A 5th-grader made a discovery about stuffed animals and germs. It landed her in a medical journal.

Kids are the best.

 Morgan Shoaff
07.25.15

Gaby Zane isn't your average fifth-grader, and there are a lot of doctors who would agree.

Why? It all started with a science project that was influenced by her favorite stuffed animal, Sheena.

Gaby with her stuffed cat, Sheena. Hi, Sheena. Image via 9News.

Gaby's parents are both doctors. So when it came time for her fifth-grade science project, she got to thinking about what happens when kids end up in the hospital.

How could she help those kids?

"Kids probably get stressed that they're going to have to go through an operation," Gaby told Kyle Dyer of 9News. "Stuffed animals really help with staying calm, but they can carry lots of bacteria into the operating room."

Comforting and cute animals full of icky germs? Cue the light-bulb moment!

Gaby came up with a way to make operating rooms more sterile, especially for kids.

She grabbed some stuffed animals in her own home and discovered just how many germs they had by rubbing sterile swabs on them and taking culture samples.

"They had a lot of bacteria," she told 9News.

Cute on the outside, and also filthy on the outside. Image via 9News.

So ... she washed them. And it turns out that if you wash and dry your stuffed animals, you can prevent germs from spreading.

"When we washed them, they had a 94 percent decrease in bacteria," said Gaby. "Put them in a sealed plastic bag before you get to the operating room to make sure they stay sterile, and you'll be OK."

A 94% decrease is huge!

If Gaby's solution sounds simple, that's because it is.

But for people with already weakened immune systems, think of how big of an impact her discovery could make.

Gaby's mom, Dr. Murphy-Zane, loved the idea. It was right in line with what her hospital had been trying to do, too: minimize surgical-site infections.

"The push is on to decrease the bacterial load for the operating room ... not just people scrubbing in or wearing booties on their feet," Dr. Murphy-Zane told 9News. "We're trying to minimize traffic coming in and out of the O.R. and minimize materials coming into the room."

But because of Gaby's research, kids can now bring their stuffed animals into the O.R., too, without bringing germs along with them and risking their health.

This is a solid example of how simple ideas can go far.

Gaby's idea just keeps growing.

According to Bustle, her science project can now be found in the paper "Stuffed Animals in the Operating Room: A Reservoir of Bacteria With a Simple Solution," which was recently published in the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics. It's co-authored by Gaby, her mom, and some of her mom's colleagues. So cool.

Getting a scientific study published is no easy task. But Gaby, who is now 12, can mark it off her to-do list.

Now, excuse me while I go wash all of my things.

Bravo, Gaby! Bravo.

empathy for all human condition humanity and culture health parenting and children research science and technology parenting culture health care internet culture internet new ideas health wellbeing health general
More

Someone named ‘Jeffrey’ or ‘Michael’ is more likely to be a CEO than a woman.

Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash

If you're a woman and you want to be a CEO, you should probably think about changing your name to "Jeffrey" or "Michael." Or possibly even "Michael Jeffreys" or "Jeffrey Michaels."

According to Fortune, last year, more men named Jeffrey and Michael became CEOs of America's top companies than women. A whopping total of one woman became a CEO, while two men named Jeffrey took the title, and two men named Michael moved into the C-suite as well.

The "New CEO Report" for 2018, which looks at new CEOS for the 250 largest S&P 500 companies, found that 23 people were appointed to the position of CEO. Only one of those 23 people was a woman. Michelle Gass, the new CEO of Kohl's, was the lone female on the list.

Keep Reading Show less
ceo women in business representation corporate america female leaders
popular

Netflix cuts controversial suicide scene in ‘13 Reasons Why’ more than two years later.

Netflix

How much of what we do is influenced by what we see on TV? When it comes to risky behavior, Netflix isn't taking any chances.

After receiving a lot of heat, the streaming platform is finally removing a controversial scenedepicting teen suicide in season one of "13 Reasons Why. The decision comes two years after the show's release after statistics reveal an uptick in teen suicide.

"As we prepare to launch season three later this summer, we've been mindful about the ongoing debate around the show. So on the advice of medical experts, including Dr. Christine Moutier, Chief Medical Officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, we've decided with creator Brian Yorkey and the producers to edit the scene in which Hannah takes her own life from season one," Netflix said in a statement, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Keep Reading Show less
netflix 13 reasons why suicide mental health tv series
Culture

Trump just bizarrely claimed Arnold Schwarzenegger had 'died.' An unfazed Arnold flexed back.

At Trump's 'Social Media Summit' on Thursday, he bizarrely claimed Arnold Schwarzenegger had 'died' and he had witnessed said death. Wait, what?!


He didn't mean it literally - thank God. You can't be too sure! After all, he seemed to think that Frederick Douglass was still alive in February. More recently, he described a world in which the 1770s included airports. His laissez-faire approach to chronology is confusing, to say the least.

Keep Reading Show less
Democracy

There is literally no such thing as 'sex with underage women.'

The language we use matters.

Words matter. And they especially matter when we are talking about the safety and well-being of children.

While the #MeToo movement has shed light on sexual assault allegations that have long been swept under the rug, it has also brought to the forefront the language we use when discussing such cases. As a writer, I appreciate the importance of using varied wording, but it's vital we try to remain as accurate as possible in how we describe things.

There can be gray area in some topics, but some phrases being published by the media regarding sexual predation are not gray and need to be nixed completely—not only because they dilute the severity of the crime, but because they are simply inaccurate by definition.

One such phrase is "non-consensual sex with a minor." First of all, non-consensual sex is "rape" no matter who is involved. Second of all, most minors legally cannot consent to sex (the age of consent in the U.S. ranges by state from 16 to 18), so sex with a minor is almost always non-consensual by definition. Call it what it is—child rape or statutory rape, depending on circumstances—not "non-consensual sex."

Keep Reading Show less
Culture