Robotic baby helps unveil how dust affects human infants

Scientists have developed a crawling robotic baby, that may help understand how dirt and germs on the floor affect human infants in the first year of their life. The research showed that when babies crawl, their movement across floors, especially carpeted surfaces, kicks up high levels of dirt, skin cells, bacteria, pollen, and fungal spores. The infants inhale a dose of bio bits in their lungs that is four times what an adult would breathe walking across the same floor.

While this may sound alarming, scientists from Purdue University in the US said that this may not be a bad thing. “Many studies have shown that inhalation exposure to microbes and allergen-carrying particles in that portion of life plays a significant role in both the development of, and protection from, asthma and allergic diseases,” said Brandon Boor, assistant professor at Purdue University.

“There are studies that have shown that being exposed to a high diversity and concentration of biological materials may reduce the prevalence of asthma and allergies later in life,” Boor said. Scientists have previously done studies to determine how much dirt and biological material is kicked up and resuspended into the air when an adult walks indoors, but this is …read more