Chunder-bot used to confirm how viruses spread

Norovirus is famed for sending cruise ships scurrying back to port to unload hordes of violently ill passengers. Aside from its brutal symptoms—vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, and a general sense that death would be a fine option—the virus is famed for how easily it spreads. It has generally been assumed that the vomiting portion of the symptoms scatters small particles of liquid that carry the virus to new surfaces.

But this is science, and we don't like assumptions. "There have been no laboratory-based studies characterizing the degree of [norovirus] release during a vomiting event," complain the authors of a new paper on the virus. So, to solve this gap in our knowledge, they built a simulated vomiting machine. Once the machine was functional, a batch of virus (they used a harmless bacterial one) was mixed up and "was then subjected to scaled physiologically relevant pressures associated with vomiting."

The amount of virus varied based on the pressure behind the vomit and the viscosity of the material. But virus traveled far from the site of release in all cases, confirming that the virus can potentially spread through this route. So now we know.