Firefighters in Raleigh, NC rescued 14 kittens from an abandoned home that caught fire recently.  No one was seriously injured in the blaze, and the kittens’ mother also made it out.  Animal control is now caring for the kittens and finding them forever homes………….. In other animal news:  The San Diego Humane Society took in a two-month-old black bear cub after they couldn’t find its mother.  A video they posted is in the news because they’ve been wearing a cheap bear Halloween costume to interact with him…………..And finally………….. 

19-year-old Slovakian Adam Kovalčík recently won $100K, the top prize in America’s most prestigious science fair, for his invention of a quicker, cheaper way to make a popular antiviral drug out of corn husks. He reduced the cost per gram from $75 to just $12, and the production time from 9 days to 5, for a drug that’s used to treat RNA viruses like ebola.  Kovalčík has already filed a preliminary patent and plans to work with a research group in Bratislava to improve the process. He even has an idea to use his prize money to start a company that manufactures eco-friendly perfumes from corn.