All Stories
- Earth
Thirst for water moves and shakes California
Here’s a scary cost to pumping up groundwater to slake the thirst of crops in California’s Central Valley: It may uplift nearby mountains and trigger tiny earthquakes, experts find.
-
Young researchers take over the White House
Yesterday’s White House Science Fair brought students from around the country to the White House to meet the President and to be recognized for their science and engineering projects. Several were veterans of competitions run by Society for Science & the Public.
- Animals
Mosquitoes, be gone!
An extract of local seeds in Puerto Rico may be the key to keeping mosquitoes away. It kills the larval insects and repels the biting adults.
- Brain
Football hits the brain hard
The brain’s hippocampus helps store memories. It is smaller in college football players — especially if they have suffered concussions.
- Animals
Killing mosquitoes with cashews
When dengue fever came to his hometown, Gabriel Galdino looked for ways to stop its carrier, the mosquito. His findings got him a spot at the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
- Tech
Saving vanishing ‘tongues’
More than 3,000 world languages face extinction. Linguists are turning to mobile apps and other tech tools to preserve these endangered languages.
-
High school student studies slime mold smarts
Are slime molds “smart,” and what does that mean? Hannah McShea ran experiments to find out more about how slime molds behave and what it means for intelligence.
- Microbes
Convincing bacteria they’re alone
Caffeine may be the trick to confusing some bacteria into thinking they’ve not yet summoned enough troops to launch a successful attack on their host. It could prove an alternative to antibiotics for certain infections.
- Math
Teen puts calculus on ice
Jacob Nichols wondered if he could use calculus to find the volume of the icicles building up outside his house. His study earned him a spot at the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
-
Better than plywood
Most people think of pineapple as a tasty fruit. But it can be so much more, two Malaysian teens showed. They turned the plant’s leaves into a construction material that’s both strong and waterproof.
- Earth
Don’t let the bedbugs bite
A trio of teens has found a nontoxic way to stop bedbugs dead in their tracks. The method relies on a mesh of fibers that a bug can step into easily — but never leave.
- Oceans
Digging a trench to stop a tsunami
Boyd Kane built his own wave tank to study tsunamis and how he might change the seafloor to stop their advance.
