filter

Meet Bailey Quinn Frank, the Fort Lauderdale eighth-grader who built a low-cost air sampler from small fans and filter paper to capture bacterial DNA and explore rural health surveillance

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Meet Bailey Quinn Frank, the Fort Lauderdale eighth-grader who built a low-cost air sampler from small fans and filter paper to capture bacterial DNA and explore rural health surveillance

Bailey Quinn FrankPhoto credit: Society for science When Bailey Quinn Frank learned that scientists can identify species from genetic material left behind in the environment, she saw an opportunity to apply the same idea to public health. The eighth-grader from Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale designed a simple air sampler using small fans and … Read more

Meet Nithya Tammana: The 11-year-old New Jersey inventor who built a sub-$38 moss filter that can remove up to 95% of lead from drinking water

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Meet Nithya Tammana: The 11-year-old New Jersey inventor who built a sub-$38 moss filter that can remove up to 95% of lead from drinking water

Photo credit: actionfornature.org When Nithya Tammana learned that lead could enter drinking water through old pipes and plumbing fixtures, she did not treat the problem as someone else’s responsibility. The New Jersey student began researching affordable ways to make contaminated water safer, eventually focusing on a humble material often found growing on rocks, trees and … Read more

In 2026, researchers turned water-treatment waste into a filter for microplastics; real-water tests removed 86.9% to 97.1% of the particles

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In 2026, researchers turned water-treatment waste into a filter for microplastics; real-water tests removed 86.9% to 97.1% of the particles

Representative Image (AI-generated) Microplastics are now found across aquatic environments, creating a difficult challenge for water-treatment systems that must remove tiny plastic particles without generating more waste. A new approach investigated in 2026 takes an unusual route: instead of treating water-treatment waste as something that simply needs to be discarded, researchers turned it into a … Read more