Director
Griselda Rodriguez, Program Coordinator, 949-824-6806

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