Part 3/9:
Determined to validate Joy's claim, Kuna and Baran organized a double-blind experiment. They recruited Joy along with twelve participants—six diagnosed with Parkinson’s and six without. Each participant wore a plain white T-shirt for 24 hours, avoiding any deodorants or perfumes to ensure the shirts bore their natural scents. Joy’s task was straightforward: write down which T-shirts belonged to participants with Parkinson’s based solely on their aroma.
The results were astonishing. Joy successfully identified all six Parkinson's sufferers and matched each T-shirt with its corresponding half. The accuracy was astounding, although Joy did mistakenly label one control participant as having the disease, leaving room for doubt regarding her exceptional olfactory capabilities.