Today I Learned (TIL)

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TIL about "SnotBots": drones that are flown through whale spouts to collect biological samples (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 14 hours ago by Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/til@lemmy.ca

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Ocean Alliance began working with drones in 2013. Within the last few years, they began collecting exhaled breath condensation, also known as "whale snot."

The whale snot is a biological jackpot with DNA, microbiomes, and hormones. This data was nearly impossible to collect from a live whale.

"I've seen more unique behaviors from a drone in the last five years than I've seen in the previous 25," Kerr said.

They’re apparently also using the drones to tag them for GPS tracking, really cool use for them.

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[–] abbadon420@lemm.ee 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I bet you saw them mentioned in the most recent Veritasium video?

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 12 hours ago

Yup! Didn’t expect a bit on whale monitoring tech in a video on Europa