Kildare students put spiders to the acid test

Few would cuddle up to a spider, but studying these eight-legged critters at close quarters posed no problems for two transition year students from St Wolstan's Community School, Celbridge, Co Kildare.

Aoife Carr (15) and Samila Malime (16) spent weeks watching garden spiders rambling about in their enclosures, building webs and eating flies.

Samila thought the spiders made better viewing than television. She had seen a programme on spiders, and this gave the two the idea to pursue a spider-based project for the Esat BT Young Scientist.

Coincidentally, they were also studying chemistry in school, and decided to mix biology and chemistry in their project, which sought to identify whether spiders preferred an acidic, neutral or basic environment.

"If they formed webs it was a good thing," said Aoife, as it showed the spiders were satisfied with their environment.

They took three enclosures and treated two with a weak acid and weak base, leaving the third alone. The lids were not treated so the spiders could move there to avoid an environment.

The two found the spiders preferred the environment treated with a base. They least liked the acidic environment.

Chemistry of a different kind provided the inspiration for three Co Derry students who tested how various hair treatments affected the strength of human hair.

Hollie Hayes, Kirsty Bell and Tamara Kesterton, from Coleraine College, measured the effect of dyes, perms and heat treatments on the tensile strength of individual hairs. Their experiments also measured whether the cost of the treatment had any impact on strength.

They used a special device at a nearby company that could measure hair strength to breaking point. They brought supplies of treated hairs with them. To avoid bias they used hairs taken from a single individual.

Surprisingly, they found that the hairs were weakened by many of the dearest products, but the cheaper products often left hairs stronger.