Ear Wax Project

[hayamhm]

Hi,

I'm doing a project with a very unhelpful mentor so I need help. I'm testing to see what solution best cleans our ears from ear wax. Because there are many patients who go to the ENT clinic because of ear wax buildup which causes a bit of hearing loss. There's a new product on the market called Resultz which is a product for headlice treatement. This is supposed to be non-pesticide and really good. We want to see, since this product works so well, maybe it'll work for ear wax cleaning. Because Resultz destroys the wax around head lice then kill the lice. So we are testing that product Resultz, vs ear wax removal product (Murine), and a household common home remedie, glycerin. So my mentor obtained ear wax from a patient and it's very tiny. It's like 2 cm long. So I'm going to split it up into three, put it into testtubes then add 7 drops of the solution twice a day for 4 days. My problem is how I can make this accurate. How am I supposed to measure how much of the ear wax was removed? What the solutions do, like Murine, it attacks the ear wax and makes it softer and more like a liquid so that it falls out of our ears. So I want a way to compare the solutions' effect on the ear wax.

My science teacher suggested measuring the weight of the test tube. Then the weight of the ear wax. Then after the days I measure the weight of the solution and it's effect. My mentor told me that too. I don't think that makes sense at all. After adding the solution, the ear wax is supposed to change from solid to liquid... how can measuring the weight do anything? I need help! It wouldn't be an accurate experiment if I depend on my observations to see if the ear wax is broken up and dissolved or not. I need a way a method to compare the different solutions to draw a conclusion.

I need help ASAP because my project is overdue because of my mentor and I only have a short period of time of extension.

Please I need help!

[hayamhm]

Oh and another thing! How much ear wax is normal? Because I want to compare my results with our actual ear wax. So if I only use 0.5 cm of ear wax... that won't be accurate. On the solution bottles it says to use 5-10 drops of the product twice for four days. How much should I use for my experiment?

Thanks

[adance]

Interesting project idea-I like your hypothesis about the lice treatment.

It seems to me that, if your hypothesis about turning solid to liquid is correct, then at the end of the experiment you should have more liquid and less solid, right? So--if you take the solid material out of the tube, and size or weigh it, it should be less, while the volume of liquid in the tube should be more. Did you weigh the wax, and measure the exact volume of liquid, before you started?

You mentioned that the treatment should make the wax squishier, so I wonder if you could find some way to test that, maybe by measuring how much force it takes to change its shape? Perhaps other experts can chime in with ways to measure a materials softness?

Good luck.

[MelissaB]

I'm afraid I can't help with measuring the softness, but I was wondering if it would be worth it to gently invert the tube after applying the treatment so that any loosened wax could fall out--but it depends on whether or not the wax sticks to the inside of the tube; if it doesn't then it will all fall out regardless of treatment. Anyway, this might make the experimental conditions more similar to the process you're trying to model.

[hayamhm]

wow, I never thought of that before. I think that is what I'm going to do because they're no other method. I still have a problem. I've searched a lot and nobody knows the normal amount of earwax for each person because it is different and varies depending on the person. So, my sample is a very small portion compared to the real thing. Wouldn't that make it unaccurate? Also, since I have really small amount, does that mean I should use less solution drops? Because then itll be very concentrated. I don't know how to make this as realistic as possible. Also, would it be ok to use a food scale to weigh everything?

Thank you sooo much! I appreciate your help,

[adance]

Because your experiment is "which treatment dissolves ear wax the best?" I don't think the amount you start with will matter so much. What you're doing is a model of the real thing, not the real thing itself, which is totally normal and acceptable in science. You can guess that the treatment that works best on your amount of earwax would probably work best on less or more.

I do not think a regular food scale would work for this--I imagine the difference will be in grams or even micrograms. Does your teacher or mentor have a more precise scale you could use?

Another thing to think about: Are you going to dry out the earwax before you weigh it? I wonder if the same volume of glycerin or treatment would weigh different amounts. Then it might confuse your results if the liquid was still clinging to the wax blob.

Good luck.

[hayamhm]

I'm planning to do my project in a lab, except i would still need something at home that I can monitor the earwax with. The earwax I have is like stone, really dry, very small. So I'm thinking it's going to take a while for it to become a liquid. So if I measure the weight, the earwax and solution wouldn't be sticking together as much.

That's another thing, the solutions will weigh different, so I'm planning to put the exact same amount of drops into each testube. So then I won't really compare the different solutions but the solution before and after. For example, if I started with 10 ml of solution, then I would come back after a while and see that it is 12 ml, then I would know it went up by two. So, I'm not really going to weigh the liquids, should I? I was thinking more of the volume and in ml.

So the treatement would be the best if in the end, the earwax sample weighs less than before, and the solution or liquid weighs more than before? How often would I have to weigh the earwax and solution? Because I'm putting 7 drops of solution in the morning and 7 drops at night. How many times will I have to check up on it and observe and take pictures?

Thank you!!!

Thank you,

[adance]

I can't really answer some of those questions, since you're doing a new sort of experiment. You will have to decide for yourself how often to measure, and how long to let the experiment go. If you're not sure, it's probably best to err on the side of caution--check more often, and let it go longer.

I think you are on the right track, good luck.

[hayamhm]

Hi,

I have a problem. I can't get access to a scale to measure the weight of the earwax. I can't find anyother way to test my project. So I'm going to test it by observations. Except if I only look at it and see which one worked the best, how can I make a graph or table to compare the different solutions scientifically? I need help ASAP!

Thanks

[adance]

hmm--could you very carefully measure the length before you start, and then see if it is shorter afterward? (If you do this, you would have to compare dry to dry, or wet to wet, in case liquid swells the earwax.)

[MelissaB]

You could also take photos of each stage, so that people can observe the changes for themselves. If you could take a photo with a ruler or something in it, you may be able to measure the size from the photographs (but like Amber says, it may depend on whether it ends up as a solid or a liquid).

[hayamhm]

I started my project, I measured it with a ruler as careful as possible. Except when I came back half an hour later, the size changed but the solution didn't and after that it decreased again. So I think that it didn't change at all for the past 2 hours, and its just that I'm not measuring precisely. I'm not sure if this project is going to work at all! Oh, and for the checking and measuring, does it have to be at certain intervals each time? Or can I just check it at any time every day? For example say today I checked on it at half an hour intervals from 8:00 to 10:00. Tomorrow, can I do the same thing but from 4:00 to 6:00? Or does it have to be 8:00-10:00? Just wondering if that would be one of the controls.

Thank you!

[adance]

How long are the earwax-softeners supposed to take to work? I think they recommend using for several days. You could base your time intervals on that--say, if it's supposed to take four days to work, maybe check at 12-hour intervals. Although, I think it is great that you are checking more frequently during the first part of the experiment, since you don't know how long it will take.

One idea occurred to me--if you took a digital image of the wax at each timepoint, you could blow up those pictures and measure the picture. It's sort of a way to get around the fact that your ruler may not measure really small changes well. But, if you wanted to do this you would have to take the pictures the exact same way, same focus, same distance from the camera, everything.

You said that the liquid didn't change. Do you mean its volume? Do you expect it to? From your previous description, it sounds like the earwax is pretty small, so a little bit of earwax might not noticeably change your volume.

One more thing to remember--ultimately, it's not so important if your experiment "works." What's important is that you came up with a hypothesis and a way to test it, and did an experiment. You have done all these things. When you present your project, you can discuss whether or not you got the results you expected, and how you might do the experiment differently if you did it again.

Amber

[hayamhm]

It's not working! I've been checking it for 4 hours at an hour interval for two days now, today is the third. Except measuring with a ruler didn't do anything, the size of the earwax nor the volume of the solution has changed. So far I've been having the exact numbers every time. I've been keeping observations that are very detailed but how can I make that into a graph, or table? Because I have made observations that the earwax was starting to break up and seems to becoming less brown and a bit softer or flatter. But observations aren't numbers...

As for taking pictures and blowing them up, I've been trying forever! Except the it all comes out white because of the reflection of the test tube. And if I take the flash off, the picture is too blurry for me to actually measure it with a ruler. So that option won't work anymore.

I really can't tell which one is working the best. Another aspect that I should have controlled is the size of the earwax. For each test tube its a different size, that's because when I tried to cut it up and make it equal, some of it just broke off so I came out with one small, one medium and one large. Except I did record each one's length, one is 0.5 the other 0.6 and the other 0.7. Doesn't seem like much difference however they are each a different shape and width.

I really don't know how I'm going to make a conclusion, because the entire project and procedure was inaccurate. I wanted to do this project to prove that Resultz works except apparently it doesn't. So I'm afraid I'm doing something wrong because my mentor said that Resultz works amazingly!

Thank you so much!

[adance]

You are doing nothing wrong. When I was a scientist, I can't tell you how many of my experiments didn't "work" or came up with the "wrong" results. And sometimes, the results just surprise you and you discover your hypothesis wasn't right after all! That may be what's happening with your project--maybe other remedies work just as well as Resultz?

Could you possibly develop your own scale for how broken-up the wax looks, maybe a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being "all the earwax is liquified" and 1 being "no change"? That would give you something to chart or graph.