15-Year-Old Girl Invents Body-Heat Powered Flashlight

Canadian teen Ann Makosinski is one of just 15 students in the world selected as a finalist in the Google Science Fair, thanks to her energy-saving invention: A hollow flashlight powered entirely by body-heat from your hand. The flashlight utilizes Peltier tiles, which generate electricity when heated on one side and cooled on the other. Makosinski, 15, built the flashlight for about $26, and is now in the running to win a $50,000 scholarship and a trip to the Galapagos Islands, CBC News reports. But first she'll have to beat out some pretty impressive inventions by other kids, including bio-plastics made from banana peel, created by a 16-year-old girl from Turkey, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. (More Google Science Fair stories.)