Arizona teen named top young scientist finalist
Arizona ninth-grader Amaira Srivastava has been named a top-10 finalist in the national 3M Young Scientist Challenge for her innovative project creating biodegradable cups from fruit peels.
Srivastava's invention aims to reduce plastic waste and enhance nutrient absorption, and she is now working with a 3M scientist to prepare for the final round of judging in October.
PHOENIX - Here's a quick quiz: Where does one of the world's top kid scientists live? Right here in Arizona.
In just a few short weeks, that girl will get the chance to prove why she might be the best one.
What we know
Amaira Srivastava might seem like a regular ninth grader, playing ping-pong with her parents and painting in her free time. But the Arizona artist and athlete has a secret: She might be the best kid scientist in the country.
"I blended a mixture of vinegar, glycerine, cornstarch, water and these fruit peels in order to create these cups," Amaira said, explaining her project. It's complicated and took a lot of work.
Her father, Abhishek Srivastava, is, of course, proud. "She was really working so hard and passionately, really every day would put so many extra hours away from her regular schoolwork," he said.
Basically, Amaira took fruit peels and mixed them into bowls or cups using a cupcake tin for shaping. This innovation limits the need for plastic.
"Decomposes much faster than regular petroleum plastic," Amaira said.
It also allows water inside to absorb flavonoid nutrients from the peels. "The combination of orange plus lemon released the most amount of flavonoids," Amaira said.
The idea won her category at the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair. She then entered the national 3M Young Scientist Challenge, becoming one of the top 10 finalists in the country.
"I felt really surprised and shocked when I found out I'm one of 10 people in the nation," Amaira said.
What's next
She is now working with a leading 3M scientist to prepare for the final round of judging in October.
"I think my end goal is to create a product that's scalable, practical and just makes the world a better place than it already is," Amaira said.
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
America's Largest Crater Has Surprise Link to Grand Canyon, Study Finds
Two of Arizona's most famous landmarks may be linked by cosmic violence: the asteroid that gouged out Meteor Crater may have also caused the formation of an ancient lake in the Grand Canyon. This surprising connection between Arizona's world-renowned geological features stretches back 56,000 years, to when a 300,000 ton nickel-iron asteroid slammed into the Colorado Plateau with the force of over 150 atomic bombs, creating the largest meteor crater in the United States. The resultant impact-generated earthquake may have caused a rockslide in the Grand Canyon, damming the Colorado River and temporarily creating a body of water 80 kilometers (50 miles) long and more than 100 meters (around 370 feet) deep in what is today Nankoweap canyon. Related: Meteor Crater (also known as Barringer Meteor Crater) is a relatively young and exceptionally well-preserved crater just west of the city of Winslow, Arizona. The asteroid that produced it may have been only 30 to 50 meters across, but the impact excavated 175 million metric tons of limestone and sandstone, forming a crater 1.2 kilometers across and about 180 meters deep. Today, such an impact would wipe out an urban center the size of Kansas City. The newly released study encompasses more than five decades of research, an international team of collaborators, and an evolution of scientific dating techniques. The evidence for the Nankoweap paleolake hinges on driftwood and lake sediments found in Stanton's Cave, which is situated almost 45 meters above the Colorado River. Carrying the driftwood up to the cave "required a 10 times bigger flood level than any flood that has happened in the past several thousand years," says Karl Karlstrom, a geologist at the University of New Mexico and co-lead author of the study. The Stanton Cave driftwood was initially collected in 1970 and radiocarbon dated in the 1980s, suggesting it was around 44,000 years old – a figure that was at the limit of radiocarbon testing at that time. Additional driftwood samples were later collected from another high alcove, situated 33 meters above the Colorado River and a few kilometers downstream of Stanton's Cave. The two separate driftwood samples were independently dated, using different techniques, at different labs. The researchers also analyzed the lake sediments using luminescence dating, which measures the energy of light emitted by a certain material. This separate dating method, distinct from radiocarbon dating, provided "statistically indistinguishable" dates for the driftwood samples and sediments, converging to 55,600 years ago. Additionally, researchers found ancient evidence of a natural dam about 35 kilometers downstream of Stanton's Cave. In places, this ancient dam material is overlain with rounded river cobbles that were deposited as the Colorado River overtopped the dam across a span of about 1,000 years. Overall, the coinciding dates of the impact, landslide, driftwood, and lake sediments support the idea that the Nankoweap paleolake was formed by a seismic event generated by an asteroid traveling with a cosmic velocity of over 11 kilometers per second, producing a 10-15 megaton event upon impact. The resulting 5.4 magnitude earthquake traveled the 100 miles to the Grand Canyon in seconds, where it hit with an effective magnitude of 3.5 and caused a landslide that dammed the Colorado River and formed the Nankoweap paleolake. The researchers do acknowledge the possibilities that the Nankoweap paleolake was the result of a natural landslide, or an unrelated earthquake. "Nevertheless, the meteorite impact, the massive landslide, the lake deposits, and the driftwood high above river level are all rare and unusual occurrences" whose ages converge on a narrow slice of time around 55,600 years ago, concludes Karlstrom. This research is published in the journal Geology. Related News 500-Million-Year-Old Fossil Suggests Ocean Origin For Spiders Secret Bone Armor Discovered Beneath Skins of Australian Lizards Many Butterflies Have a Second 'Head' – This Could Be Why Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Stunning Grand Canyon Fossils Reveal Evolution's Weird Experiments
A stunning new fossil find from the Grand Canyon fills in some blanks from a time when evolution began experimenting with weird new forms. About half a billion years ago, life on Earth really started cooking in an event we now call the Cambrian explosion. The fossil record from that time reveals a spike in bizarre, complex creatures appearing within a relatively short amount of time, laying the roots for most of the major animal groups that exist today. Frustratingly, fossils from later in the Cambrian period are rarer, so we don't have a clear picture of evolution's experimental second album. But a newly discovered batch of extremely well-preserved fossils could patch up that gap. These are about 505 million years old – 3 million years younger than the Burgess Shale, the layer in which fossils from the Cambrian explosion appear. Related: A team led by researchers at the University of Cambridge found more than 1,500 small, carbonaceous fossils in samples from the Bright Angel Formation (BAF) of the Grand Canyon, which was once a shallow marine environment. The vast majority of the fossils are priapulid worms, along with a couple hundred crustaceans and a few mollusks. Although ecological resources were plentiful at the time, competition was also on the rise, rewarding species that exploited new niches. Analysis of these fossils revealed a variety of adaptations to do just that. A worm species called Kraytdraco spectatus, for example, was found to be covered in teeth sporting elaborate filaments, which varied in shape and length based on where they were on the body. The researchers suggest that they used their tougher teeth to scrape and rake surfaces, kicking up food particles that they could then filter out of the water using the longer filaments. Crustacean fossils featured signs of suspension feeding by way of tiny hairs that pushed food particles towards the mouth to be ground up by molar-like structures. The mollusks, meanwhile, sported rows of shovel-shaped teeth that could have been dragged front-to-back to scrape algae or microbes from surfaces. The Cambrian explosion gets plenty of attention because it's so well-represented in the fossil record, but that was just the beginning. The newly described fossils, with their exceptional level of preserved detail, provide a fascinating glimpse into the time soon after that, when complex life was established and comfortable, and had the stability to start innovating with new forms. And we should be glad it did: most of the major groups (or phyla) of animals got their start during the Cambrian. That includes arthropoda, encompassing all insects, arachnids, and crustaceans. And there's chordata, which includes us and the rest of our backbone-bearing brethren. The competitive period of the late Cambrian could have cemented the strategies that helped animals stay successful half a billion years later. "If the Cambrian Explosion laid the foundations of modern metazoan adaptive solutions, it is the scaling up of their competitive interactions that may have enforced directional, long-term trends of functional innovation in the Phanerozoic biosphere," the researchers write. The study was published in the journal Science Advances. Related News Neither Scales Nor Feathers: Bizarre Appendage Discovered on Reptile Fossil America's Largest Crater Has Surprise Link to Grand Canyon, Study Finds 500-Million-Year-Old Fossil Suggests Ocean Origin For Spiders Solve the daily Crossword
Geek Tyrant
an hour ago
- Geek Tyrant
Review: ALIEN: EARTH Episode 1 Delivers Pure Horror, Action, and Chaos; It Was Awesome! — GeekTyrant
I just got out of Hall H at Comic-Con after watching the first episode of Alien: Earth , and howly crap… this show absolutely lived up to the hype. It's awesome! This is a series I've been very excited about and the first epsiode didn't disappoint. It perfectly captures the DNA of Alien and Aliens while launching us into a bold, unsettling new chapter of the franchise. From the moment it started, the vibe had me hooked. Alien: Earth doesn't waste time easing you in, it throws you straight into a world that feels both familiar and terrifyingly unpredictable. The tone is pure dread layered with moments of explosive action and intense chaos. It's classic Alien horror mixed with heart-pounding action sequences. If I had to sum up the episode in one word, it would be unsettling. What really grabbed me was the story direction. Beneath the carnage and tension, there's a dark corporate angle that digs deep into power and greed… how far people will go to dominate, even if it means sacrificing humanity itself. This isn't just a horrific survival story, it's a sharp commentary on control and corruption in a world facing unimaginable threats. Add in the fascinating concept of transferring a human mind into a Synthetic body, and you've got a narrative that's as disturbing as it is compelling. Hardcore fans are going to lose their minds over this and just the first episode was filled with little things that you'll notice from the other films in the franchise. They're subtle but unmistakable, nods to the original films that feel like a reward for longtime devotees without beating you over the head with nostalgia. Then there's the score, which is chilling, pulsing with tension, and at times eerily beautiful. It amplifies the atmosphere in a way that feels absolutely right for this universe. It also takes cues from the music of Alien and Aliens . With a rumored budget that could exceed FX's Shōgun , which clocked in at $250 million, Alien: Earth might be one of the most expensive shows the network has ever produced, and it shows. Everything from the visual effects to the creature design and story screams high quality. The story kicks off when a specimen collection ship crash-lands on Earth, pulling Sydney Chandler's character and a squad of tactical soldiers into a nightmare that threatens the planet. If the rest of the series keeps this level of intensity, we're looking at something truly special. I can't wait to see where this goes.
