Tethys: Born from Brilliance
- Dominika Romanik
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
Lake Orion, Michigan
The Problem that Inspired a Solution
The year is 2014. The once brimming town of Flint is merely a shadow of its former 1980s self; the population—which was 200,000 in the 1980s—is now only half of what it once was and the only half that stayed were communities of color and lower-class white families. Thus, when Flint switched from the Detroit River to the Flint River in a bid to save money, no city official batted an eye as lower-class residents complained that their tap water reeked of sewage and ran bright yellow like urine. In fact, the Flint River was quite known as an unofficial waste disposal for treated and untreated waste from many local industries, which happened to be along its shores. Even Flint's waste treatment plant used the river to dump its sewage. To advocate for pumping drinking water from such a river was more than negligence; it was a reflection of systemic racism. After all, no one would dare funnel water from a river rumored to have caught fire (twice) into a wealthy neighborhood. Furthermore, water samples collected from the 252 homes through a resident-organized effort indicated citywide lead levels had spiked; almost 17 percent of samples registered above the federal action level of 15 parts per billion (ppb) for lead, and more than 30 percent measured above a 5 ppb of lead. Additionally, due to the city’s failure to maintain sufficient chlorine in its water, the Flint Water Crisis created the third-largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease (a severe form of pneumonia) recorded in U.S. history. This was a grave situation. Any exposure to lead is linked to serious health impacts (including madness and death), and can be especially severe for the brain development of fetuses, infants, and young children. The officials were now federally forced to take decisive action due to its severity. Their solution to the crisis? Adding chlorine. While adding chlorine can help with disinfecting the water, it can also lead to elevated levels of trihalomethanes (a compound with the general chemical formula CHX3, where X can be any halogen such as chlorine, bromine, iodine, or fluorine) which are cancer-causing chemicals. By this time, the officials had given up on providing a sustainable solution. The residents were now on their own, and while many of the residents had water filters in their homes for lead, many of them were never certain of the levels of lead that their water truly had. After all, how would they know if there was lead in the water if their filter broke or stopped functioning out of the blue? That was a fear many before the seventh grader, Gitanjali Rao, from Colorado, stepped in with a solution in 2017. A solution that would potentially save Flint and other communities across the world.
What is Tethys?
After learning about the communities in Michigan dealing with the devastating effects of lead-contaminated water, Gitanjali Rao created an invention called Tethys (named after the Greek Titan goddess of clean water). Tethys is a more conclusive and reliable test for lead than the at-home test strip kits that many families and individuals were provided with. This 3D-printed box is about the size of a deck of cards and contains a battery, bluetooth, and carbon nanotubes. Rao came up with this design after reading how some gadgets can detect hazardous gas using similar sensors. After winning the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist,” Rao was quick to get back into work of manufacturing, alternating, and re-designing her model with Hernandez-Ruiz in the lab in order to ensure its success in the market. So, how does this invention exactly work? Tethys has a disposable cartridge in it, and with it, you dip it into the water that you want to test to detect the amount of lead the water has. In the water, the lead has already bonded to the chlorine atoms, thus, creating lead chlorine molecules which have a beehive shape. They would connect to create a tube, thus, serving as “speed bumps” for the testing device. As electrolytes pass through these atoms, the carbon nanotubes respond to the changes in the electron flow. The more carbon lead molecules there are, the slower the electrons would move. Thus, with more lead, the more electron resistance is measured. By using an Arduino processor, the device collects the data and sends the results to you with an app which lets you know if the water is contaminated with lead or not.
What is Gitanjali Rao doing now?
Gitanjali Rao is now a college student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During her time there, she created an ever-evolving project called Kindly. The app is an add-on extension on social media platforms and online tools, like Instagram and Google. The tool itself doesn’t stop someone from sending a hurtful message, but it does provide users a chance to pause before sending it. In that way, the app aims to address the core issues of cyberbullying by highlighting words or phrases that might have a negative impact on the receiver of the message. Furthermore, Gitanjali Rao has published two books for young innovators as a way to share ideas with fellow teens for finding their passions in the STEM field. And in the summer of 2024, she plans on working at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT; specifically, she will be working on developing microarray patches for making extended-release vaccines. From Tethys to Kindly and now to her research at MIT, Rao’s path reflects a rare blend of creativity and conscience—a reminder that the future of technology shines brightest when guided by humanity.
Sources:
Be sure to check out other STEM·E content!
Comments