Make: – “Maryland teenager Jack Andraka (featured in the video above) isn’t old enough to drive yet, but he’s just pioneered a new, improved test for diagnosing pancreatic cancer that is 90% more accurate, 400 times more sensitive, and 26,000 times less expensive than existing methods.
When Andraka had solidified ideas for his novel paper sensor, he wrote out his procedure, timeline, and budget, and emailed 200 professors at research institutes. He got 199 rejections and one acceptance from Johns Hopkins: “If you send out enough emails, someone’s going to say yes.” Andraka was recently awarded the grand prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his groundbreaking discoveries.”
HT: Gale Pooley
“26,000 times less expensive” These sorts of statements are always a sign of fraudulence, or just bad reporting. You can INCREASE the cost an unlimited amount, but you can only DECREASE it 100%, or once. Then the cost is zero. You can’t reduce the cost more, unless perhaps you get payed to use it.
What if the cost goes from $260 to $0.01? That would be a 26,000 times decrease in cost, no? Or from $26,000 to $1? That would be a 26,000 times decrease in price, no?
Only Johns Hopkins of 200 universities replied favorably? To me that rejection rate indicates serious problems in higher education.