改变世界的青少年发明家
They’re known for their mood swings, social media addiction and dubious fashion choices.
有些年轻人给大家的感觉就是多愁善感，沉迷于社交灭提或者奇怪的审美观。
But some teenagers break the mould.
但这几个年轻人与众不同。
A new generation of precocious youths is solving the problems of today with ambitious, ground-breaking tech.
有几个新一代的有志青年正用富有野心的突破性的技术来解决我们今天面临的问题。
So in case you didn’t already feel like an underachiever, here’s our shortlist of four incredible teenagers already reshaping the world we live in.
假如你感觉他们没什么大不了的话，让我们来看看这个短短的列表看看他们做出了什么改变我们世界的成果吧。
Keiana Cavé, 18, New Orleans
吉亚娜.凯芙，18岁，新奥尔良州
Cavé’s journey of invention began with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
凯芙的发明之旅是从深水石油泄漏开始的，事故发生于2010年的墨西哥湾。
It led to the largest maritime slick in human history, consisting of 4.9 million barrels (210 million gallons, or 780,000 cubic metres) of oil in one of the most ecologically important bodies of water on the planet.
它导致了人类历史上最严重的海湾漏油，有490万桶（2亿1千万加仑，或者780,000立方米）原油在地球生态中最重要的水体中发生了泄漏。
In the immediate aftermath, baby dolphins began dying at six times the usual rate, while fishermen and scientists reported “disturbing numbers” of deformed sea creatures including shrimp with missing eyes and eye sockets, and fish with oozing sores and lesions.
最直接的后果就是，海豚幼崽的死亡率比平时高出了六倍，而渔民和科学家们都报告称看到了数量惊人的畸形的海洋生物，包括没有眼睛或者眼窝的虾，还有带有渗出性溃疡和损伤的鱼。
Watching the news reports on TV, Cavé instantly felt that there must be some hidden environmental damage.
在电视上看到新闻报道后，凯芙立刻感觉到肯定还有一些没有被报道的环境损伤。
She decided to focus her attention on discovering what was really going on.
她决定专注于弄清楚到底发生了什么。
At 15, the teenager began studying what happens to oil when it’s left on the ocean’s surface and discovered that when it’s hit by UV rays from the Sun, it reacts to form chemicals that are carcinogenic.
才15岁，这位少年就开始研究残留在海面上的石油会发生什么变化，后来发现当石油被阳光中的紫外线照射后会发生化学反应生成致癌物。
Today she’s turned her work into two scientific papers and two patents, for chemical methods of detecting the carcinogens.
今天她因为讨论了检测这些致癌物的化学方法，将自己的成果发表成了两篇论文和两项专利。
She’s also launched a startup, Mare, which is working towards a way to disperse them so that they aren’t as damaging.
她还发起了一个创业项目Mare，致力于找到分散这些原油，减少损失的方法。
Oh, and her research has just received $1.2m (£860,000) in funding.
噢，她的研究最近刚刚募集到了一百二十万美元（86万英镑）的资金。
Rifath Shaarook, 18, India
瑞法斯.沙鲁克，18岁，印度
When Shaarook was a child, he’d spend hours staring through the lens of a telescope with his dad.
当沙鲁克很小的时候，他就会跟爸爸一起通过望远镜看好几个小时。
Sadly Mohamed Farook, a local professor and scientist, passed away when his son was in primary school.
不过遗憾的是，默罕默德.沙鲁克，这名当地的教授和科学家，在儿子还在念小学的时候就去世了。
But Shaarook’s passion for space lived on.
不过沙鲁克对太空的热情一如既往。
As a young teenager he joined Space Kidz India, an organisation dedicated to nurturing young people with a passion for technology.
少年时期他就加入了印度儿童天文社，这个组织致力于培养对技术感兴趣的年轻人。
He formed a six-person team and dedicated the next four years to making a satellite, under the guidance of the organisation’s founder and director.
他组织了一个六人团队，在组织的建立者和辅导员员的指导下，用了四年的时间制造出了一颗卫星。
Every night, the teenagers would discuss their plans on video calls, often until 4:30 in the morning.
每晚，这些少年都会通过视频通话来讨论他们的计划，常常讨论到凌晨四点半。
Eventually they invented KalamSat: the lightest satellite in the world.
最后他们发明了卡拉姆卫星：世界上最轻的卫星。
At just 64g, it weighs about as much as a large battery.
仅仅64克，它的重量相当于一节大号电池。
It’s essentially a 3.8cm-wide cube made from 3D-printed plastic, reinforced with carbon fibres.
它主要部分是一根3.8厘米宽的3D打印塑料制成的管道，并用碳纤维进行加固。
It contains several different kinds of sensor, including those to measure temperature, magnetism, altitude and any strains on the structure as it hurtles through space.
它包含其中不同的传感器，包括用来测量温度，磁场，纬度以及它穿越太空时结构上受到的张力等。
It also has its own power source and a small computer, to turn on all the sensors at the right moment and store their data.
它还拥有自己的能量源，以及一个小电脑，可以在正确的时间打开各种传感器并存储数据。
The plan was to get KalamSat into sub-orbit, to test the performance of reinforced plastic in micro gravity.
他们计划将卡拉姆卫星送入亚轨道，来测试微重力下微管中加固塑料的性能。
Lightweight materials that can withstand the stresses of space travel are extremely useful, since it costs around $10,000 (£7,191) to launch a pound (450g) of any substance into space.
轻量化而又能够承受空间旅行的压力的材料是非常有用的，因为每发射一磅（450克）任何物质到太空里都需要耗费10,000美元（7,191英镑）。
After reaching its destination, it would spend just 12 minutes collecting data, before falling back down to Earth and landing in the sea.
在到达目的地后，它会用12分钟的时间收集数据，最后掉落返回地球，坠入海中。
On 22 June 2017, the device was successfully launched at Nasa’s Wallops Island facility in Virginia – the very same spot that its namesake, famous rocket scientist and former president APJ Abdul Kalam, once visited over half a century earlier.
2017年6月22日，这个设备在弗吉利亚美国航空航天局的瓦勒普斯岛基地成功发射—这也是跟它同名的著名火箭科学家和前总统阿卜杜尔.卡拉姆曾经在半个世纪以前来访的地点。
▲ Hannah Herbst, 17, Florida
汉娜.埃布斯特，17岁，弗罗里达州
Herbst was inspired to invent at the age of 15 by her then-nine-year-old pen pal, who lives in Ethiopia and did not have access to lights.
埃布斯特15岁的时候被她当时才九岁的笔友激励而开始搞发明，这位笔友住在埃塞俄比亚，那里甚至都没有条件照明。
This is surprisingly common: there are 1.3 billion people alive today without electricity.
这竟然是很普遍的：世界上如今还有13亿人没能用上电。
So this student came up with the Beacon (Bringing Electricity Access to Countries through Ocean Energy), which captures energy directly from ocean waves.
所以这个学生想出了Beacon（通过海洋能将电力带给乡村），这个计划是直接从海浪中获得能力。
Herbst’s thinking was that populations tend to settle around bodies of water; about 40% of the world's population lives within 100km (62 miles) of the coast and only 10% lives further than 10km (6.2 miles) away from a source of freshwater that you don’t have to dig for, such as a river or lake.
埃布斯特的想法是人类往往居住在水体附近;全球人口的40%都居住在海岸线100公里（62英里）范围内，只有10%住在远离无需打井的淡水水源，比如河流或者湖泊超过10公里（6.2英里）的距离。
The technology consists of a hollow plastic tube, with a propeller at one end and a hydroelectric generator at the other.
这项技术由一个中空的管道组成，一端是螺旋桨，另一端是水电发电机。
As tidal energy drives the propeller, it’s converted into useable energy by the generator.
随着潮汐能推动螺旋桨，它就通过发电机产生可以利用的能量。
After designing a prototype turbine as a computer model, Herbst 3D-printed a prototype which she tested in an intercoastal waterway.
在设计了一个涡轮机原型的电脑模型后，埃布斯特用3D打印做出了一个原型，并在近海岸内航道进行了测试。
If the design were to be scaled up, Herbst has calculated that Beacon could charge three car batteries simultaneously in an hour.
如果这项设计规模扩大的话，埃布斯特计算出Beacon可以在一个小时内同时充满三块汽车电池。
She suggests that the energy generated could be used to power water purification technologies, or blood centrifuges at hospitals in the developing world.
她表示这些产生的电能可以用于在发展中国家驱动水体净化技术，或者在医院里用来驱动血液离心机。
The invention won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge in 2015, among numerous other awards, and Herbst is currently studying for a degree in computer engineering while she completes high school.
这项研究获得了2015年的探索教育300万青年科学家奖，同时还获得了很多其他奖项，埃布斯特目前正一边读完高中，一边攻读计算机工程学位。
Julian Rios Cantu, 18, Mexico
胡里安.瑞奥斯.坎图，18岁，墨西哥
This inventor was just 13 years old when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
这位小发明者才13岁的时候，他妈妈就被诊断出了乳腺癌。
He watched in horror as the tumour swelled from the size of a grain of rice to a golf ball-sized lump in less than six months.
他胆战心惊地看着肿瘤在六个月的时间内就从一粒米的大小长到了高尔夫球那么大。
She ended up losing both her breasts, though eventually she was cancer free.
她最后失去了双乳，尽管最后终于不再有肿瘤了。
Just a few years later, Cantu set out to protect others from the disease.
几年之后，坎图就开始了保护人们免受疾病的行动。
Together with three friends, he formed the company Higia Technologies, which is developing a wearable device that may be able to detect the early signs.
跟三个朋友一起，他创立了Higia技术公司，致力于研发能够检测出早期症状的可穿戴设备。
The prototype EVA bra consists of sensors that can be attached to a normal bra, and may need to be worn for just one hour every week to work.
他们的设计原型EVA内衣包含的传感器也可以连接到普通内衣上，一周去工作时仅需穿着一个小时。The idea is to look for changes in skin temperature and elasticity, which are among many known signs of the disease.
其机理就是观察皮肤温度和弹性的改变，这些属于这种疾病的很多已知症状中的几种。
After each use, data is sent to the company’s app, and artificial intelligence algorithms use it to calculate the person’s risk.
每次使用后，数据会被送到该公司的APP里面，人工智能算法就可以利用它来计算出用户的患病风险。
The device has already raised $20,000 (£14,300) of funding by winning the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, but it still looks to be a long way off production.
这个设备在赢得了全球学生创业大奖后已经募集到了20,000美元（14,300英镑）的资金，不过离生产还有很长的路要走。
It hasn’t yet gone through clinical trials and similar technologies have proved unreliable in the past.
它还没有经过临床测试，而类似的技术曾经被证明不太可靠。
However, if the project succeeds, it could help save millions of lives.
不过，如果这项计划成功了的话，它将可以拯救数百万的生命。
Nearly 1.7 million new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in 2012 and the same year, it led to over half a million deaths.
2012年有170万新的乳腺癌案例被确诊，同年里带走了50多万的生命。
For treatment to be successful, early detection is crucial.
想要成功治疗的haul，早期检测非常重要。
Today’s teenage inventors are part of a long tradition.
今天的青年发明家们也早有先辈们形成了传统。
In fact, many of the world’s most prolific brains started young – coming up with television, telephones and trampolines, as well as braille, calculators, popsicles and ear muffs before they reached their 20th birthdays.
事实上，世界上最杰出的大脑往往都是在青年时开始的—在他们20岁生日之前想出了电视，电话和蹦床，还有盲文，计算器，冰棒以及耳罩这些创意。
So while it’s true that all four students are considerably more wide-eyed and fresh-faced than their adult colleagues, make no mistake – any one of them could be the next Thomas Edison or Elon Musk.
所以尽管这四个学生看起来比他们的成年的同事们更加年轻和天真，毫无疑问—他们中任何一个都有可能成为下一个托马斯.爱迪生或者伊隆.马斯克。