I downloaded the paper. It does not credit the highschool student's discovery. The authors take credit for the discovery themselves:
"Recently, we reported that waxworms (the larvae of the
Indian mealmoth or Plodia interpunctella) were capable of
chewing and eating PE films, and two bacterial strains capable
of degrading PE were isolated from the gut of the worms, i.e.,
Enterobacter asburiae YT1 and Bacillus sp. YP1. During the
same research period, we found that mealworms, the larvae of
the mealworm beetle or Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus (a species of
darkling beetle), which are much larger in size than waxworms
(typically approximately 25 versus 12 mm in length), can eat
Styrofoam as their sole diet."
They seem to have duplicated the 2009 highschool student's work. Here is the highschool student's abstract:
"The observation that mealworms might be able to feed on styrofoam sparked a curiosity to answer whether mealworms could digest styrofoam, and if so, how could they remain alive. First of all, these mealworms were fed in different kinds of food to insure the mealworms can digest styrofoam. The results showed that mealworms can indeed feed on styrofoam only. The hypothesis of this study is that microbes inside the digestive tracts of mealworms are responsible for the decomposition of styrofoam. To further test this hypothesis, microbes from the digestive tracts of mealworms were cultured at 37 C in LB medium under anaerobic conditions. There were many kinds of microbes isolated. From those microbes, a kind of bacteria forming red colonies was confirmed responsible for decomposing styrofoam. The growth conditions and strain characteristics of the bacteria forming red colonies were further examined. These results imply that the red bacteria isolated from the digestive tracts of mealworms may shed light on solving the serious environmental pollution caused by styrofoam."
I would say that the use of the phrase "we reported" is acknowledging that it is someone else's work. At my University such words have specific meaning.
Even assuming that's true, is it really too much to ask for the student to have a credit? Plenty of papers that build on work by non-academics do that.
The Stanford researchers could have been unaware of the Taiwanese student's work. It would not be surprising given the volume of scientific work that gets published every year. Independent discoveries happen all the time.
I don't know any other way to respond to this than to flat out contradict you: it is easy to miss something, even in a specialized subject where you know the 15 other groups working on similar stuff. Things are hidden in M.Sc. theses, Ph.D. theses and even papers with titles that didn't lead to you to suspect there was something relevant for your specific subject in them. There's just too much being published.
"Recently, we reported that waxworms (the larvae of the Indian mealmoth or Plodia interpunctella) were capable of chewing and eating PE films, and two bacterial strains capable of degrading PE were isolated from the gut of the worms, i.e., Enterobacter asburiae YT1 and Bacillus sp. YP1. During the same research period, we found that mealworms, the larvae of the mealworm beetle or Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus (a species of darkling beetle), which are much larger in size than waxworms (typically approximately 25 versus 12 mm in length), can eat Styrofoam as their sole diet."
They seem to have duplicated the 2009 highschool student's work. Here is the highschool student's abstract:
"The observation that mealworms might be able to feed on styrofoam sparked a curiosity to answer whether mealworms could digest styrofoam, and if so, how could they remain alive. First of all, these mealworms were fed in different kinds of food to insure the mealworms can digest styrofoam. The results showed that mealworms can indeed feed on styrofoam only. The hypothesis of this study is that microbes inside the digestive tracts of mealworms are responsible for the decomposition of styrofoam. To further test this hypothesis, microbes from the digestive tracts of mealworms were cultured at 37 C in LB medium under anaerobic conditions. There were many kinds of microbes isolated. From those microbes, a kind of bacteria forming red colonies was confirmed responsible for decomposing styrofoam. The growth conditions and strain characteristics of the bacteria forming red colonies were further examined. These results imply that the red bacteria isolated from the digestive tracts of mealworms may shed light on solving the serious environmental pollution caused by styrofoam."
https://apps2.societyforscience.org/abstracts/project.cfm?PI...