Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

I have been conducting scientific research since my freshman year in high school. With projects spanning from antibacterial honey to treatments for Alzheimerâ€™s disease, I decided to go into the field of environmental toxicology to investigate a topic of great interest to me: carbon nanotube toxicity. I first became interested in nanotechnology when I read an article about the potential for carbon nanotube usage in the creation of a space elevator. I heard all this fantastic buzz about the material, but nobody had really looked into the effects of nanotubes on the environment. This was slightly disturbing and surprising to me, as I had expected the scientific â€œpowers-that-beâ€ to thoroughly vet a chemical before throwing it into mass production. Researching further, I found that carbon nanotubes were already being used in plasma-screen televisions, in cosmetics, and in tumor-fighting applications.
The only problem was that there was a massive dearth in the available data regarding what mass production of carbon nanotubes would do to localized ecosystems and for the water supply as a whole. Most studies had been conducted on the effects of the chemical on endothelial lung cells, as potential analog for asbestos, instead of on the same animals and plants we rely on to keep our local environment healthy and in homeostasis. I decided to fill this hole in the current research as a measure of scientific responsibility, as any promising discovery is useless if its application kills those who would use it in the first place.
To test the effects of carbon nanotubes on the local ecosystems of the Midwest, I used organisms that could be found at a very low trophic level in these ecosystems to function as indicator species. An indicator species is one whose health is directly tied to the health of the ecosystem around it, making it very useful in a lab-situation where results need to be extrapolated to the wild without disturbing the ecosystem itself. Over the course of the last two years, I tested the effects of variously functionalized carbon nanotubes on the health of three organisms that can be found in either the Bixler Lake wetlands (found two blocks away) or in any other freshwater wetland in the Midwest. These organisms were Daphnia magna, Lumbriculus variegatus, and Triops longicaudatus (a crab, a worm, and another crab, respectively). All three have been used extensively in environmental toxicology studies, especially Daphnia, by the EPA and other established environmental laboratories.
The research determined that, over the course of exposures ranging from a day to a week, that even the smallest of dosages can have catastrophic effects on the various organic systems of each organism. At one of the smallest dose ranges, 50 parts per million, both Daphnia and Lumbriculus had massive die-offs, pronounced tachycardia in Daphnia, pronounced bradycardia in Lumbriculus, and gastric blockages in both organisms. At the higher levels of exposure, all organisms had disturbances in reproduction, growth, movement, and heart rate, as well as very high death rates again.
So what does all this tell us? Carbon nanotubes have the potential to be of great use, but they also have the potential to be very hazardous to organisms that mean the world to us. This comes not from a sentimentalist point of view, but from a practical one: if these organisms die on the scale that can be projected from these data, we have a serious problem. These organisms are indicator organisms. If they die, most of the organisms above them in the food chain will be severely impacted, as they will lose their major sources of food. To endanger these indicators means to cut the total food supply of the ecosystem in half or less. The health of wetlands is of dire importance to populated areas as well, as they serve as a main source of natural filtration of water. Their loss would impact water quality severely and place an economic burden on the area to replace their natural filtration with artificial filtration supplied by treatment plants.
Of course, this does not mean that carbon nanotubes should be abandoned as a material on a large scale. It does mean that their production and disposal must be controlled and regulated in order to prevent disastrous consequences. Producers of nanotubes will need to keep runoff to a minimum. They will also need to develop an efficient way of making wasted nanotubes inert, which can be done by high heat and pressure that turns them into the structural equivalent of charcoal.
This research has impacted not just my community, but North American wetlands in general, by making the scientific and industrial community aware of my findings. The last two years, I have been a finalist at the International Science and Engineering Fair, winning third place in Environmental Science out of over 300 scientists. That, in addition to my work with local universities in my state, has not only raised public awareness of the problem but institutional awareness as well. Multiple owners of nanotube-oriented industries have interviewed me at these fairs, and on more than one occasion, have subsequently investigated proper disposal techniques as a result. With this impact, my project has potentially prevented nanotube pollution in my region as well as the regions of the interviewing manufacturers.
My successes with this project made me even more interested in science than I was before, pushing me to attain more experience and learn all I can. It also motivated me to apply to colleges that would have been out of my reach before its completion. This Fall, I am going to attend Williams College in Massachusetts, partially due to my project. Iâ€™m going to be conducting research there in the field of neuroscience as well as looking into the effects of nanotoxicology in detail. As both the top-ranked undergraduate research institution as well as the top-ranked college in the United States (over Yale, Harvard, and Princeton), it will prepare me for success later in life and career. I attribute my acceptance to my project at its most basic point, although I cannot be sure. Science for a greater cause changes those who perform it, this much I know.