This activity will require some investigating on your own. You will be researching one of the topics below, and you will prepare a project based on the results of your research. What kind of project? Your teacher will tell you. To make things easier, for each topic there is a useful link to get you started. However, you should use more resources than just the one given. The link is only a starting place.

1. What is Cruetzfeld-Jakob disease and what does it have to do with proteins?
   Useful link: The Brain Eater — from NOVA Online.

2. How do liquid crystal displays work?
   Useful link: Introduction to Liquid Crystal Displays — part of Polymers & Liquid Crystals from Case Western Reserve University.

3. You know that water and oil don't mix, but what about polymers? What are polymer blends used for and why are they difficult to make? What is the difference between a miscible and an immiscible blend?
   Useful link: Miscible Polymer Blends — part of The Macrogalleria from the University of Southern Mississippi.

4. How can polymers help us make replacement organs for transplant use?
   Useful link: Polymers and People: Designer Polymers — from Beyond Discovery from the National Academy of Sciences.

5. What is x-ray crystallography, and how was it used to show that natural polymers are macromolecules?
   Useful link: Molecular Giants — part of Polymers and People from the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

6. Linneaus C. Dorman helped invent new uses for polymers in medicine. In the same vein, another scientist developed something called PolyAspirin^¨. What is it? How is it made and how does it work? What are its advantages over regular aspirin? What can it do besides relieve pain?
   Useful link: Polymers vs. Pain — part of Aspirin Adventures, a Pharmaceutical Achievers teaching module from the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

7. Chemically, what is Jell-O^¨?
   Useful link: What is Jell-O? — from Scientific American.

8. Can polymers be used to make artificial muscles? What kinds of polymers would be used? How would the artificial muscles work?
   Useful link: Artificial Muscles — from Scientific American.

9. If one wanted to make artificial blood, what polymers might one use? How would this artificial blood work?
   Useful link: How Do Scientists Make Artificial Blood? — from Scientific American.

10. What are nanotubes? What are some possible uses for them?
    Useful link: Tantalizing Tubes — from Scientific American.