Word: sharked
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Sharks are one of nature's ultimate designs, tested over 400 million years--confident, sleek and lethal (see graphic). Studies show some sharks can measure changes in electric currents as tiny as five-billionths of a volt. They use this ability to hunt for prey hidden under the sand and to navigate according to the earth's magnetic field. "They are like some high-tech AWACS thing, with all their sensors," says Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, Calif. When they do attack a human, the weight of evidence now suggests, they...
...GREAT WHITE Scott Yerby never saw the great white shark before it attacked him as he surfed off Clam Beach near Eureka, Calif. "This thing jumped me--it had enough force to lift me right out of the water. It was on my leg, I could see my femur, there was blood in the water--I knew then it was pretty serious," says Yerby, who was 29 at the time of the August 1997 attack. He hit the shark on the nose (the prescribed last-ditch defense, along with ripping at its gills), managed to get back on his board...
...Reyes Bird Observatory and the Hopkins Marine Center at Stanford University, is on the verge of finding where the great whites go after they leave the coast of California in the winter. Since 1999, the biologists have been attaching "pop-up tags" to great whites. These continually measure the shark's position, depth, speed and direction, and store the data in digital archives. After six months, the tiny computer in the tag sends an electric current through a magnesium burn wire, which dissolves in the seawater and allows the tag to pop up to the surface. The tag transmits...
Great whites are the most lethal to humans. Since 1876 there have been 254 confirmed nonprovoked attacks on humans by great whites, 67 of which were fatal, according to statistics compiled by the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Over the same period, tiger sharks have attacked 83 times with 29 fatalities, and bull sharks have attacked 69 times with 17 fatalities. Great white attacks on humans generally involve just one bite. Researchers are not sure, but most think the shark's sensory organs quickly differentiate between humans and the blubber-rich seals it prefers...
...TIGER SHARK Jesse Spencer, now 18, from the Big Island of Hawaii, was surfing near Kona in October 1999 when a 10-ft. tiger shark came halfway out of the water and pushed him off his board. The shark's nose struck Spencer's head, then its jaws locked onto his arm. "I could almost see the whole shark. My elbow was down his throat." The shark ripped muscles, tendons and blood vessels, then chomped down on the surfboard before finally disappearing. Spencer made it to shore, and today his arm is recovering, although he still cannot grip with...