No huge Kleenex needed – Snot Bot gathers whale snot for scientists to study
Those crazy scientists over at Olin College of Engineering have developed a robot, affectionately named Snot Bot, that is designed to collect mucus (whale snot) from whales who refuse to blow their noses in huge, conveniently-placed Kleenexes. Unlike whale blubber (thankfully), they don’t want to use the whale snot to make soap, candle wax, or yuk, whale-snot cooking oil. They need the whale snot to tell if the whale is sick or not. Whale snot is pretty important stuff. Scientists can study the whale mucus from a whale’s blowhole and tell a lot about its health. [Editor note: Reeko said that under no circumstances were we to insert any blowhole jokes here or spout off about how funny “blowhole” sounds]. Until now, it was nearly impossible