A Punta Gorda middle schooler’s concern for her grandfather has inspired a national award-winning science fair project.
Bella Dacanay’s grandfather lost his sense of smell due to Parkinson’s disease.
"That made me realize that I wanted to do something that had to do with the olfactory system. And so while I was researching it, I learned that there have been many studies to figure out whether men or women have a better sense of smell," she said.
So the Charlotte Preparatory School student recruited 105 people through social media, many from her neighborhood, to try to identify each of 14 scents.
"My hypothesis was that women would have a better sense of smell due to them having more olfactory neurons in their brain. An olfactory neuron is the part of the brain that receives smell."
The result was "Making Sense of Scents," a project that won first place and best in fair at the Edison Festival Kiwanis Science and Engineering Fair in Fort Myers in February. That was followed by an outstanding project award at the state level. More recently, Bella was honored as one of 300 Junior Innovators from the United States and 80 other countries by the Society for Science and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
"This research is really important because there are many diseases and illnesses like Parkinson's disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's that can cause people to lose their sense of smell," said the eighth grader. "So scientists are trying to determine what makes the sense of smell different in some people."
Bella performed two types of tests. With no clues, the women did slightly better identifying scents, among them garlic, cinnamon, leather and coffee. But when presented with multiple-choice answers — including the correct ones — men and women fared about the same.
Bella has big plans for the science fair this year, too. But she's keeping the subject a surprise.