Girls With a Plan to Ease World Hunger Win Top Science Award

[n2doc]

Ciara Judge, Emer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow (l to r), winners of the 2014 Google Science Fair

A chance observation about warts on a pea plant led a trio of teenagers on a three-year mission to solve the world food crisis. Their perseverance earned them top honors at the annual Google Science Fair in Mountain View, California.

Emer Hickey, 16, Ciara Judge, 16, and Sophie Healy–Thow, 17, of Kinsale, Ireland won the top prize in their age category plus the Grand Prize at Monday night’s awards ceremony in Palo Alto, California. Each walked away with a $50,000 college scholarship, a 10-day National Geographic Expeditions trip to the Galapagos Islands, a $10,000 grant for their school and other prizes. Scientific American co-sponsors the awards and editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina serves as head judge.

“I’m in shock, I didn’t think we would win,” said Judge, speaking through tears after being showered with confetti at the awards ceremony.

From the beginning, adults told the three friends that their scheme for boosting crop yields in barley and oats wouldn’t work. But the trio refused to give up.

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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/budding-scientist/2014/09/23/girls-with-a-plan-to-ease-world-hunger-win-top-science-award/

[NYC_SKP]

1. Ah, all three are from Ireland! Great work!

I'm glad that there's a humanitarian angle to it:

“It has a lot of implications,” said Hickey. “By the year 2050 we actually need 50 percent more food just to feed everyone.” She says the bacteria may also reduce the need for chemical fertilizers, which can harm the environment.

Increased yields are fine, but we need 50% more food because we won't stop breeding. What are we to do beyond the year 5050?

Still, I have to admire their work and wow, will they ever love the Galapagos!

[nomorenomore08]

3. Birth control. Lots and lots of birth control.

Otherwise, yeah, we're pretty much screwed all around.

[customerserviceguy]

4. Exactly

And when the people saved from starvation have a gazillion children of their own, what's Plan B then?

Frankly, when you look at how a society shuts down its birthrate when it goes from being principally agricultural to mainly becoming a manufacturing and service economy, it's easy to see what the answer is.

[daleanime]

7. Amazingly, when you lift people's standard of living....

the birth rate comes down.



Two problems, one stone.

[BrotherIvan]

5. Agreed

I've started donating to foundations that are searching for new forms of birth control that are easy, 100% effective and non-hormonal. And as we all can guess, it will come from opening our eyes and finally getting that contraception is much easier through the male with his simple reproductive system and relatively weak sperm than through the female.

It is one of the main things we must tackle for climate change because humans require so much resources/calories just to live. It needs to be part of the conversation as well as alternative energy, overconsumption and corporate greed. If the estimates that 49% of pregnancies in this country--where birth control is available, albeit less than 100% effective or without complications--then think about the developing and third world. The ability to plan her family will lift women out of poverty, allow her to pursue education, and protect her health. It also helps to build families with less children so that they all receive proper nutrition and the available medical resources.

So many people object to the conversation of birth/population control, but perhaps, if given safe and healthy alternatives, people might voluntarily choose to have less children.

[nomorenomore08]

8. "if given safe and healthy alternatives, people might voluntarily choose to have less children."

And they do, by and large. We've seen this in the Western world too, birth rates falling as living standards have risen over the last century or so. The one obvious exception being the U.S. in the 1950's, but that was a historical anomaly.

[WillyT]

2. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[lovemydog]

6. I believe the children are our future....

haha. I was thinking of that Whitney Houston song. But it's true. Congratulations to these three girls!