The article that I
chose is called “’Vomiting Larry’: Puking Robot Helps Scientists Study Spread
of Norovirus” and was a Reuters article published by Fox News on January 3, 2013 at the following link: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/01/03/vomiting-larry-puking-robot-helps-scientists-study-spread-norovirus/
It’s another rough
winter in New England. The flu outbreaks
this year are as bad as ever. However,
this year there is a new virus spreading in certain parts of the United States
more rapidly and with more severe symptoms than those of the regular flu. It is called the norovirus. The norovirus has affected over a million
people this year in Britain alone. In
the U.S. the numbers are even greater. In
the U.S., “the Centers for Disease Control say norovirus causes 21 million
illnesses annually.” Each person
infected by this disease suffers violent vomiting and diarrhea.
There have been,
however, some improvements in trying to find ways to stop the spread of the
virus. Studies are being done with the
help of a robot named Vomiting Larry.
This robot was developed at the Health and Safety Laboratory in
Derbyshire, Northern England and has been used to test how far florescent
markers in virus droplets spread once the sickness is released. With help from robots and other technology,
scientists are learning more and more about the spread of norovirus. That is the good news. The bad news is that “the virus changes
constantly, making it a moving target for drug developers”. Scientists believe that until more is learned
about this disease, it will be the second coming of the common cold only with
worse, more flu-like symptoms.
This article truly
amazed me because personally, I had never heard of the norovirus before. The virus is a violent stomach virus, is
extremely contagious and, like the
common cold, there is no remedy for it. Like we talked about in class, microbes can be
lurking anywhere and we need to be cautious.
We need to be even more cautious because the spread of this disease is so
hard to prevent. Many types of
disinfectants and cleaning fluids do not destroy this virus. The article states “What makes this such a
formidable enemy is its ability to evade death from cleaning and to survive
long periods outside a human host”. The
virus can survive in still water for months, possibly years. This just shows how incredibly durable this
disease is. I find it really interesting
how one person with this virus on a cruise ship recently got everyone on the cruise
sick in a matter of days. It just shows
you how unbelievably fast this disease moves.
It must really be an unenjoyable experience to have this illness and I
hope I never catch I personally. I am
glad that I came across this article and will make sure to be careful this
winter and avoid the virus at all costs.
What do you guys think?
I like this article because it relates so well to everything that is going on right now in Reading. So many teachers and students have been out of school the past couple of weeks because of sickness. My sister hadn't gotten a flu shot yet, so my mom called tons of pharmacies until one said that they had some. I feel like everyone is scared everytime they see someone coughing because they don't want to get sick next. It is really cool that scientists were able to make a robot and study diseases. This article was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThis post was very interesting. I have never heard of this virus so this came as a huge surprise for me. I feel like more people should be notified about this virus because I haven't heard anything in the news about it and clearly its affected a lot of people. I think this was a very good idea for the Health and Safety Lab to make this Robot, I think more should be made to test out different diseases that could become epidemics around the world. I'm glad you posted this article because I am now more aware of the illnesses present in this season.
ReplyDeleteWhile this disease is a little unnerving it’s also kind of cool; it is very resilient and can survive for a long time. In class we talked about how bacteria could potentially develop to be able to survive in a sanitized environment, could this be an example of the beginning of that?
ReplyDeleteVomiting Larry is also remarkable. I know there is a lot of great technology out there and robots can be made to do many things, but to vomit, an act very human like, is notable.