If you read the article, you'll realize that he didn't invent the active components that fight cancer. He invented a new vehicle to deliver such components - the soap.

For all intents and purposes, the headline is accurate. He invented the soap to treat skin cancer.

Little Bobby invents a robot that can peel potatoes. Will you say that little Bobby didn't really do anything because he didn't invent robots, blades or potatoes?

Considering I know someone, personally, who also made a scientific advancement at a young age, yes, it is possible.

They taught themselves python, then how to inference and train machine learning models, then used image recognition models to detect their sister's illness, which had visual signs.

They had to get help from someone with a phd to test this on a larger scale, cuz resources, but I absolutely believe a middle/high schooler could do it.

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/del-norte-high-school-seniors-invention-could-save-thousands-of-lives/3159354/

It's not that phd's are incapable of doing it, it's simply that they never bothered taking a crack at this problem, using this method.

So Gore didn’t invent the internet??

Do you have any specific examples?

It's what movies have brainwashed us to think what a hero would do to save the world instead of giving credit to the collective.

Do you have any specific example?

Don't underestimate our ability to miss the obvious. You're talking about the race that over 3000 or so years, forgot scurvy was cured by vitamin C over 10 times.

They also used to shape steel wire by pulling it really hard through a kinda steel funnel. This works because the tensile strength of steel is much higher than its yield strength, so you can pull on it with more force than it takes to shape it, without it snapping.

Back in the day, we figured out corrosion helped make the steel slippery when it went through the shaping tool. We though it was because some dudes pissed on the steel, so for a while after people pissed on their steel. Until people started figuring out beer worked just as well, and then half beer half water.

Until they finally realized water worked just as well to create corrosion. It took a couple hundred years.

Sometimes it just takes someone to think about it and do it. At 14 that's incredible, kids aren't that selfless at that age.

Whenever you read “person does something”, it’s usually already been done or a slight modification of something already been done.

Even if the active ingredients are already known, developing a new mode of application for an existing drug is an enormous accomplishment for a student his age. Plus, the alternative (minors doing experiments with unapproved drugs) is likely illegal, so there's only so much they could do.

When I was 14, I was not helping to cure cancer. My science fair project was about salt raising the boiling point of water. :) I'll give him props but you're right.

Yes, a timeline and plan for reaching a goal. So buzzy.

There's a cream for that

Breast cancer, skin cancer...Are we gonna split squamous cells here