Student Today / Clara Lazen

Ten-Year-Old Fifth Grader, Discovers New Molecule

10-year-old Clara Lazen of Kansas City,was experimenting with a molecule-building toy during a class assignment when she stumbled upon an unusual-looking molecule.

Her intrigued teacher, Kenneth Boehr, photographed it and sent it to his college buddy Robert Zoellner, a chemistry professor at Humboldt State University in California. Zoellner found that the simple but specific chemical had never been seen before. He published a paper, and Clara and Boehr were listed as co-authors.

If a lab can manage to synthesize Clara's chemical, it might even prove useful. Two forms of the molecule "may be of interest as high-energy materials," wrote Zoellner in the paper, which was published in the January edition of Computational and Theoretical Chemistry.

The university's statement notes: If a synthetic chemist succeeded at creating the molecule - dubbed tetranitratoxycarbon for short - it could store energy, create a large explosion, or do something in between, Zoellner says: “Who knows?"