MIT is sending robots into sewers to predict disease outbreaks

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MITresearchersaresending
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Below our feet, sewers hold a world of microbial information. That’s what
MIT researchers are mining through, thanks to a pair of sewage sampling
robots named (rather appropriately) Mario and Luigi.
For the last year, researchers have been sending the two robots into the
underbellies of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts to study how
diseases can spread through city populations. The project is a three-yearlong effort in urban epidemiology, as well as an attempt to learn more
about the things people put into their bodies.
In July 2015, the team launched the robots as a part of Underworlds , a
project of MIT’s Senseable City Lab and Alm Lab . The robots are hauled
through manholes and fitted with GPS devices that tell the researchers
where they are as they make their journeys. They spend an hour or two
inside a sewer at a time, vacuuming up samples as they drift around.
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The researchers are making sure the data from those samples is local
and traceable. That way, scientists can study what
a specific neighborhood or block’s health looks like, and even
pinpoint what their diets look like.
“We aimed to ensure that
toilet water was no more
than 10 minutes journey
from its origin and our
sample point,” Eric Alm,
the project's chief
investigator, tells Tech
Insider in an email. That’s
opposed to, say,
sampling sewage at a
treatment plant, where it’s
much more difficult to
determine where
everything came from.
“We find that the sewage
looks much closer to stool
and urine samples
collected directly from
individuals,” Alm says.
From the samples,
Luigiisaslimmer,faster,andcheaper
versionoftheMariosewerbot.
researchers can detect
CourtesyMITUnderworlds
viruses, bacterial
pathogens, and
biochemical markers from drugs (both illegal and illegal).
The researchers hope they’ll be able to use the data to inform
policymakers on public health issues, like potential disease outbreaks.
Though waterborne diseases are less prevalent now than they once
were — typhoid and cholera both had devastating international
pandemics in the 19th and 20th centuries — they still ravage cities with
poor water sanitation. Typhoid fever is still prevalent in India; according to
a study published in The Lancet, the disease affects 493.5 people out of
every 100,000 annually — that's nearly 6.18 million cases in the country
every year.
The researchers can also find out whether a certain part of the city has a
drug problem, or measure the effects of food-related legislation, Professor
Carlo Ratti, the project head, told Quartz. For instance, if a city imposes a
tax or ban on certain foods (like New York's failed ban on large sugary
drinks), the team could observe how people change their diets in
response.
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And while MIT’s researchers aren’t yet sending the robots into the world's
most contaminated sewer systems, the data and findings they hope to
submit to local lawmakers could serve as a justification for expanding the
program to other cities. They're already planning to use the robots
in Kuwait in 2017 as part of their partnership with the MIT-Kuwait Center
for Natural Resources and the Environment.
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“Funding will come directly from the stakeholders that benefit from the
data: companies, governmental and non-governmental organizations,”
Ratti tells Tech Insider.
As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Now we
can say the same for sewage.
Listen. Decode. Decide.
SEEALSO:ThisMITprofessorisusingbeepoopto
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NOWWATCH:Thisscientisthasfiguredouthowto
turnsewageintoenergy
More: sewage MIT Boston Diseases
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