What do camera filters, artificial intelligence, and a hardware store have in common? They all come up in discussions with top finishers in 2019’s Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS). This competition, run by the Society for Science & the Public, is for young scientists. Each year, around 2,000 high school seniors enter. The winners celebrated at this national competition have gone on to start international companies, preside over top research universities, and even win Nobel Prizes! Three of this year’s 40 finalists share how they used the design process and their scientific research to engineering new technologies to help solve some of the world’s most difficult problems.
Eshika Saxena, 17, Biomedical Engineering In 2016, Eshika was frustrated with an experience of food poisoning, so she decided to investigate a solution. With the help of a lab near her hometown of Seattle, Eshika used her computer programming knowledge and engineering skills to build a portable spectrometer. A spectrometer acts like a prism: the machine splits light into its smallest units and then graphs the wavelengths. Every compound has its own signature, so if you have the graph, you can identify the compound. Eshika was able to detect some of the compounds that cause food poisoning. She placed 10th, earning $40,000. She says, “I really liked how I could solve a problem that I had experienced myself.”
The following year, a FaceTime call with her sister inspired Eshika to create a camera filter that detects vital signs. “A solution where you can just look into a camera and it can determine your heart rate is super exciting, especially in places where they don’t have specialized equipment. When your heart pumps blood, there’s actually a very small color change [on the skin]. So I used the camera to measure that frequency of that color change and calculated the heart rate.”
This story is from the November/December 2019 edition of Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November/December 2019 edition of Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
