How many times have you discretely (or not so discretely) backed away from someone after they sneeze?  Even if the sneezer covers their nose it’s instinct to move out of the way.  We are all well aware of the germs and grossness contained in the snotty mist being forced out from another human’s body at 100mh.  Some research teams are doing the opposite of that though.  They are rushing into the snot stream!

A group of virologists from Macquarie University in Sidney, Australia as well as the nonprofit group Ocean Alliance, have begun to use drones to fly into clouds of whale snot to collect data.  When a whale surfaces to breathe and blows air out of it’s blow hole, that big mist of water is also filled with mucus.  This mucus is filled with DNA, microbes, viruses, and hormones.  It is a hotbed of data for virologists and biologists to study.  This data can allow scientists to study the health of whales in the wild. Jemma Geoghegan, who is the leader of the Macquarie University study said, “The proxies that we have for whale health at the moment are only from stranded animals and animals whose health has already been compromised.  If we could sample from seemingly healthy whales in their natural environment, it might tell us more about this aquatic virosphere that we know so little of at the moment.”

Besides collecting data samples from animals that are already in a state of compromised health, the means of getting the samples were very difficult.  Previously, researchers like Geoghegan and Iain Kerr of Ocean Alliance would have to get close enough to whales with boats then use poles or a nonthreatening harpoon like device to try and get a sample from the actual body of the whale.  After one particularly unsuccessful day trying to gather a sample Kerr recalls,”I was sitting there fuming, and this cloud of snot enveloped me,” the whale snot “was stinky and horrible, but as a biologist, anything that’s stinky and horrible is probably productive. I wondered if we could collect and study snot.”  The question was how to collect the snot.

Kerr, also a drone hobbyist, joined forces with his team at Ocean Alliance and a group of students from the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts to create the SnotBot.  The SnotBot is a hexacopter drone covered in petri dishes that can fly into the mist released from a whale’s blow hole to collect massive amounts of samples.  The Australian team also had a custom drone built for their research project.  The difference in their drone is that as it flies over a whale a disc on the top of the quadracopter opens to collect the mist and then closes back up.  The similarities between both teams drones is that they had to be built to be waterproof, fly through strong winds, and be able to land on an unstable surface like a rocking boat.

The benefits these drones are providing researchers is immense.  They have found a way to collect usable data to study a species and it’s habitat that we know relatively little about.  The drones are able to collect this data in ways that don’t disturb the whales in any way.  In fact, the whales are most likely unaware that they just contributed to scientific advancement.  But one of the most valuable aspects of using these drones according to Kerr is that “tech like SnotBot are a catalyst for the democratization of science.”  To run a research mission the previous way could cost upwards of $20,000 while not always being successful.  Meanwhile using a drone system has a high rate of success, can be used multiple times, and can cost less than $5,000.  This means that more teams will be able to raise funding to promote their research.

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