Just what we needed, robots not only have superior intellect, response time, agility, etc, now we have to contend with their bodily fluids:

Yes, those brilliant minds at The University of Warwick in the UK have developed synthetic polymers that eerily imitate snot, and aid with machine scent detection like nobody’s business.

The scientists report that the mucus improved the sensitivity of a conventional electronic sniffer five-fold, helped deliver results more quickly, and allowed the nose to distinguish between scents, such as milk and vanilla, that it never could before. Engineer Julian Gardner, who led the research, says electronic snot-filled noses could debut in hospitals by 2011, when they will be sensitive enough to pick up the scent of diseases such as throat or eye infections long before visible symptoms crop up.

We in the RoBunker find it intriguing that diseases have their own scents. We’ll let you know when our labs perfect Eau Du Cholera, assuming anyone would actually wear it. . .

[Long Live the Robotariot, Communist Robot! (via PopSci)]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Bill Joy Might Be Right, Robot Overlords. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.