Wetsuits Designed to Prevent Shark Attacks

(Photo: Shark Attack Mitigation Systems)

Yes, it's Shark Week. But why limit yourself to just one week a year? Live every week like it's Shark Week.

And don't get bitten. These camouflage suits made by an Australian company called Shark Attack Mitigation Systems may help you stay safe:

Sharks, of course, make use of several senses in tracking prey, but sight becomes crucial when they move in to strike. Collin and Hart had just published research suggesting that sharks were cone monochromats, like whales and dolphins, and thus likely color blind. From those findings, they developed parameters for two designs: one to camouflage divers from sharks and another to repel the predators outright. Since they were colorblind, the researchers surmised, object detection would be based primarily on brightness contrast. So, for the camouflage suit, they determined a set of optimum reflectance spectra that would make the suit hard to spot under typical conditions in western Australian waters. It’s the same basic principle as military camouflage, just optimized for shark eyeballs.

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