Vomiting Larry: Robot Pukes to Help Scientists Study Winter Bugs

Noroviruses are known to affect people of all ages, and specialists list them as the typical cause of viral gastroenteritis in humans.

Seeing how these winter vomiting bugs usually spread by contaminated food and water, person-to-person contact, and by means of aerosolization of the virus, researchers have developed a vomiting robot that can supposedly help them fight this rather common condition.

As Global Post explains, the working principles behind this rather peculiar project are fairly straightforward: the robot is made to puke, and since its vomiting behavior mimics that of a human, scientists can determine just how far the virus can travel and how it spreads.

Apparently, novoviruses can travel over distances of up to 10 feet whenever they are sent flying through the air via bile. Moreover, a single droplet of vomit has the potential to infect more than 100,000 people.

Check out the video below for more information on this topic. Vomiting Larry makes an appearance at about 2:47.

Fair warning: the images are rather disgusting, so viewer discretion is recommended.