During winter, you're probably familiar with human snot, but are you familiar with whale snot? Dr. Vanessa Pirotta is!

Vanessa is a marine biologist, naturalist and science communicator, and has been collecting snot from whale spouts using bespoke drones in order to understand whale health. She's collected viruses, bacteria and DNA from the snot, in a much less invasive way than other methods. She's also run whale watching tours, swum with whales in Tonga and observed them in Antarctica.

Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License:

• Whales - Matt Matic

Image from Scott Portelli on Instagram