All posts tagged: Sharks

Great White Sharks Have Been in the Mediterranean Sea for Millions of Years—but Sightings Are Incredibly Rare

Great White Sharks Have Been in the Mediterranean Sea for Millions of Years—but Sightings Are Incredibly Rare

Published by skeptic

An encounter with a great white shark is undoubtedly a “thrilling” experience, considered especially rare in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The latest sighting, which has attracted media attention and made headlines around the world, occurred during a dive in the Strait of Sicily carried out by volunteers from Ghost Diving and Healthy Seas, organizations dedicated to protecting marine ecosystems. The encounter was documented by diver Derk Remmers, who told the BBC that he struggled to switch on his camera because of the excitement. The footage—the first ever recorded of a great white shark in its Mediterranean Sea habitat—shows a huge adult male specimen of Carcharodon carcharias, a native species that is now considered critically endangered. The Great White Shark Carcharodon carcharias, commonly known as the great white shark, belongs to the Lamnidae family and is one of the largest predatory fish in existence. It can exceed 6 meters (20 feet) in length and weigh more than 2 tons. It feeds primarily on fish, including rays and other sharks, though adult individuals may also …

Mysterious giant sharks that outlived the dinosaurs lurking in Puget Sound

Mysterious giant sharks that outlived the dinosaurs lurking in Puget Sound

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Most sharks have five gill slits on either side. But Hexanchus griseus, a giant and mysterious shark species, has an even six gill slits. These fish, appropriately called the sixgill shark, live in both tropical and temperate waters around the world and can reach up to 14-feet-long. They’ve existed since before the dinosaurs, and yet marine biologists still don’t know very much about them.  One of the problems—for researchers, anyway—is that sixgills usually live in deep oceanic waters, at depths of up to 9,800 feet. It also doesn’t help that they usually favor extremely low-light environments. Among other reasons, these aspects make sixgills difficult to study. Sixgill sharks (Hexanchus griseus) are older than dinosaurs and are typically found in the deeper parts of the ocean. Image: Seattle Aquarium. However, these ancient giants have been spotted in Washington State’s Puget Sound year-round, and in water as shallow as 20 feet. Scientists at Seattle Aquarium believe that female sixgills are giving …

I Tested Shark’s ChillPill Portable Fan and Am Obsessed With One Special Feature

I Tested Shark’s ChillPill Portable Fan and Am Obsessed With One Special Feature

Published by skeptic

Along with being a portable, handheld fan, the ChillPill is also a cooling plate and water mister. Shark/Jeffrey Hazelwood/CNET CNET’s key takeaways  At $150, the Shark ChillPill is pricey, but it could be worth it for those who want a device that functions as more than a portable fan. I’m especially impressed with the ChillPill’s dry-touch mister and cooling plate, which can reduce skin temperature by up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit. I did occasionally experience issues pressing the display to activate the device. I also don’t love that all its accessories are sold separately, from $10 to $40. On elementary school field days, when classes would gather for outdoor events on what felt like the hottest day of the year, I used to get jealous of the kids who had those handheld fans that doubled as water misters. Shark’s new ChillPill personal fan reminds me of them, but in a more modern, high-tech form.  The ChillPill is three-in-one, in both what it does and how it can be used.  As a wellness editor who tests …

Monday Microsofty 78: Card Sharks That Bite Harder

Monday Microsofty 78: Card Sharks That Bite Harder

Published by Jenni Sidey

If you go to a gambling establishment and play the one-armed bandit, the outcome for each of your turns is determined by computer software. To write good code for that, you need to know how to generate random numbers. I once consulted for a gaming establishment  involved in a lawsuit. I examined the software for a number of machines and became an expert in generating them. But interestingly, computer code can’t generate truly random numbers. The best it can do is generate pseudo-random numbers. To make sure that the pseudo-random number generator works, those who write software for gambling or sweepstakes must have their code analyzed by a third party to make sure that the pseudo-random number generator is working accurately. Here’s the transcript. To win at gambling, you need probability on your side. In pure chance games like roulette, craps, and one-armed bandits, the house edge guarantees you’ll lose over time. In probability theory, this is guaranteed by the Law of Large Numbers. That’s right. It’s the law: You lose. On the other hand, …

New bill to stop ‘claim sharks’ chasing after disabled vets : NPR

New bill to stop ‘claim sharks’ chasing after disabled vets : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

AFP via Getty Images and Getty Images/Collage by Emily Bogle/NPR A new bipartisan bill in Congress aims to curb what lawmakers say are predatory collection practices by so-called “claim sharks” — companies that charge disabled veterans large sums for help claiming benefits with the Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and two of their Republican colleagues, would prevent companies from using auto-dialers to call federal agencies. Pappas said the legislation was prompted by a 2025 NPR investigation of Trajector Medical that revealed how the Florida company used auto-dialer software to access a VA benefits hotline meant for veterans. The company would dial into the system to monitor benefit payments for thousands of its clients, often without their knowledge, and then automatically send the veteran a bill if their payments increased. “It’s crazy what these guys are trying to get away with,” Pappas told NPR. “To use a robo-dialer to make multiple calls to government lines and then just send veterans a bill whenever their eligibility …

Could warming seas bring great white sharks back to the North Sea? A 5-million-year-old shark tooth may provide clues

Could warming seas bring great white sharks back to the North Sea? A 5-million-year-old shark tooth may provide clues

Published by skeptic

As the Earth shifts to climates not seen for several hundred thousand years, we may need to look at ancient environments for clues about what could happen next. Our new study of two whale fossils, with preserved fragments of shark teeth, suggests the modern descendants of these animals could once again roam the southern region of the North Sea, between the UK, Belgium and Denmark. Climate change may recreate the conditions that allowed the ancestors of great white sharks to hunt in these waters. If you want information about how animals and other organisms might respond to the kind of climate changes our planet is experiencing right now, you need evidence of former responses to such changes. Palaeoecology, the study of the interactions between organisms in the deep past, has been coopted in the service of conservation science for some years now. One example of a past seascape which may tell us important information is that of the southern part of the North Sea, which was occupied a few million years ago by large marine …

Sharks Showing Unusually High Levels of Cocaine

Sharks Showing Unusually High Levels of Cocaine

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech The expression “coked to the gills” has never been more apt. Scientists from Brazil have discovered that sharks swimming in the Bahamas are testing positive for a potpourri of substances, ranging from caffeine to cocaine and painkillers — as if they, too, are ready for a party in an island paradise. The implications of the findings, detailed in a study in the journal Environmental Pollution, make for quite the comedown. That the substances are turning up in detectable quantities in sharks points to an “urgent need to address marine pollution in ecosystems often perceived as pristine,” the authors warned in the study, with divers in the area being the most likely culprit. “It’s mostly because people are going there, peeing in the water and dumping their sewage in the water,” study lead author Natascha Wosnick, a biologist with the Federal University of Paraná in Brazil, told Science News. Wosnick’s team conducted a previous study that found cocaine in …

Huge shark seen in sea off Majorca weeks after great white caught in Spain | UK | News

Huge shark seen in sea off Majorca weeks after great white caught in Spain | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

A large shark has been filmed in the waters off Majorca weeks after a great white was captured in Spanish seas. The Majorca Daily Bulletin is reporting today that the “shark of considerable size caused a fright” on Friday during a regatta in Palma Bay. One of the sailors captured footage of the shark appearing to swim peacefully as numerous sailing boats participated in the event close to the shoreline. The Majorca Daily News reports: “Although rare, sightings of this kind can occur at certain times of the year in Balearic waters.” In the video clip, it is not instantly clear precisely what species of shark it is. Shark specialist Juan Poyatos told Majorca Daily News that it seemed to be a mako shark, which is characterised by the BBC as an “ocean going predator” and “a supreme hunter” which “hunts some of the fastest fish in the sea and has evolved to be even faster”. Aniol Esteban, director of the Marilles Foundation, told Majorca Daily News: “It is very difficult to identify with certainty, …

Whale fossils reveal evidence of ancient shark attacks

Whale fossils reveal evidence of ancient shark attacks

Published by Jenni Sidey

A broken tooth lodged deep in bone can outlast the animal that lost it. In two whale skulls from Belgium, those fragments have done exactly that, preserving a moment of violence from roughly five million years ago. The skulls, both from the Early Pliocene, carry more than scratches. Embedded within them are pieces of shark teeth, snapped off during feeding. That detail matters. Bite marks alone can be ambiguous, but a tooth fragment ties predator and prey together with unusual clarity. Dr. Olivier Lambert of the Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels led the analysis using CT scans, which revealed the hidden fragments without damaging the fossils. “Our knowledge of past marine mammal assemblages in the North Sea remains rather fragmentary, so any new fossil may prove informative,” he said. “In this case, the studied skulls revealed some unexpected and fascinating clues about the way these whales’ life ended.” Location of the Port of Antwerp area on a map of northern Belgium. Grey shading indicates occurrence of marine Pliocene deposits. (CREDIT: Acta Palaeontologica Polonica) A …