Joshua finds photography challenging because "every image seen through a camera lens offers its own story that invites interpretation." He also plays the trombone and enjoys getting out and playing with friends. His aspirations include a career as a medical researcher "to discover something that could help people."
Some research has suggested that magnetic fields can increase or decrease biological activity of cells. Joshua designed a study to test the effect of magnets on CD4-positive T-cells, a kind of immune cell that plays a key role in infections caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). He hypothesized that south magnetic exposure would increase the number of CD4 proteins on T-cells and that north magnetic exposure would decrease it.
Joshua worked with people at the University of South Florida to grow and monitor CD4-positive T cells in six lab dishes. Two samples were exposed to a south magnetic force, two to a north magnetic force, and two to neither. The latter samples were thus exposed to the Earth's natural magnetic field as a control. Joshua used dyes to stain the cells and reveal whether or not they were CD4 positive. He found that both samples of cells exposed to a magnetic force, north or south, showed an increase in CD4 proteins, whereas the control group did not.
