Reality Labs

Mia Heller, an 18-year-old high school student, has developed a prototype that removed 95.5% of microplastics in testing, earning her a $500 special award from the Patent and Trademark Office Society. The story is circulating alongside comparisons to Meta's Reality Labs, which lost $19.2 billion in 2025, with commenters contrasting the scale of corporate spending against what a single young inventor achieved on a small budget.