Hunger is a very real problem around the globe. This year, almost 7 million people have died of hunger already. Why do people still die of hunger when there’s more than enough food in the world?

Well, considering that there are places in the world where basic needs like housing and clean, drinkable water are not met, then it doesn’t come as a surprise that food is just not available to them. The food exists — it just doesn’t get to where it needs to be.

Nigerian farmer Samson Ogbole decided to go ahead and cultivate (培育) fruit and vegetables in a different way. Ogbole’s farming process is mainly about two concepts: soilless farming and aeroponics (气雾栽培). To put it simply — he’s growing food in the air.

As Ogbole explained during a TED talk, aeroponics is the future of agriculture because it offers many benefits. For example, it is cheaper than traditional farming because there is no need to hire as many workers since everything is done with a “click”. Also, this kind of farming is more environmentally friendly since farmers don’t use pesticides. At the same time, there are no space limitations-planting in the air means you can plant as many layers as you like. The sky is the limit literally!

So, the young farmer has been practicing aeroponics for more than five years with impressive results. His work was recently praised on social media this summer when he was featured in a network post. In the post, Ogbole’s farming method was mentioned, and Internet users had the chance to see pictures of the farmer’ s produce.

Many viewers think southern Nigeria needs this method to grow crops. This will help in bringing down the price and avoiding future food blockades (封锁) from the north. It seems that people are already realizing that this method will change the way people grow food. And, most importantly, it will help solve some of the issues related to hunger around the world.

Earlier this year, I won an international science fair. And ever since then, people have been asking me, “How on earth could a fifteen-year-old have developed a new way to attack pancreatic (胰腺的) cancer?” My response: “A year and a half of hard work and millions and millions of failures.”

Recently I have invented a paper. sensor (试纸) for pancreatic and other cancers. It is over 40 times more sensitive than the current method of detection. The best part is that it costs only three cents, and takes only five minutes.

What got me interested in this was that a close family friend, who Was like an uncle to me, had died of the disease. What I found online was that about 85% of pancreatic cancer was discovered late. In addition, detection was pricy. It cost 800 dollars and it was not covered by insurance plans.

Then I thought there had to be a better way. It would have to be inexpensive, rapid, simple and sensitive. I began looking at research on the Internet. I started with a database of over 8,000 different proteins (蛋白质).Fortunately, after 4,000 tries, I finally noticed this protein called mesothelin (间皮素). If you have pancreatic cancer, the mesothelin level will be extremely high in your blood stream. Then I started to focus on how to detect this protein. Eventually I got this small paper sensor which has nearly 100% accuracy.

Through this I have learned a very important lesson. That is, through the Internet anything is possible. So if I could do research on Google and Wikipedia when I was fifteen years old, I imagine you could do it.

Teens are really good at ignoring(忽视)their parents’ messages, which is why Nick Herbert, a father from London, created an app called ReplyASAP.

Nick came up with the idea for ReplyASAP after realizing that simply giving his son a mobile phone didn’t make getting in touch with him easier. He wasn’t answering Nick’s messages as fast as Nick had expected. It was driving the father crazy, so he set out to create a messaging app that would make reaching kids easier for parents. It took eight months and a lot of money to complete the project, but Nick thinks Reply ASAP could really take off, as it is likely to give parents some peace of mind.

ReplyASAP is designed with parents in mind. It lets them know if their child has seen their message, or if their phone is turned off. However, most importantly, it makes it impossible for kids to ignore messages. When they receive a text from their parents, the app basically locks their phone, taking over the home screen and sounding an alarm until the message is answered.

It seems that ReplyASAP will become teenagers’ biggest nightmare(噩梦), by making it impossible to ignore their parents. Nick agrees that it’s a possibility, but adds that his app shouldn9 t be parents9 most important way of communicating with their children.

ReplyASAP is free to download (下载), but offers a series of plans, depending on how many people you are planning to get in touch with. It works only on Android now. But that’s only a short-term shortcoming(缺点), as Nick wants to make ReplyASAP be found on the Apple Store as soon as possible.