Video: British Researchers Create Vomiting Larry Robot to Learn More About Norovirus
Posted on January 4, 2013
Researchers at the U.K.'s Health and Safety Laboratory created a robot, named Vomiting Larry, to study the norovirus. The norovirus causes vomiting, diarrhea and nausea. Norovirus patients may sometimes experience all three symptoms simultaneously. The virus sickened about 1 million people in the U.K. last year.
Ian Goodfellow, a professor of virology at the University of Cambridge, told Reuters that the norovirus is the "Ferrari of the virus world." He says it takes just 20 virus particles to infect someone. He says, "each droplet of vomit or gram of feces from an infected person can contain enough virus to infect more than 100,000 people."
Vomiting Larry will help scientists determine how far droplets can travel when a person vomits. BBC News reports that Larry has already shown the virus can travel a distance of 3m (9.8ft) when a person vomits. Here is an action video of Vomiting Larry. Take a look: