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Each year, large amounts of carcinogenic pollutants are released into the environment, which negatively affects human health. This study ranks the major carcinogenic pollutants that are released into the air, water, and land by both the total released amounts and the potential carcinogenic risks.

Reaching one’s maximum jump height requires optimizing one’s jump techniques. In order to find this optimal jump technique, three high school participants with varying vertical jump (VJ) abilities recorded videos of themselves with varying degrees of maximum/minimum shoulder, knee, and hip angles—with or without respect to the horizontal—at the isometric phase of a regular countermovement (CM) VJ or countermovement jump (CMJ). Results showed that the shoulder angle without respect to the horizontal (SA), knee angle with respect to the horizontal (KAH), and the hip angle with respect to the horizontal (HAH) possessed a more consistent correlation with VJ height across the subjects compared to the same respective angles with opposite relations to the horizontal.

Glioblastoma is a brain cancer caused by the presence of a fast-growing, malignant tumor in the brain. As of now, this cancer is universally lethal due to lack of efficacious treatment options. C-C chemokine receptor 1 (CCR1) is a G-protein coupled receptor that controls chemotaxis, the movement of cells in response to chemical stimuli. This research aims to synthesize potential CCR1 antagonists by coupling carboxylic acids with a triazole core. We synthesized these compounds using a simple carboxylic acid coupling and confirmed the identity of the final compounds using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.

While 75% of waste in the United States is stated to be recyclable, only about 34% truly is. This project takes a stance to combat the pillars of mismanaged waste through a modern means of convenience: the TracedWaste app. The purpose of this study was to identify how individuals' waste disposal habits improved and knowledge increased (i.e. correctly disposing of waste, understanding negative incorrect waste disposal) due to their use of an informational waste management app as measured by a survey using a 1-5 Likert Scale. The results showed that the TracedWaste app helped conserve abundant resources such as energy and wood, decrease carbon emissions, and minimize financial toll all through reducing individual impact.

This study examines the higher harmonics in an oscillating string by analyzing the sound produced by a guitar with a spectrum analyzer. The authors mathematically hypothesized that the higher harmonics in the series of the directly excited 2^nd harmonic contain the alternate frequencies of the fundamental series, the higher harmonics of the directly excited 3^rd harmonic series contain every third frequency of fundamental series, and so on. To test the hypotheses, they enforced artificial nodes to excite the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th harmonics directly, and analyzed the resulting spectrum to verify the mathematical hypothesis. The data analysis corroborates both hypotheses.

As cancer continues to take millions of lives worldwide, the need to create effective therapeutics for the disease persists. The kinesin Eg5 assembly motor protein is a promising target for cancer therapeutics as inhibition of this protein leads to cell cycle arrest. Monastrol, a small dihydropyrimidine-based molecule capable of inhibiting the kinesin Eg5 function, has attracted the attention of medicinal chemists with its potency, affinity, and specificity to the highly targeted loop5/α2/α3 allosteric binding pocket. In this work, we employed high-throughput virtual screening (HTVS) to identify potential small molecule Eg5 inhibitors from a designed set of novel dihydropyrimidine analogs structurally similar to monastrol.

In this study, the authors investigate a potential case of cross antibiotic-resistance. Using swabs from an individual who received long-term treatments of azithromycin, they addressed the question of whether any bacteria in this individual might develop resistance to not only azithromycin, but also other antibiotics with similar structures. This study cleverly addresses the important issue of antibiotic resistance from a new and thoughtful approach.

In this study, the authors investigate the effects of different algal growth media on algae's ability to perform carbon dioxide biofixation, or utilize carbon dioxide by fixing it into fatty acids within the cells. More specifically, carbon dioxide biofixation of Chlorella vulgaris was cultured in one of four media options and carbon dioxide was measured and compared to controls. The study results demonstrated that the use of media can enhance algae's capacity for biofixation and this has important implications for developing methods to reduce carbon dioxide in the environment.

Bacterial infection is resurging as one of the most dangerous challenges facing the medical establishment. Americans spend about 55 to 70 billion dollars per year on antibiotics, yet these antibiotics are becoming increasingly ineffective as illness-causing bacteria gain resistance to the prescribed drugs. We tested if 11 commonly-used spices could inhibit growth of the gram-negative bacteria, E. coli, the main takeaway from these experiments is that certain spices and herbs have antibacterial effects that inhibit growth of E.coli , and these spices could show similarly promising activity towards other bacteria.

The degeneration of nerve cells in the brain can lead to pathologies such as Parkinson’s disease. It has been suggested that neurons in humans may regenerate. In this study, the effect of different doses of caffeine on regeneration was explored in the planeria model. Caffeine has been shown to enhance dopamine production, and dopamine is found in high concentrations in regenerating planeria tissues. Higher doses of caffeine accelerated planeria regeneration following decapitation, indicating a potential role for caffeine as a treatment to stimulate regeneration.