Excited by Yawning
“Jugend forscht“ – the science and technology competition shows the curiosity and passion of young people for science
They research the emotional connectedness of yawning and feelings triggered by robots – students and other young people research their own questions with curiosity, imagination, and enthusiasm. The Science City Adlershof continuously fosters young talent, for example, when the South Berlin regional competition of “Jugend forscht“ (“Young Scientists”) and the MINT-EC’s Hauptstadtforum (“Capital City Forum”) take place.
Everybody has been in the following situation: as soon as somebody starts yawning in a laid-back group of people, one has to force oneself not to. This is possibly due to emotional attachment – at least this is what Svea Wobring and Marla Lakhssassi read in a magazine a few years ago. It became an inside joke between the two friends. Today the 16 and 17-year-old students, who go to 11th grade at a protestant school in Köpenick, let others yawn at them for research purposes. The “Jugend Forscht”-competition was looking for this year’s topics which reminded them of their own experiment – and of the fact that it remains unclear why the yawn reflex is actually triggered.
The young researchers love diving into the subject matter some might consider boring at first glance. “It is great fun investigating a question that you thought of that hasn’t been answered yet,” says Marla. And Svea adds: “We can gain a much more in-depth understanding of a topic than at school and we decide ourselves how we design our experiments.” Their interest in medical and biological issues, which was sparked by their families, can now be put into practice. Both of them are already flirting with a future job in that area.
Svea and Marla have four theories on possible causes for yawning: cooling of the brain for increased blood supply, excitation through increased oxygen supply, protection of the Eustachian tube in the inner ear, or a genetically inherited means of communication. They want to get their test persons to yawn by playing them boring audio books and then examine them using measuring methods including electroencephalography (EEG) und electrocardiography (ECG). The equipment is provided by the Student Research Centre Berlin at Lise-Meitner-School. They thought of a special animal experiment in order to test the emotional attachment theory and the phenomenon of contagious yawning: a dog is confronted not only with the yawn of his master, but also videos of strange people yawning at him. According to Marla: “The intriguing question is: when will the dog yawn back?”
Steve Zöhrens and Eric Bellin also enjoy studying outside of a fixed class schedule and instead jointly researching a specific subject at “Jugend forscht”. The 15-year-old students, who are in 10th grade of a secondary school in Dahme, have a love for robots – and translated their “love” into a research topic. They were inspired by a project at the Student Research Centre Berlin at Lise-Meitner-School where they were able to program NAO, a humanoid robot of about 60 cm, to walk and sit down, among other things.
“The robot moves like a human, so one does sympathize with him,” says Steve. “So we asked ourselves: can a robot like NAO actually trigger human emotions?” This question brings together technical aspects, which are Steve’s specialty, as well as ethical and philosophical aspects that Eric is especially interested in. Their idea: to program NAO to make rejecting gestures and to signal to his vis-à-vis that he doesn’t want to be touched on his right shoulder. The young scientists will then use a questionnaire to find out what the human counterpart felt upon being rejected: do they feel remorse? Absolutely nothing? Or is it just funny? Do young people react differently to older people? “It is a great experience to work together, to debate a lot, and to complement each other: if one of us gets to a dead end, the other one might have a good idea,” says Steve, who wants to keep going to school for his Abitur after he finished 10th grade and go on to study IT.
First, however, Steve and Eric, Marla and Svea will compete with other students and young people at the South Berlin regional competition of “Jugend forscht” on 23rd/24th February 2016. This is one of many activities for young people that take place at the Science City Adlershof that include other competitions such as the “Kangaroo of Mathematics” on 17th March 2016 as well as numerous student labs and student societies of the local universities and research institutions.
On 4th/5th February 2016, Adlershof will be home to “MINT400 – Das Hauptstadtforum des MINT-EC“ (“Capital City Forum”). The school network for excellence MINT-EC was initiated by private companies and now consists of 247 secondary schools which offer outstanding classes in mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, and technology (MINT subjects in German, STEM in English) A total of 400 students and 50 teachers are sent to the “Hauptstadtforum” by their respective schools. There are all kinds of different events on studying and career prospects: about 30 companies, universities, and research institutions from the capital city region present themselves as part of an education expo. Many of them will open their labs on day two to let the students experiment and conduct small research projects. The fun factor in all of this is paramount and so the closing event will put “Star Wars” under the microscope.
By Uta Deffke for Adlershof Journal
www.adlershof.de/jugend-forscht/
www.mint-ec.de/mint400-2016-hauptstadtforum.html