PORT HOOD: Two students unveiled their science fair projects during the regular monthly meeting of Inverness Municipal Council.
Sisters Elise and Nila Munro represented the Strait Regional Centre for Education at the virtual Canada Wide Science Fair hosted by the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton from May 16 to 22.
Bayview Education Centre Grade 8 student Elise won a bronze medal and a scholarship from Western University for her project “Lymeon: A Novel Way to Test Lyme Disease in Minutes.” She also competed in a competition to design a virtual trading pin for the event, and her design was selected as the official CWSF Pin from submissions from across the country.
Noting that almost 500,000 Americans are diagnosed with the “serious disease” caused by a tick bite, Elise said Nova Scotia has “by far” the most Lyme disease cases per 100,000 people in Canada.
“I’ve personally been noticing more and more of the pests popping up around my house. We didn’t really think much of it until my pet rabbit came home with over 50 ticks on his fur,” she recalled. “We started finding ticks on our legs and arms as well so I did a little bit of research and found out that, due to climate change, ticks can now live in our environment longer and it’s just going to get worse and worse.”
If diagnosed and treated with antibiotics immediately, Nila said cases can be controlled.
“The problem is that Lyme disease cases are not being diagnosed quickly because all current Lyme disease tests only test for antibodies, and not the actual bacteria,” she noted. “It can sometimes take weeks for antibodies to show up so lab tests are only 29 per cent to 40 per cent accurate during the early stages of Lyme disease.”
Nila said she decided on her project because of the need for more accurate, cheap, fast, compact, and easy to use tests.
“First, I had to teach myself how to code, and fast, because the science fair was in a month,” she told council.
After using coding web sites and YouTube videos and articles, Nila used three steps to create her test.
“First, I turned the image of blood into a binary image and get rid of the noise. And then I doubled the image I just created, but then I removed the bacteria image,” she explained. “And lastly, I subtract the second image from the first. So basically it gets rid of the cells and if there’s anything left of the image, which would be the bacteria of Lyme disease, what’s left would pop up saying ‘Lyme disease detected.’”
Although the test needs more development, Nila said those problems can be fixed.
“I believe that this project can be developed into a test that can detect Lyme disease,” she stated.
Nila, who is a Grade 11 Dalbrae Academy student, presented “Holy Mouses: The Potential Problem of Mice as Temperatures Rise.”
Nila said she moved on to the national event after placing fourth overall at the Strait Regional Science Fair.
“I used a survey of my community to look into the chance that mice could increase because of the temperature,” she explained. “Just noticing that over the past couple of years, there were more of them around then you’d expect.”
Noticing warmer winters due to climate change, Nila said she was curious.
“When we did get mice in the spring, I wondered if that had anything to do with it,” she stated. “My purpose for doing this project was to make sure that this was, or wasn’t happening, to see if it could be a problem for anyone else. When I started this project, I really thought my hypothesis was correct, and that, as the temperatures rose, mice in people’s houses would go up. Because when the winters are warmer, mice are less likely to starve, they’re more likely to breed and stay alive, they have abundant food sources.”
Nila said mice are a problem.
“They are considered biohazards because their waste can cause disease to humans and pets. They can become a real problem for house owners,” she said.
Nila said her survey started with a scale from 0 to 10 going back to 2017, asking participants to rate the approximate number of mice in their homes. Below that question was a list of factors affecting the amount of mice, including whether they have pets or mouse-proof.
To ensure the results truly reflected the community, Nila made sure the homes were spread out.
“To conduct my survey, I went to 57 houses around Mabou. I think there’s about 500, so just over one-tenth. Just gave them a one-page survey, asking if they’d like to fill it out, explained what was on it, and in less than two minutes, everyone was done,” she reported. “
Nila said the results were not as she expected.
“Mice don’t go into houses when the temperature gets higher. I found this out by using a statistical analysis tool,” she noted. “Every time the temperatures go up, mice go down just a little bit.”