HARK

Great White shark evolution debate involves WSU Lake Campus geology professor

A significant debate is currently underway in the scientific community over the evolution of the Great White shark, and Chuck Ciampaglio, Ph.D., an assistant professor of geology at the Wright State University Lake Campus, is right in the middle of it. The issue is if the Great White, one of the most feared predators of the sea, evolved from the huge prehistoric megladon shark or if its a...

Shark attack worries? Driving to the beach is more deadly

Which is more likely to happen - you being in a car wreck or being bitten by a shark? Those who answered that cars are greater killers win a free trip to the beach. It's really no contest, says a Texas A&M University professor. Your chances of being in a wreck are far greater than being a shark's lunch, says John McEachran, a professor of wildlife and fishery sciences who has studied...

Plankton can run, but can't hide from basking sharks

Basking sharks are much more canny predators than previously thought, ecologists have discovered. According to new research published online by the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology, basking sharks are able to reverse their normal pattern of diving at dawn and surfacing at dusk in order to foil the attempts of zooplankton trying to evade capture. As well as shedding new light...

Shark skin saves naval industry money

Covering ship hulls with artificial shark skin could help ships sailing smoothly. The growth of marine organisms such as barnacles on ship hulls is a major cause of increased energy costs in the naval industry. Shark skin offers a structural design that prevents this so called 'bio-fouling'. Ralph Liedert from the University of Applied Sciences, Bremen, Germany, is presenting his work on t...

Oceans are 70 percent shark free

Marine scientists have discovered that the deepest oceans of the world would appear to be shark free. Sharks occur throughout the world's oceans and it had been hoped that as man explores deeper into th...

World shark attacks dipped in 2005, part of long-term trend

Assertive and even aggressive human behavior could explain why shark attacks worldwide dipped last year, continuing a five-year downward trend in close encounters with the oceanic predators, new University of Florida research suggests. Greater safety precautions and in-your-face responses to confrontations with sharks went a long way in reducing the total number of attacks from 65 in 2004...

UF scientists trace origin of shark's electric sense

Sharks are known for their almost uncanny ability to detect electrical signals while hunting and navigating. The discovery, reported by University of Florida scientists in the current edition of Evolution & Develop...

Ongoing collapse of coral reef shark populations

Investigators have revealed that coral reef shark populations are in the midst of rapid decline, and that “no-take zones”—reefs where fishing is prohibited—do protect sharks, but only when compliance with no-take regulations is high. The findings, reported by William Robbins and colleagues at James Cook University and its ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, appear in the December 5th...

Triple threat: World fin trade may harvest up to 73 million sharks per year

The first real-data study of sharks harvested for their valuable fins estimates as few as 26 million and as many as 73 million sharks are killed each year worldwide--three times higher than was reported originally by the United Nations, according to a paper published as the cover story in the October 2006 edition of Ecology Letters. "The shark fin trade is notoriously secretive. But we w...

Overfishing large sharks impacts entire marine ecosystem, shrinks shellfish supply

Fewer big sharks in the oceans mean that bay scallops and other shellfish may be harder to find at the market, according to an article in the March 30 issue of the journal Science, tying two unlikely links in the food web to the same fate. A team of Canadian and American ecologists, led by world-renowned fisheries biologist Ransom Myers at Dalhousie University, has found that overfishing...

New research shows sharks use their noses and bodies to locate smells

Sharks are known to have a keen sense of smell, which in many species is critical for finding food. However, according to new research from Boston University marine biologists, sharks can not use just their noses to locate prey; they also need their skin – specifically a location called the lateral line. The lateral line is an organ used by all fish to detect, with exquisite sensitivity, movem...