Today’s Tech Image: High-speed video cameras reveal the truth about sneezing

By Editorial Team On Feb 12, 2016

Top and side views of the rapid fragmentation process of mucosalivary fluid occurring during a healthy sneeze. Images captured with a camera operating at 6,000 to 8,000 frames per second. From the paper, “Visualization of sneeze ejecta: steps of fluid fragmentation leading to respiratory droplets,” by B. E. Scharfman, A. H. Techet, J. W. M. Bush, L. Bourouiba.

The evolution of the multiphase turbulence cloud that suspends droplets emitted during a sneeze. Shown here are times ranging from 7 to 340 milliseconds post sneeze onset. From the paper, “Visualization of sneeze ejecta: steps of fluid fragmentation leading to respiratory droplets,” by B. E. Scharfman, A. H. Techet, J. W. M. Bush, L. Bourouiba.

It’s Winter here in the United States, which typically means a lot of germs, coughing, and sneezing. MIT researchers have used new high-speed videos to reveal some disgusting truths about the common sneeze. For starters, when a person sneezes, he or she propels a sheet of fluid that balloons, then breaks into long filaments that end up dispersing as a spray of droplets. For a visual, imagine flinging paint through the air.

So how do you capture actually sneeze particles? The MIT team used two high-speed cameras to the record over 100 sneezes from healthy people and captured the fraction of a second during which fluid is expelled from the mouth and flung through the air.

Skim through the images to see the result or learn more about the project and its sneeze findings at MIT.