http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/03/14 ... index.html

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- A 17-year-old girl won a scholarship worth $100,000 for building an inexpensive yet accurate spectrograph that identifies the "fingerprints" of different molecules.
Mary Masterman, a senior at Westmoore High School in Oklahoma City, was named the winner Tuesday of the annual Intel Science Talent Search.

More than 1,700 high school seniors across the nation entered the contest, which is in its 66th year.

Spectrographs, which measure wave lengths, are used in research such as astronomy and medicine and in industry. For example, they can be used as a sensing device to look for explosives or drugs or to help determine how old an art work is through its pigments.

They can cost as much as $100,000, but Masterman's invention -- made of lenses, a laser, aluminum tubing and a camera -- cost less than $1,000, Intel said.

Masterman received the honor from Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett during a banquet Tuesday night in Washington.

"It was a complete surprise," Masterman said. "I wasn't expecting it."

The 40 finalists spent the last week in Washington, where they exhibited their projects at the National Institute of Science and met government officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

Masterman said she has been interested in science "ever since I was little. I can't remember ever not being interested." She credits her parents with encouraging her.

She said she has not decided where she will attend college but would eventually like to become a physicist or chemist.

Among the former winners of the competition's top award are six Nobel Laureates, three National Medal of Science winners, 10 MacArthur Foundation Fellows and two Fields Medalists.

"You're not only dealing with the top young person in the science field in the country in Mary, but you're dealing with 40 finalists who are doing breaking-edge research in total," said Brenda Musilli, Intel's director of education. "It's really something that's hard to imagine, how a young person like Mary could even achieve this level of capability at such a young age."
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wow...

kids nowadays never cease to amaze me.

I'd bombard it with photons.

i'd better make fun of her now for wearing a calculator watch, because in about seven years she'll be able to afford all the plastic surgery and fashion consultants she could ever want.

geek alert

That's pretty damned cool. She can basically pick and choose now, college is paid for, a great job in the field of her choice essentially guarenteed.

Nice to see an American do something excellent in a scientific field.

Besides the fact that girl will probably make more money in one year at age 22 than we do in 3 years now...
...I posted this article to show what kids are capable of nowdays. Records for geniuses, thinkers, and innovators are being broken more and more by a younger crowd.
Kids like this really motivate me to further my education more and more.

What if that girl doesn't like science and only does this shit because her parents want her to and she's good at it?

The amount of information covered in an education today is 27% greater than it was just 4 years ago. And that doesn't count the amount of information now available to curious minds. I showed a student Wikimapia today and ended up with no less than 5 others coming up to get the addy. And these are 12 year olds.

Our students' main Science project for the year is to invent something that makes their life easier using a series of simple and complex machines. They have to design, propose, request materials, build, and present it (showing that it does, in fact work). When I was in 7th grade, I looked in a microscope. And I drew what I saw.

I feel privileged to live about fifteen minutes away from the best seventeen year old scientist in America. Her school isn't in Oklahoma City though, so perhaps she sucks at geography.

Hopefully she blows it on drugs and whores.

Some of these kids do more math research by 14 or 15 than I'd ever need to get my Ph.D. and tenure at a 4-year college. And I thought I was good getting a 5 on the Calculus AP test.

Girls suck at science. If she were a boy, she'dve won $200,000!

When i read things like this, i really start to feel ripped off.