3 days ago
42
The setup looks like an unlikely combination between an aquarium and a robotics experiment.
At the bottom of a rectangular tank, 15 mussels sit nestled together, their round, dark brown shells nearly indistinguishable from smooth river rocks if not for the slightly agape crack between their shells.
Each one wears a pair of magnets, which attach to a mess of wires that snakes up and out of the water into a nearby box that feeds data into a computer.
It’s all part of a unique human-mollusk partnership at the Minneapolis Public Works water treatment plant along the Mississippi River in Fridley.
“When all the mussels close up, the computer sends a text message or email telling me that something’s wrong, something’s in the river,” said George Kraynick, the city’s water quality manager.
