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Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

physics-astronomy.org

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Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#41

Post by barking »

bb101 wrote: post #34

"Ferrier sat his Leaving Certificate exams last month at Schull Community College and is due to attend university in the Netherlands. The teenager works as a curator at the Schull Planetarium, has won 12 science fair awards, speaks three languages fluently, plays the trumpet at orchestra level, and had a minor planet named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory." Anyone else feeling somewhat inadequate in comparison…

Sounds like he has parents from different countries, first name is Irish, surname sounds Portuguese(?) so head start there on the language front, perhaps. Schull is a very small community, couple of thousand max but there's been a lot of 'alternative' type immigration there from other first world countries, artists etc from places like England (eg Jeremy irons), Netherlands so its secondary school is pretty progressive afaik. They have a slipway to the bay right next to the school so the school does sailing classes etc. The planetarium in question is a stone's throw from the school. County Cork has a youth orchestra. Overall not the worst place in the world to grow up.

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#42

Post by RomanBob »

bb101 wrote: post #34

"Ferrier sat his Leaving Certificate exams last month at Schull Community College and is due to attend university in the Netherlands. The teenager works as a curator at the Schull Planetarium, has won 12 science fair awards, speaks three languages fluently, plays the trumpet at orchestra level, and had a minor planet named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory." Anyone else feeling somewhat inadequate in comparison…

>Ferrier sat his Leaving Certificate exams last month at Schull Community College and is due to attend university in the Netherlands.

pretty normal to graduate high school and attend university

> works as a curator at the Schull Planetarium

I don't know what responsibility this holds how he got the job so it's hard to say.

>has won 12 science fair awards

I don't know the award scheme so hard to say. Even if he won 1st place 12 times, a science fair is hardly difficult to win since you are basically competing against semi-motivated highschoolers.

>speaks three languages fluently

This depends on the language. Some people get 2 languages for free from home and learn another to fluent level in high school. Not really a mind-blowing accomplishment.

>plays the trumpet at orchestra level,

This is really the only one that required consistent effort.

>had a minor planet named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory."

meh

Out of all these, the only thing I wish I had is the ability to play the trumpet.

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#43

Post by RomanBob »

pvaldes wrote: post #33

Maybe it was the cynical in me, but I wonder why those "teenager will save the world" relates are so popular (but often show so few results at long term). Some awards seem just a way to pose, borrow some good ideas, obtain a photo and a cover page and this is all. Will be interesting to see how this ends

Because in reality the teenager's mental output isn't higher than a random adult engineer.

But people just think "amazing" when a teenager does something, because people now have very low expectation for teenagers.

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#44

Post by kwhitefoot »

tempodox wrote: post #32

> At present, no screening or filtering for microplastics takes place in any European wastewater treatment centres. This seems to be a hole that needs plugging. Regulations that prohibit the use of this stuff altogether would be even better.

> Regulations that prohibit the use of this stuff altogether would be even better

A lot of microplastic is from textiles. If you ban all sources of microplastics you'll be back to wearing only wool, cotton, silk, linen, and leather.

A lot of the remainder is from plastic single use containers. Instead of banning them they could simply be returned to the shop from which they were bought for recycling as is done for most drinks containers (both plastic and aluminium) here in Norway.

Banning plastic bottles would mean a substantial increase in energy use because the alternative is glass which is much heavier and more costly to recycle. Perhaps we could switch to aluminium for more containers.

It fashionable now to complain about the deliberately created microplastics like those used in cosmetics but the vast bulk come from wear and tear on what are now effectively traditional materials.

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#45

Post by rat9988 »

1337biz wrote: post #40
bananasbandanas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this [1] source, only about 2% of microplastics are due to cosmetics. The majority are from synthetic textiles (35%) and tyres (28%). [1] https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documen...

And they told us it's all our fault by using plastic bags...

Microplastics aren't the only plastic related problem.

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#46

Post by Tade0 »

bb101 wrote: post #34

"Ferrier sat his Leaving Certificate exams last month at Schull Community College and is due to attend university in the Netherlands. The teenager works as a curator at the Schull Planetarium, has won 12 science fair awards, speaks three languages fluently, plays the trumpet at orchestra level, and had a minor planet named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory." Anyone else feeling somewhat inadequate in comparison…

Reminds me of my friend who, when asked about this girl he's been dating lately, listed all her accomplishments(she has perfect pitch, good job etc.).

I think the author of this piece values these accomplishments more than the guy in question.

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#47

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #25
carapace wrote: post #18

Tangent: I have a hunch that the Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube, or something based on it, could be used to separate or just concentrate microplastics from water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube > The vortex tube was used to separate gas mixtures, oxygen and nitrogen, carbon dioxide and helium, carbon dioxide and air in 1967 by Linderstrom-Lang. Vortex tubes also seem to work with liquids to some extent...

Like a constant flow centrifuge, amazing ... but water is not so compressible, will it separate out based on dissolved solids effecting the density of the solution? It could be used to reduce salinity in that case, no? I would think if no ones figured out desalination via vortex, filtering otherwise seems unlikely

Removing dissolved salt is different to removing suspended microplastics though.

There's lots of work done already on removing suspended particulates from liquids, eg https://petrowiki.org/Removing_solids_from_water#Desanding_h... .

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#48

Post by pvaldes »

pmoriarty wrote: post #10

"Microplastics or microbeads are mostly used in soaps, shower gels and facial scrubs to exfoliate skin..." So, wait... If we just stopped using microplastics in soaps, shower gels and facial scrubs we'd mostly stop dumping microsplastics in to the environment? But we don't because we'd rather have this totally optional, cosmetic benefit? Humans are so stupid.

Is not so simple because now we know that some animals can generate microplastics also so even if we stop dumping any microplastic right now, the stuff will keep being generated continuously for an awful lot of time.

... and what kwhitefoot said about textiles.

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#49

Post by avip »

bb101 wrote: post #34

"Ferrier sat his Leaving Certificate exams last month at Schull Community College and is due to attend university in the Netherlands. The teenager works as a curator at the Schull Planetarium, has won 12 science fair awards, speaks three languages fluently, plays the trumpet at orchestra level, and had a minor planet named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory." Anyone else feeling somewhat inadequate in comparison…

Depending on circumstances, speaking 3 langs could be completely normal

Re: Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water

#50

Post by barking »

Tade0 wrote: post #46
bb101 wrote: post #34

"Ferrier sat his Leaving Certificate exams last month at Schull Community College and is due to attend university in the Netherlands. The teenager works as a curator at the Schull Planetarium, has won 12 science fair awards, speaks three languages fluently, plays the trumpet at orchestra level, and had a minor planet named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory." Anyone else feeling somewhat inadequate in comparison…

Reminds me of my friend who, when asked about this girl he's been dating lately, listed all her accomplishments(she has perfect pitch, good job etc.). I think the author of this piece values these accomplishments more than the guy in question.

Yes, it's a tabloid style account so it lists the accomplishments that are more readily recognisable to a wider readership.
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