[bb123]

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

[NotPavlovsDog]

Yes.

My partner is working on a sub-topic, removing microplastics from laundry discharge water, and it is a huge and still undefined challenge. There is no magic pill.

Even core definitions such as "what are microplastics" are under review and development. And then there's nanoplastics.

For those wanting an introduction to the topic, don't go with media, start reviewing papers. The top cited papers clearly outline how all-encompassing and complex the challenge is.

[MertsA]

>removing microplastics from laundry discharge water

Much better way of addressing a lot of the microplastics problem IMHO. Regulate it out of common frivolous sources like e.g. "exfoliating microspheres" and then start requiring washing machine OEMs to put replaceable filters on the discharge.

[NotPavlovsDog]

Agree on both counts.

It's really inspiring to see what real engineering is. Makes me feel like a sell-out massaging Skinner boxes.

In the laundry problem they are dealing with both the extreme challenge of physical objects (connecting the right pump to the right controller, battling liquid pressure loss, unreliable reference washing machine performance and water quality ), abstract concepts ("what shall be identified as microplastics?" "is the reference wash cycle in any way relevant to how plastic clothing sheds when worn by humans?" "how shall the conflicting measurement methods from literature be addressed / unified?") and project constraints. To say nothing about filter clogging.

And it's a great feeling to know that your work is fundamentally relevant, i see that even when they hit their lows.

Really making me re-consider my career path.

[kwhitefoot]

> Regulate it out of common frivolous sources like e.g. "exfoliating microspheres"

Already done in the UK and US.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/skin/the-best-face-and-bo...

See also https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/reel.12269 https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-laws-regulations/mic...

[NotPavlovsDog]

It's far from done, and some would say not done at all, depending on the definition of microplastic. Microplastic in cosmetics is absolutely not even close to solved.

https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/2020/03/battle-on-t...

[airhead969]

Laundromat-type commercial/industrial waste or residential laundry water?

I would think products for industrial, commercial, and residential micro plastics removal would be more useful than for a specific problem, but also that waste treatment plants and water runoff must scrub their outputs of environmental contaminants before discharging them into waterways.

[noobermin]

This sort of comment crops up every time an article like this comes on HN. No doubt often times parents bring their kids along for the ride but no one bats and eye when we talk about our youth and learning to program as a 14 year old or something, why be surprised an 18 year old has come up with such an idea based on basic chemistry?

[bb123]

Because the issues kids in these articles claim to solve are usually large unsolved problems, that have been studied by subject matter experts for years. It's possible someone could dream up a silver bullet, but I believe the trope of an untrained outsider approaching a problem and easily solving something that has stumped "the experts" is nowhere near as common as we'd like to believe. The reality is these solutions take years of persistent hard work and background knowledge, and rarely materialise all at once. But that doesn't make a feel-good headline.

[noobermin]

That's fine for the typical case, it's not like "teens with fresh ideas" solve all the problems, that's why this is news worthy because it is an exception. I'm not sure this story (the article in question seems like a blog of some sort so their writing might not be the best) is trying to pass off the idea that it's common at all.

[konschubert]

I think the red flag is in the combination of "teen" and "<feel-good-subject>".

It's just a very typical clickbait pattern.

"Teen builds online brokerage platform" or "Teen builds bike that goes 100mph" does not cause the same negative anticipation.

[OJFord]

Because when we were teens and younger programming, we were just covering well-known ground, learning to program and messing about. Some useful stuff maybe, but not furthering Computer Science with ground-breaking research. No different to playing an instrument as a child for example.

The doubt isn't over whether a teen can do 'basic chemistry', it's whether they've 'invented' something; whether they've done anything that someone who doesn't know them/their family/their school and isn't considering their application for something needs to care about. It's whether this is (or was a while before the media got it) news or exciting or a citation for an adult researcher working in the field.

[xxs]

>when we talk about our youth and learning to program as a 14 year old or something

what 14? That's late indeed. The story has to be preschool to be awe-worthy.

For instance: "12/13y old writes the shortest assembly routine to move the head of the floppy drive of Apple II", doesn't sound grounbreaking - even if the code was better/shorter than DOS, itself. Solving massive world problems is a totally different scale.

[nabla9]

Even if it's not a bogus, they are rarely practical. Just like when adult hobbyists invent these things and they work, the engineering constraints of cost and scalability or negative side effects usually kill the project.

In this example, how much vegetable oils and magnetite powder you need per cubic meter of water?

[Ekaros]

Also how big magnets are we talking about here? And what scale of flow they can operate at with sufficient efficiency? Also what if there is lot of surfactants(soap etc.) involved in water?

[vmception]

So there I was, kayaking in an oil spill

[konschubert]

Immediate red flag.

[patrickaljord]

The most annoying part is that it usually comes with a patronizing "the youth knows better than the rest of us old fart sinners" message. I'm all for empowering the youth and don't deny their potential to build and create amazing things but these clickbaity articles ain't it.

[bluesign]

It usually is. You can usually find some research or news about same tech used.

from 2013 article [1], though it seems not practical [2]:

"W2Plastics has shown the viability of magnetic density separation, where flakes of shredded plastic such as polyethylene or polypropylene are mixed into a magnetic fluid made by adding iron oxide to water."

I am not sure which one is better to show kids they discovered something existing, or praise them like this

[1] https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/magnetic-attraction-recy...

[2] https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/131208-sorting-plastic-w...

[runawaybottle]

This might be a stretch, but it always reminds me of Craig Ferguson’s rant on ‘The deification of youth’:

https://youtu.be/UKUZ42T9diU

Edit: (*Scottish!): Ironically, he’s an old Irish man :p

[glckr]

Craig Ferguson is not Irish.

[runawaybottle]

Oh man, I thought they were all the same up there.

[dbspin]

Scottish.

[hyko]

Yes. They tend to be straight out of the “monkey lands plane” school of journalism.

[HenryBemis]

Hahaha "monkey lands plane" reminded me of the ad with the monkey being the taxi driver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdXbf12AzIM

(not affilated with pepsi, I do not consume sugar-y soft drinks)

[airhead969]

"Hey, look everyone, a toddler invented commercial fusion power when actual physicists and engineers couldn't!"

It sells ads to eyeballs is all the so-called journalists and editors care about.

[ekianjo]

Almost as reliable as "scientist discovers X" in mainstream media since they constantly misinterpret or exagerate the nature of discoveries.

[cromulent]

I used to, but after seeing the Collison brothers achievements I will click on any headline starting with "Irish Teen Invents...".

[globular-toast]

I approach everything with scepticism.

[konjin]

Yes, but then again the majority of news is somewhere between lies and not even wrong.

The point of news is eyeballs, not truth.

[konschubert]

No, there exist reasonably good news sources.

[konjin]

Yes, a tiny minority.

The majority are so bad that they have reduced their consumers ability to read to the point where they can't understand the difference between few and none.