WARD BUILDING – It was nearly the perfect AOSC project. Fast, easy, delicious, and possibly could provide an answer to an age old question: how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? Many have tried and all of them have failed the scientific method, as there have been no attempts to objectively study this question (really though, I did a literature search because this is something I’d like to see studied). When FSM senior Elizabeth Branden came up with the idea at the start of medical school, she knew her main difficulty would be finding a mentor.

She sent several dozen emails before finding a faculty member willing to take on her project. She set up a quick meeting with Dr. Owl (pictured), an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences on the Evanston campus.

“The IRB was very confused by our proposal,” Branden described to The Flipside. “We had to resubmit our request at least 10 times.”

Though she says she can’t reveal the full protocol before it’s published, Branden describes working with a post-doctorate student to use stem cells to create several clones of the same human tongue. You can imagine the rest from there.

Though potentially groundbreaking, the AOSC committee denied Branden’s thesis for a second time.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she added. “This is something that’s puzzled the scientific community for years. I guess the world may never know.”