Science+Experiment+1

=Scientific Method 1 =
 * Topic:** Smell and Taste


 * Question:**Does smell affect the sense of taste?

To taste and smell you have 2 types of nerves. The Olfactory and the Gustatory nerves. The Olfactory nerve is the nerve that is used mainly for your smell and is activated whenever an odor comes in contact with the nerve. The Gustatory nerve is a nerve that is in your taste buds and the back of you throat, these nerves activate when food or drinks combine with the saliva and the Gustatory nerves touches the mixture of the food and saliva. Scientists proved that as you get older, you start to lose your sense of smell. This usually happens after the age of 60. Scientists can test you with simple tests that involve the "scratch and sniff test" or the "sip, rinse, and spit test". http://www.entnet.org/HealthInformation/smellTaste.cfm
 * Background Information:**

Taste is what keeps our appetite and protects us from poisons. For example whenever you drink medicine it has a bitter taste right? Thats because it is a poison. Its not harmful if you take the right amount, but if you take to much, it could be a serious problem. You taste buds, or the taste receptor cells, react to certain types of foods. These types are salt, sour, sweet, bitter, and sometimes people include umami. Umami is a certain mix of acid type flavor. http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/biosi/staffinfo/jacob/teaching/sensory/taste.html

When ever you have a cold you can't taste anything because your nose is plugged up. When your nose is stuffed up it can't take the odor molecules from the food to pass to the olfactory receptor. When your nose is clogged up, the odors can't get to the olfactory receptor so their is no signal going to the brain about the smell. Now because the odors can't get to your brain, the brain thinks of nothing, so when you et something it doesn't activate the taste. http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/newton/tstesmll.html


 * Hypothesis:** I know that if I took ten people and had five people plugging their nose and five people leaving their nose unplugged, and eat a piece of celery, the people with their nose closed will not taste anything because they can not smell the food.


 * Procedure:**
 * 1) Gather 10 people.
 * 2) Give five people a nose plug.
 * 3) Once the nose plugs are tightly on, give each person a piece of celery.
 * 4) Now tell the people without the nose plugs to eat the celery piece.
 * 5) After the first five people eat the celery, ask them if they tasted it?
 * 6) Write down your information on what they answered on a piece of paper.
 * 7) Then ask the next five people with the nose plug to eat their piece of celery.
 * 8) Again ask that person if they tasted it.
 * 9) Write the answer down on the same sheet of paper you put the previous answer on.
 * 10) Make sure you categorize the paper with "Nose Plugged" and "Nose Unplugged"


 * Materials:**
 * 10 people
 * 5 nose plugs or nose clip
 * 10 pieces of celery
 * 1 Pencil
 * A notebook

In my data, I found out that when you have your nose plugged, you can't taste as well. I have done the experiment on four people, two people with their nose plugged said that they could barely taste it and the two people with their nose unplugged said that they could taste it without a problem.
 * Data/Results:**

In my hypothesis I wrote, "I know that if I took ten people and had five people plugging their nose and five people leaving their nose unplugged, and eat a piece of celery, the people with their nose closed will not taste anything because they can not smell the food." So I was wrong because when I did my experiment. The people who had their nose plugged and couldn't smell, couldn't taste as well as the people without their nose plugged. What I should have done with the experiment, is take a stronger tasting food and had the people eat that to taste it other then celery because celery doesn't have that strong of a taste. I would change the experiment by taking stronger tasting foods, going into a room where their is nothing that could cause allergies, and have better nose plugs to use.
 * Conclusion:**