I think a lot of people react to the sensationalism of the headlines on stories like this. It's absolutely wonderful that a 15 year old girl is interested in experimenting with little bits of tech like this, and I'm sure she's way ahead of the curve, but the news outlets like to portray this as "15 year old kid invents a new solution to a difficult problem," which is just way overstating it in the annoying style of people who are overly impressed by their own grandchildren's science projects.

Just from the headline, I said to myself, "sounds like some kid discovered peltier junctions and LEDs and the media decided to act like she's invented something," which was exactly right. Good for her, she's learning and experimenting, and that's a great thing, but let's not get carried away with our portrayal of how amazing it is.

Think back a month or so to the girl who "invented" a new way of charging cellphones in 30 seconds using capacitors. The sensationalism of that story was so over the top, I had non-technical people sharing the story with me on Facebook with breathless comments about what a genius this kid was and looking forward to this fantastic tech being available in all of our cell phones. Was it anything like that? No. It was a kid experimenting with well-understood technology and learning how things work, and there was no discovery or invention of anything non-obvious to any actual engineer. I don't want to detract from her industriousness or enthusiasm for learning, but when half the world is convinced she's done something notable enough to get her on the talk show circuit, something is wrong with the reporting.