Young Minds Expand at Lakeland's Annual Science Symposium

The talented young minds of both Lakeland and Walter Panas High School’s students came together for this year’s annual Science Symposium at  last night. Parents and teachers packed the school auditorium to listen to the lectures.

Kaitlin Hamilton of Walter Panas High School gave an intricate breakdown of the comparison of both seasonal and pandemic strands of the H1N1 Influenza virus, or swine flu. Looking at strands from previous seasons, Kaitlin attempted to determine whether “differences in the hemagglutinin protein accounted for a lack of co-infections.”

This was done by comparing the hemagglutinins of seasonal viruses from April 2008 to March 2009 as well as pandemic viruses from April 2009 to March 2010 to find mutations. Hamilton, the valedictorian of her class at Walter Panas, said she believes, although further testing is needed, that it is due to the mutations between the strands that co-infection is not possible. Her research has the potential to be used to further understand the H1N1 virus and ultimately aid the vaccine development for the future.

Frank DiRenno, of Walter Panas, presented a new approach to the production of nanotechnologies. 

"There’s an increasing need for the smaller electronic components," he said. "The way researchers are trying to do that is the use of what’s called Nanoelectricmechanical Systems, or ‘NEMS.’"  

Addressing the alternative process to build these NEMS that DiRenno discussed will save the industry time, money and will ultimately produce cleaner and higher quality materials for future gadgets. DiRenno will be graduating as the Salutatorian from Walter Panas this year.

In addition, the students presented a wide variety of their own research that they displayed and presented to smaller groups. Superintendent George Stone and Yorktown Councilman Vishnu Patel, retired IBM scientist, congregated to discuss and learn from the student’s research and share common interest of scientific ideas.

Keynote speaker Michael P. Perrone of IBM presented the complex fundamentals of the supercomputer Watson, the first supercomputer to outwit human contestants of the famous quiz show Jeopardy at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights. The biggest challenge with a computer playing the game Jeopardy, he said, is that the question range is broad and almost ambiguous in its interpretation. Not only does this computer need to be diverse as far as material, but also able to break down the information and avoid false clues within the questions. 

"The database is about as big as a million books,” Perrone said. "With today’s exponential growth of new information, it’s necessary to have a system that can store massive amounts of material as well as understand speech barriers while accessing the information quickly and efficiently. This technology paves way for the future of computers and robotics which will ultimately play a role in Human/AI communication."