Meet Prakhar Purohit, the North Carolina student who found a way to make tiny batteries from dirty water |

Prakhar Purohit. Image Credit: Young Scientists Lab Prakhar Purohit, a student from North Carolina, has earned recognition for a science project with a unique yet simple-sounding idea of ‘making tiny batteries from dirty water.’ His project, titled ‘Tiny Batteries from Dirty Water,’ was selected as the 2026 North Carolina State Merit Winner in the 3M…

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13-year-old Kevin Tang turned his grandmother’s fall into a device that detects when seniors need help and won $25,000 for the invention |

A 13-year-old inventor has turned a family emergency into a device designed to help older people who may be alone when they fall. Kevin Tang developed FallGuard after his grandmother suffered a fall at home that resulted in permanent brain damage. The problem became harder to ignore when Tang learned that a friend’s grandfather had…

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Meet Harshith Nelabhotla, the Ohio student who built an AI system that can recognise American Sign Language words in real time |

Harshith Nelabhotla. Image Credit: Youth Scientists Lab Harshith Nelabhotla, an Ohio student, has earned recognition for developing a ‘Real-Time ASL Word Recognition System,’ a project that brings artificial intelligence to American Sign Language (ASL). His work has been named the ‘2026 Ohio State Merit Winner’ in the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, placing his idea among…

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AI cameras watched birds around solar panels for 17,000 hours and recorded no collisions; scientists are now testing the system in 7 US states |

PC: US Department of Energy Solar farms are expanding across landscapes, but scientists still have questions about what happens to birds that live and move around these large arrays. Now, scientists and researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have developed an artificial intelligence-powered camera system that can continuously watch birds around solar panels and identify what…

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Massachusetts removed a dam that had blocked the Town River for more than 100 years; the project reopened 10 miles of river and 354 acres of spawning habitat for migratory fish

High Street Dam Removal in the Taunton River Watershed Demolition crews in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, have completed the removal of the High Street Dam, taking down a 12.5-foot-high and 80-foot-wide concrete barrier that had blocked the Town River for more than a century. The removal has reopened 10 miles (16 kilometres) of continuous river channel and…

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In 2026, scientists gave bumblebees a puzzle they had never seen before; some invented their own way to reach a hidden reward |

Representative Image of a bumblebee solving a task with a ball in an experimental arena (AI-generated image) More than a century ago, psychologist Wolfgang Köhler conducted experiments that changed how scientists thought about animal intelligence. In one of his best-known demonstrations, chimpanzees were faced with food placed out of reach and objects they could potentially…

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Galveston Bay Waterbirds: In the 1930s, Texas built 3 bird-nesting islands from dredged mud; all vanished, but one rebuilt 4.5-acre island now hosts more than 2,500 nesting pairs

Dickinson Bay lost its charm over the decades. The small estuarine pocket on Galveston Bay’s western shore once hosted thriving colonies of waterbirds on three dredged islands. But then the islands completely vanished. During the 1980s and 1990s, subsidence, erosion, and a string of tropical storms swept the islands beneath the water. And with them…

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Meet Ishanvi Sakharpe, the Virginia student who built Dolphin Guard to help protect dolphins from dangerous human activity |

Image(s): Young Science Lab/Canva Ishanvi Sakharpe is a Virginia student using science and technology to address a problem affecting one of the ocean’s most recognisable animals. Her project, Dolphin Guard, was created with the aim of helping protect dolphins from dangerous human activity in marine environments. The young innovator’s work has now earned recognition through…

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Oysters can carry a bacterium that can be deadly to humans without getting sick; scientists found how it survives inside them |

PC: By Taishonambu/Wikipedia Oysters can carry a type of bacteria that can cause serious and sometimes deadly infections in people, yet the shellfish can carry the microbe without showing the same kind of illness. The organism is Vibrio vulnificus, an estuarine bacterium that can become closely associated with American oyster tissues. Researchers have found that…

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An English dumping ground for canal dredgings was restored as wetland; black-necked grebes rose from 4 breeding pairs to 35 in two years, and it now holds 64% of the UK population

Woolston Eyes in Cheshire recorded 35 breeding pairs of black-necked grebes in 2025 (Photos: RSPB) A former dumping ground for dredged material from the Manchester Ship Canal has been transformed into a wetland. The wetlland has now become the most important breeding site in the UK for the rare black-necked grebe.According to the Royal Society…

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