The article titled "10-Year-Old Accidentally Creates New Molecule in Science Class" by Dan Nosowitz was published in Popular Science in February of 2012. Nosowitz is PopSci.com's Associate Editor. He has previously written for Fast Company, SmartPlanet, the Billfold, and Splitsider, and got his start at the gadget blog Gizmodo.
This piece focuses on ten-year-old Clara Lazen, a fifth grade student in Kansas City. Clara was given the old “ball and stick” model by her science teacher in class, and amazingly ended up constructing what seems to be a viable chemical. The chemical is tetranitratoxycarbon, composed of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon. At first her teacher, Kenneth Boehr, couldn’t be sure. He sent a photograph of the complexly structured molecule to a friend at Humboldt State University and its status as a legitimate molecule was confirmed. They are not sure of any applied purpose for the molecule yet, although it does have some potential to be used for energy storage or as an explosive. Boehr’s friend, Robert Zoeline, published a paper titled Computational and Theoretical Chemistry in which Clara is listed as a co-author.
The purpose of this article is to inform an audience interested in science and the general scientific community in a discovery both interesting for its content and discoverer. Nosowitz accomplishes this purpose by employing the rhetorical device of asides. He often stops to talk to his reader in order to further explain complicated scientific topics or just to expand upon an idea.
Source: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/10-year-old-accidentally-creates-new-explosive-molecule-science-class
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