18-year-old’s breakthrough invention can recharge phones in seconds

[kristopher]

17. Not fishy but unlikely to be worthy of front page

"Supercapacitors bridge the gap between capacitors and rechargeable batteries. They have the highest available capacitance values per unit volume and the greatest energy densityof all capacitors. They support up to 12.000 F/1.2 V, with capacitance values up to 10.000 times that of electrolytic capacitors.[1] While existing supercapacitors have energy densities that are approximately 10% of a conventional battery, their power density is generally 10 to 100 times as great. Power density combines energy density with the speed at which the energy can be delivered to the load. This makes charge and discharge cycles of supercapacitors much faster than batteries. Additionally, they will tolerate much more charge and discharge cycles than batteries."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor

I can't speak to her specific contribution, but I suspect that like the story floating around right now about a teen developing a nuclear reactor, the "wow" factor is the age of the person who is involved in the research, not so much the research itself. Both areas are well developed research fields.