What's behind the teen prodigies inventing things?
I actually disagree with the answer given, and having judged a fair number of high-end science fairs myself (not Intel, granted, but the all-Chicago science fair, which is essentially an Intel qualifier), took something different away from it. I am also close friends with a number of Intel finalists, and have discussed their experiences in depth.
While most of the high schoolers at this level of science fair are extremely intelligent and will eventually become great, independent drivers of research, at this level they typically are not there yet. Their projects, for the most part, are designed by a faculty member or senior grad student/post doc, and the student is guided through the many experimental steps involved until they find something, at which case, because the research was done in a university lab and it is already better than 98% of other science fair projects (which are usually done at home with minimal resources), they typically do very well in science fairs.
Occasionally, one of the students is truly head and shoulders above everyone else, and can operate somewhat autonomously in a lab setting and can ask and answer their own questions - essentially at the level of an older graduate student. But, like a graduate student, they typically still need the oversight of a senior person who "gets" research.
I realize that this response is mostly to the answer given above, and not the the main question, but I felt strongly that the answer needed to be addressed.
As for prodigies:
In the sciences, which require tons of background knowledge to even know what's going on (see: cancer), I have never, ever, heard of a true prodigy who could, for example, be running a 15 person cancer research lab, writing papers, etc. You don't just "understand" cancer the way some people "understand" math, innately.
In math, the story is much different. There are always math prodigies, and they typically get tenure in their early twenties (see: Manjul Bhargava, Charles Fefferman, etc.)
There are, of course, CS "prodigies" who are good at coding and creative enough to think of something that hasn't been done. But this isn't really what you are talking about.
tl;dr: there are no true "prodigies" in science. There are in math, though.
The most important statement in your question is "What's behind the headline..."
Let's split this up into two questions:
First: are teens doing cool science?
Teens, like anybody else, can do science. A lot of teens are actually in a good place to do really creative work (scientific or otherwise), because they're young, have relatively few responsibilities, and are brash enough to try things that will probably fail. Sometimes, those things don't fail.
In some problems, it's easy to get to the edge of science: my favorite example is the iGEM genetic engineering contest. Another great example of an "easy" problem is how cats drink water: that's a paper in Science whose key laboratory equipment was a good high-speed camera---the key innovation was how they thought to ask the question, and it could just as easily have been a teen as a bunch of folks as MIT (though the teen would have a harder time getting it published so well). Other problems, though, e.g., "prevent cancer", are really pretty hard to do anything about.
A good heuristic for understanding what's going on in a particular case is to look at how much background and resources is required in order to take a particular approach to a problem. The more that's necessary, the more likely it is that any teen involved is a small (though possibly still quite smart and creative!) part of a big organization.
They also might just be wrong. Lots of ways to be wrong in science, for teens and anybody else. You should judge the science of a teen just like you'd judge the science of any other researcher.
Second: Do the headlines have much to do with what teens are doing in science?
In a word: No.
In a few more words: science reporting is often pretty dismal, and in popular sources usually has much more to do with fitting something into a societal narrative. And one of our cherished narratives is the Teen Genius. Also, don't forget that both teens and their mentors are just as capable of being self-promoters, self-deluded, or frauds as anybody else.
Bottom line: if a headline sounds like one of those terrible "One weird trick..." internet ads, it's probably about the same level of reliability.
I was a judge at the Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in 2012, and I've seen some of what happens here. For those who aren't familiar, ISEF is the "Olympics" of science fairs. Everyone here has already won numerous local, regional, and national awards.
The level of science being displayed here is frankly ridiculous. Many of the students at the fair are completing work at or beyond PhD level. Many of them work with well-known and highly capable research labs or university faculty, and a good number of them perform research on their own using their ginormous brains.
Some of the research being performed here is, in fact, things like cancer cures. To give you an idea of the level of research, browse this award listing. Some good ones to call out from the 2012 fair:
- One of the grand prize finalists developed a technique for early stage pancreatic cancer detection
- Some kid build and demoed a working fusion reactor (other stories on this)
- Lots of novel approaches to addressing traumatic brain injury
- All sorts of kids doing wicked advanced math
- Some brain-computer interface work
- And a whole lot more
These high school students are coming from across the globe and are performing top-notch research. So yes, there are definitely some teens who build lots of stuff, and they do it the same as you and me... find a problem, research it, and solve it.