All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
Water waves can have literally seismic impacts
Certain types of seismic waves are generated by waves on large lakes. These ground waves could be used to map fault zones or to monitor ice cover in polar lakes.
- Earth
Explainer: Seismic waves come in different ‘flavors’
Earthquakes generate several different types of seismic waves, some more damaging than others
- Tech
Young challengers take a deep dive into engineering
Thirty teens worked in teams to design, build and test remotely-operated vehicles. Their mission: to grab river sediment — and perhaps a shot at winning a major national competition.
- Health & Medicine
Student invents 3-in-1 hygiene powder
A teen who volunteers at a homeless center has developed a powdery product that can serve as dry shampoo, body powder and toothpaste.
- Tech
Teen identifies way to detect failing underground pipes
A teen researcher uses acoustics — here, pipe vibrations — to test whether buried water pipes are about to fail, and leak.
- Earth
Middle-school scientists take home big prizes
Top finalists in the 2017 Broadcom MASTERS competition shared awards worth $100,000.
- Materials Science
Blue light flexes its chem-building muscle
Scientists found a new way to build a strong but bendable blend of polymers. The trick? Expose the ingredients to a beam of blue light.
- Chemistry
Explainer: What are polymers?
Polymers, whether natural or artificial, are big molecules made by linking up smaller repeating chemical units. The most common “backbones” for polymers are chains of carbon or silicon, each of which can bond to four other atoms.
- Fossils
T. rex may not have been able to run — but it was still pretty fast
T. rex was fearsome, but its leg bones may not have been strong enough to stand the stresses of running.
- Environment
Can concrete conquer air pollution?
Powdered concrete could remove the sulfur dioxide and other pollutants that are spewed into the air when electric-power plants burn fossil fuels, a lab study suggests.
- Microbes
Plant extract mutes germs to fight infections
A plant extract prevents the aggressive behavior seen in some germs. Using it could fight the development of most bladder infections, a teen’s research suggests.
- Tech
Maybe ‘shade balls’ should not be balls
So-called shade balls have a range of uses in water reservoirs, from cutting evaporation to reducing the growth of algae. But the best performers might not actually be balls, a Florida teen now shows.
