Patient Zero:

I have to tell you about one of the "labs" we did on Tuesday.

There were enough test tubes filled with a clear solution along with a pipette made for every person in the class. They were then placed randomly on our tables while we were taking a quiz (very tricky) as to not call too much attention to them.

When we finished our quiz, our professor told us that "someone" in the room has a horrible disease (one test tube was "infected") and we were to "swap" solution with at least three people in the class (via the pipettes) and record WHO we "swap" with...

are you following?

Then everyone was to put a couple drops of another solution into our individual test tube and if it turned pink--you were now infected. Then we had to use our deductive reasoning skills to figure out WHO was the original person with the "horrible disease". The professor knew the answer...

For the record, of the 20 or so people in lab, only 8 people ended up being "infected"...yes, I was one of them, but because half of the people I "swapped" with were NOT infected, it made it easier to pinpoint who introduced the "disease" into our population. We got it right. We're so smart!

VERY COOL. I think every single Biology/Chemistry/Science/Health class in high school should do this experiment. It's a perfect way to symbolize how diseases (hello, STDs) are passed along.



~~J