Teenager Facts

Teenage 'laziness' is largely explained by biology: adolescent brains undergo major rewiring while their circadian rhythms shift up to 2 hours later, making early mornings genuinely harder for teens than adults.

A British teenager changed his name in 2008 to Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined.

For a high school science fair project, 17-year-old Michio Kaku built a particle accelerator in his parent's garage that was able to generate a magnetic field 20,000 times greater than the Earth's and produce collisions powerful enough to create antimatter.

A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in Michigan built a homemade neutron source in his backyard shed after teaching himself nuclear physics. David Hahn collected radioactive materials from household items—americium from smoke detectors, thorium from lantern mantles, and radium from antique clocks—and his experiments triggered a federal Superfund cleanup.

Austin Appelbee was 13 when his family's kayak flipped off Western Australia. His mother told him to swim for shore. He swam two hours with a life jacket. When it slowed him, he took it off. He swam two more hours without one. He reached shore and sprinted another mile to find a phone. His family was found 14 km out after 10 hours. Everyone survived.