Aron plays the piano and the violin and is a member of the football, basketball, and tennis teams at his school. Aron is a member of his 4H Entomology Club and enjoys competing in spelling bees. Aron hopes to become a physician someday. "I would like do research and surgery," he says.
His mother and father are his science heroes. "My mother and father are optometrists and have encouraged my interest in science," he says.
Continuing research that he began last year, Aron wanted to elaborate on his findings that the embossed brand names on bars of soap harbored more bacteria than the flat surfaces of the bar and that this meant that there was a higher rate of bacteria transmission for embossed bars when compared to unadorned bars. Aron chose to expand his testing by increasing his sample size, reducing variables, and testing the bacteria loads on foods and contact lenses touched after washing with these soaps.
Aron experimented with two sets of 60 soaps, with 10 bars each of Dial and Ivory with and without brand name letter recesses and 10 bars each of new Dial and Ivory for controls. He contaminated the first set after rubbing his hands in raw hamburger before washing with each bar, and the second set was contaminated by dipping his hands in dirty water before washing with each bar. An hour later he washed with each bar again along with 10 bars each of new Dial and Ivory for controls. His hands were cultured and plated on blood agar after washing with each of the soaps, and colonies were counted after 48 hours. Bologna, the outside and inside of an apple, and a contact lens were also touched after washing with each dirt contaminated soap. Five hours later the foods were cultured and plated, and one week later the contact lenses were cultured and plated. These samples were put in a sterile test tube of PBS. Aron found that in all the tests, the soaps with the recesses created more bacteria on the hands, foods and contact lenses, at a level that could be an infective dose in some bacterial species and could increase the chance of infections. There were also more bacteria from the used soaps with and without recesses than the new soaps, supporting conflicting research that used soaps can transfer bacteria after hand washing.
