BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!
Students are discovering that knowledge combined with analytical skills to effectively use information is among their greatest assets in this information age. Each cluster is enjoying experiential learning, and students are engaged in their projects. From every aspect, COSMOS-UCI reflects three pillars of education: intellectual, social, and physical.
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THIS WEEK’S ALL-COSMOS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
Science of Super Heroes: Wednesday afternoon, students enjoyed The Science of Super Heroes, interactive presentation by Professor Michael Dennin, UCI Department of Physics. He began by asking students their favorite super hero (Spider Man, Bat Man, Super Man, Iron Man, Green Lantern and Dare Devil) and their favorite super powers (teleportation, telekinesis, invisibility, flying, and controlling gravity were favorites), which Professor Dennin used to elaborate on the fundamental laws of physics vs. technological limits. He emphasized, “There is no way we can violate Newton’s three laws,” and encouraged audience participation by eliciting their definitions. He said, “Forces are the Number 1 problem for superheroes.” He incorporated multiple topics, including laws of motion, rest, acceleration and velocity, as well as space-time and light, and even touched on stealth technology. He shared his interest in foam and bubbles and lipids and proteins - materials with interesting properties, adding, “At the moment, I am interested in spider silk, which is strong and flexible, and a ‘really cool’ protein.” He has appeared on Nova and the History Channel, including specials on The Science of Star Trek. Professor Dennin added that physicists have to “keep our creativity and imagination as active as possible.”
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QUIZMOS!
We will travel to COSMOS-UC San Diego Saturday for an exciting academic tournament called “Quizmos!” Our top team, which emerged from our campus competition in Week 1, will meet the top team at SD. We are working to organize campus tours (a bit of a challenge for our hosts to organize our big group of 140). Our thanks and appreciation to the COSMOS-UCSD leadership for organizing this exciting event. Each match will consist of tossup questions followed by two bonus questions. Each team will have five members. The buzzers are ready for action! After a BBQ hosted by our UCSD colleagues, students will be treated to a tour of the UCSD campus.
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STUDENT PROJECTS - A SAMPLING
All clusters are finalizing their topics and titles. Tissue and Tumor Biology students, for example, will endeavor to answer some tough questions in their collaborative work on projects such as these:

• In combination with various parameters, how can the mathematical model be used to predict the margin of tumor removal by surgical, etc. procedures in order to treat a cancer effectively?
• Using a mathematical model, how does the PI3k pathway affect tumor growth susceptibility to dietary restrictions?
• How does nutrition and VEGF affect the growth of cancer cells?
• What is the effect of different amounts of Interleukin-13 on glioblastoma multiforme cells after the tumor has reached stage four?
• How does the concentration of growth factors affect the proliferation of cancer cells relative to normal cell growth?
• What is the difference between a normal cell’s need of nutrients and/or vitamins and a cancer cell’s need? Are there certain nutrients/vitamins that only cancer cells need or need more of? And: How does radioactivity from nuclear power plants and nuclear explosions affect cancer growth?
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Cluster 1-- ROBOTS TO ROCKETS: ENERGY AND POWER FOR MACHINES
As COSMOS rolls on, the Robots to Rockets cluster has ramped up its activities. In lecture this week, the students were treated to an ‘explosive' (rapid burn) demonstration from Professor Dunn-Rankin in his Combustion lecture. This lecture also explained the differences between premixed and non-premixed flames, and their applications in industry. Professor Jabari treated the students to a series of entertaining lectures this week discussing launch parameters, orbital mechanics, and fuel cells. Lastly, Professor Bobrow enlightened them in the area of control systems. The students learned the basic principles of feedback control and where it is used in our everyday lives, from robots to cars. In lab, the cluster is progressing in their airplane and robot building. Both projects are coming together, and are entering the final fabrication stages en route to testing the beginning of next week. Next Thursday, both lab topics will be put to the test with our final airplane flights and our robot competitions. In addition, they are feverishly researching their chosen topics for their final presentations next Friday.

Cluster 2-- ASTRONOMY/ASTROPHYSICS
The amount of mass in a given galaxy can be determined by how fast the stars in that galaxy move. Using this method, astronomers derive the masses of galaxies to be far more than what is calculated by the mass of the visible (glowing) material alone. This ‘extra mass’ is called “dark” matter, because it is detected only by the gravity it exerts. Dark matter emits no light of its own. Students have studied dark matter, the even more mysterious ‘dark energy’ and Einstein’s Special and General Theories of Relativity in lectures this week. Our students have also been gathering and analyzing data for their various projects and only the asteroid group still needs a few images with the 24-inch telescope to verify their predictions of the asteroid's orbit. Others are starting to generate their conclusions about the mass of Jupiter, the age of star clusters, masses of stars based on strengths of absorption lines in their spectra, the temperature and mass of two stars in an eclipsing binary system, the shape of the universe and the evidence for dark matter. The students have made great progress so far, and they are very excited to get their final results.

Cluster 3-- TISSUE AND TUMOR BIOLOGY AND MATHEMATICAL/COMPUTER MODELING
During the third week of COSMOS, the students learned about stem cells and cell lineages, which are families of progressively more differentiated cells arising from a collection of stem cells. Stem cells are characterized by their ability to self-renew and form all other types of cells (multipotent). We discussed evidence for the cancer stem cell hypothesis and its implications for cancer progression and treatment. Namely, that cancer is driven by a small collection of cells that have stem cell like properties and that most of the cells in a tumor are not tumorigenic and do not give rise to tumors or metastases. We developed a mathematical model that describes the dynamics of different types of cells in a lineage and analyzed the steady states (long-time behavior) and their sensitivity to parameter variations. We discussed the role of feedback control among cell types in the lineage on the probabilities of cell self-renewal and mitosis rates for the different cells in the lineage. Feedback was demonstrated to reduce sensitivity to parameter variations and demonstrate that the tumor environment may control which cells behave in a stem cell like manner. That is, the stem cell character of a cell may not solely hard coded in its genetics but rather may also be a function of its local environment. The students also learned about the adhesion of cells to each other and to the extracellular matrix (collagen scaffold on which the cells live). The students learned how important it is for normal cells to remain in contact with the extracellular matrix and that metastatic cancer cells have mutations that allow the cells to lose contact with the matrix and thereby safely migrate through it to locations far from the primary tumor. In lab, the students performed a cell adhesion assay that investigated the amount of cell adhesion molecules (integrins); the resulting distribution of dye spelled out the word "COSMOS." On thursday, the students had a field trip to the UCSD Moores Cancer Center. There, they had a tour of part of the research facility and heard talks by experts in cancer metastasis and drug development. The students received a taste of what the different stages of clinical trials mean, and the length of time (about 15 years) from the idea for a treatment to its use in a clinical facility for cancer drugs and its high cost (about $1 billion). The students have also formulated quite sophisticated hypothesis for their research projects and will spend the next week pulling everything together.
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Cluster 5-- COMPUTER SOLUTIONS FOR MATHEMATICAL PUZZLES AND GAMES
On Friday last week, the students learned some strategies using group theory to solve Rubik’s Cube. Dr. Eichhorn went through the interesting history of the Rubik’s Cube and explained how to read Concatenation Operation (a sequence of moves) written in Singmaster notation when solving Rubik’s Cube. One student in the cluster was able to solve the cube in twenty seconds. On Monday, after practicing on some different strategies, the students competed in Dots&Boxes Tournament. Getting closer to the final project, Dr. Arvo led the students to programming the Risk game using LISP. On Wednesday, the students learned about partition theory—the mathematical concept in Kakuro Puzzle. Working in groups in the computer lab right after that, the students used partition theory to solve different types of Kakuro Puzzle and created puzzles to challenge each other. After the Mini-Poster Competition last week, the students are working on the Final Project. Each group in cluster 5 has been working rigorously on their final project which included programming the Risk game and designing a poster to present another favorite game of their choices. Using information from the Technical Writing class, seven groups showed their skills in designing posters and PowerPoint for scientific projects and communicating with general audience. Good luck to our team playing against UCSD Cosmos on this coming Saturday!
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