Lights could stop shark attacks

Fixing bright lights to the bottom of surfboards and to wetsuits could help stop great white sharks attacking people, according to a study by scientists. Dr Laura Ryan and a team from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, set up their study in a bay in South Africa where great whites visit. The team spent nearly 500 hours towing seal-shaped pieces of foam through the water. Great whites are thought to be colour-blind and sometimes mistake the silhouette (dark outline) of a surfboard for prey. The team wanted to find a way of breaking up the look of a silhouette so as to disguise its shape. Ryan tried lights in various arrangements, including vertical and horizontal stripes as well as flashing lights and different levels of brightness. The experiment showed that…

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The Week Junior (UK) (Digital) - 1 Issue, 468

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