by Rod Hughes
Ever wanted a really easy informative computer program that doesn’t need Bill Gates at your elbow to help you manage it? Ever wondered what damage your discarded CDs do to the environment and wished for a worry-free way to dispose of them?
Four Costa Rican teenagers have solved your problems—or will, if they can get funding. Their projects won plaudits at an international science fair in Durbin, South Africa, this month.
Jose Pablo Jiménez, 19, Olga Yuts, 18, and Diego Ulate, 19, high school chums now studying in different universities, have worked with the fungus Geotrichum Candidum, convincing it that the plastic in CDs is even better to eat than chocolate mousse. Not much remains of the CD when the fungus gets through and even that is ecologically-friendly. But further development of a reactor (or digester) for mass disentegration of CDs will need backing.
José Andrés Morales, 18, has come up with the simplified Alekine software information program for those of us who are lost by the vagueries of present programs. He hopes, in three or four years, to have a commercial version out and to establish his own business here.
But first, both projects will be presented at the Feria Mostratec next November in Novo Hamburgo, Brazil, a science forum in Santiago, Chile, next year and at Barcelona’s prestigious Exporecerca Jove. Of course, they’ll be on the lookout for financing.