The most accomplished high school junior since LeBron James

but because he's unathletic 99% of Americans who have heard of King James have not heard of Jack Andraka.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/jack-andraka-marylands-boy-wonder-on-mean-scientists-homecoming-and-tricorders/2013/12/02/e15606be-4173-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html

"While on summer break in 2011 at age 15, Jack Andraka made a breakthrough in cancer detection that had eluded pharmaceutical companies and legions of PhDs.

Using information he found on Google and Wikipedia (which he calls “a teenager’s best friend”), Andraka, who lives in Anne Arundel County, came up with an idea for a diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer that he says is 168 times faster, 400 times more sensitive and 26,000 times more economical than the medical standard...

In 2012, Andraka was awarded the $75,000 grand prize in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his work. "
The NCAA immediately ruled him ineligible for life.

He contacted 200 university researchers in pancreatic cancer and got 1 favorable response, Johns Hopkins Medical School.

 

I've had two friends lose spouses to pancreatic cancer in the last year. Both were in their early 40s.

If this kid can do anything about that, I'll buy his jersey.

 

That's great that he's done this, but has he ever had his picture on a bubble-gum card?

 

Well, if he says it, it must be true!

Seriously, something this "groundbreaking" and there's only one other source in the story, and that one source says it's years away from becoming reality?

 

Does this kid's mom know Delonte West?

 

Whatever. It's not like the kid cured cancer* or anything.

[sub]
* --- at least not yet

 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Jack-Andraka-the-Teen-Prodigy-of-Pancreatic-Cancer-179996151.html

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34759/title/The-Cancer-Test-Kid/

while learning about antibodies in biology class, Andraka was struck with an idea. “I thought maybe if I lace mesothelin-specific antibodies into a network of carbon nanotobes I would have a network that reacts only to mesothelin [in a blood sample] and would change its electrical properties based on the amount present.” As the mesothelin proteins attach to the antibodies, the gaps between nanotubes widen, weakening the network’s conductivity—a signal detectable with a simple ohmmeter.

So while he's thinking of this in freshman HS biology, NFL teams are simplifying the playbook for rookie quarterbacks.