Russell participates in the 4-H Club and the Alamo Area Beekeeper's Association. He is also involved in his school's debate team and is a member of the National Junior Honor Society. Russell enjoys playing the piano, trumpet, baritone, electric bass and guitar in his school band, orchestra and jazz band. He would like to become a physician, a biomedical researcher or a lawyer.
Russell says that his parents "encourage scientific exploration and have taught me to ask questions and find answers."
Russell selected this topic after hearing a radio show about a study to determine whether nicotine acts as an alcohol stimulant in humans and other small mammals. This study correlated to Russell's previous science project that tested the response of Apis mellifera (honeybees) to alcohol after consuming alcohol-aversive products. Russell designed a second-year study to determine whether nicotine would affect the alcohol consumption of honeybees. Russell speculated that if he could prove that nicotine is a stimulant in honeybees, they could be used as inexpensive test subjects in medical and pharmaceutical studies, instead of mammals.
Russell captured the honeybees and restricted their food consumption for 24 hours prior to testing. He then administered 1 microliter of nicotine to some of the bees and nothing to others, after which all the bees were fed an ethanol-sucrose solution for 5 seconds at 5-minute intervals until they would no longer drink. Russell concluded that nicotine does increase bees' consumption of alcohol. He believes that further ethanol studies would be valuable to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
