Alan Robert Sage
New York
Alan Robert Sage, 17, from New York, entered an Intel Science Talent Search
plant sciences project concerning chemotropism - the attraction of a plant's roots
to chemicals that are potentially beneficial, and their repulsion to chemicals
that may be harmful. Alan designed an experimental system where the roots of
Arabidopsis thaliana grew downward toward a drought-simulating chemical,
mannitol, but then turned left or right at an angle in search of water. He
created a new procedure for measuring chemotropism and then used it to test
glutamate, an amino acid that appeared to cause plant roots to be repulsed. The
son of Howard and Lillian Sage, Alan was a finalist in a poetry competition and,
as a freshman, he wrote and directed a one-act play about race relations titled,
"Far Rockaway." At Stuyvesant High School, Alan serves on the newspaper's
editorial board and says he can read Latin fluently. He likes to spend his spare
time exploring New York City by subway, and is said to be an expert on many of
the world's transit systems. He is a student of piano and music theory and
aspires to pursue a curriculum that includes math, science and the humanities at
Yale or Oxford.
|
