Robot Shellfish May Tell Us About Climate Change’s Impact On Marine Species
Smithsonian Magazine - 11/01/2016
Out in a bed of mussels, off the Monterey coast in California in a space exposed at low tide, a handful of green LEDs blink, indicating the location of a cohort of robomussels.
The little black data loggers, formed from polyester resin, have been precisely engineered by Brian Helmuth and his lab at Northeastern University to mimic the mussels already living there, a few of which researchers plucked out to make space for the fake ones. They’re here for a study of climate change, and, more precisely, its effect on one of the most important species found in the ocean.
Out in a bed of mussels, off the Monterey coast in California in a space exposed at low tide, a handful of green LEDs blink, indicating the location of a cohort of robomussels.
The little black data loggers, formed from polyester resin, have been precisely engineered by Brian Helmuth and his lab at Northeastern University to mimic the mussels already living there, a few of which researchers plucked out to make space for the fake ones. They’re here for a study of climate change, and, more precisely, its effect on one of the most important species found in the ocean.
