I still cannot believe that I won! And that not only will I get prizes but my school and my (awesome) teacher Mrs. Kaplan will too. Most of my teachers and classmates already know and have been asking me where lithotrophs are found, so I did some research and found that they are found near volcanos, waste water, fresh water, salt water, and many more places. If you have any other questions please write them below and I would be happy to answer them. Thx sd ; )

Congratulations to Sona Dolasia for winning the Grand Prize for her entry in the Kids’ Science Challenge Magical Microbes category. Here’s her entry:

“One of major problems these days is that there is not enough fresh water in the world. Today we use desalination in some pats of the world to solve this problem, but it is super expensive and takes a long time. My idea of using a microbe called lithotrophs may not only work faster but it would also be cheaper, so every one could afford it. Lithotrophs are microbes that can eat the salts in stones and rocks. If we could modify these just like how scientists modified bactria to make ‘bacafilla’ (the new cement glue) to eat salts in the ocean instead. It may work. However, since we don’t know if they are harmful to humans we would need to test them, and if they are maybe find a way to either extract them or modify them to self destruct after their job is done. I would love to work with a scientist regarding this problem.”