7 "earth-shattering" scientific discoveries made by children

Children, with their endless curiosity and love of discovery, have discovered many strange phenomena that scientists have spent years searching for.

1. Experiment with flies:

In 2011, Simon Kashchock-Marenka, a 6th grader in the US, had a science project at school and he did an experiment with fruit flies by feeding them different sweeteners. The result was that when they ate the sweetener called Truvia, the fruit flies died within 6 days. Three years later, the experiment was officially conducted by Drexel University faculty and students, co-authored by Marenda, now a 9th grader.

Scientists then concluded that Truvia contains Erythritol, which is widely used as an additive and is completely safe for human health. Therefore, scientists are hoping to use this substance to create a non-toxic pesticide.

2. 10,000 year old arrow:

A boy named Noah Cordle discovered a 10,000-year-old arrowhead buried in the sand at a New Jersey beach during his summer vacation. His family contacted the New Jersey Archaeological Society to confirm the discovery. And the society’s president, Greg Lattanzi, said the ancient arrowhead was likely used by pre-tribal Native Americans, or Paleo-Indians, who passed through the area between 8,000 and 11,000 years ago while fishing and shooting birds.

3. Supernova discovery:

In November 2013, 10-year-old Nathan in Canada became the youngest person to discover a supernova (a collision between stars, creating a burst of mostly plasma that shines brightly for a very short time).

The boy said that with the help of his father and his uncle Dave Lan, who runs the observatory in Nova Scotia, he looked at the night sky in June hoping to see a stellar explosion, and his wish came true. He said the supernova looked like a twinkling star.

4. Discovery of teeth of extinct elephant species:

In April 2014, a 9-year-old boy in Michigan discovered a 10,000-year-old mastodon tooth measuring 8 inches long while walking near his home. The boy said that despite its size, he immediately recognized it as a tooth. He and his mother immediately contacted a zoologist who told him it was a tooth from a large extinct species of elephant.

5. Find poisonous mushrooms:

For more than a decade, people in Southern California have been sickened by exposure to Cryptococcus gattii mushrooms, and some have died after eating them. But scientists have been unable to determine where the deadly fungus grows. Enter Elan Filler, a seventh-grader. Encouraged by her father, Filler searched for and found at least three of the poisonous mushrooms in the Los Angeles area. She shared her findings with experts at the University of Northern California. The study was published in the August 21, 2014, issue of the journal PLOS Pathogens.

6. Discovery of fossil dinosaurs:

Surprisingly, the smallest duck-billed dinosaur was unearthed by a high school student. In 2009, Kevin Terris was conducting field research for his high school class when he discovered some dinosaur bones sticking out from under a boulder in Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

With the help of a paleontologist and museum curator, Terris and his classmates excavate the remains of a dinosaur, a Cretaceous herbivore that lived about 75 million years ago.

7. Young archaeologist:

In 2008, 9-year-old Matthew Berger spent a day working with his father, an archaeologist in Johannesburg, South Africa, and discovered the remains of the ancient human Australopithecus sediba. In a 2010 interview with Live Science, Berger said his son found the remains after running away from the area he was searching.

The researchers later concluded that the young archaeologist had discovered the bones of an ancient human that had never been seen before. The boy’s father and the archaeology team then dug up two skeletons, an adult woman and a young man.

According to kienthuc.net.vn