By Ben Harder
Pity the judges. With science projects by 40 of the nation’s brightest high school students arrayed before them last week, they had to weigh the merits of undertakings as diverse as a study of deep-sea volcanism and the discovery of a promising antibiotic.
On March 15, at a black-tie dinner reception in Washington, D.C., the judges’ final decisions were announced and 10 students were named winners in the 2005 Intel Science Talent Search. The winners and their fellow competitors, all of whom had passed earlier rounds of judging to become this year’s finalists, collectively earned more than $500,000 in scholarship pledges.