|Although sharks use a number of senses to locate prey, it is known that vision is the crucial sense in the final stage of an attack. By disrupting a shark's visual perception, an attack can either be diverted altogether or at least delayed to allow time to exit the water.
Created by Hamish Jolly and Craig Anderson, working with the University of Western Australia. Since sharks see in black and white, the patterns on the suits make you either totally invisible to them, or unpalatable. They have developed two lines of wetsuit designed to protect divers and surfers from sharks.
“It's based on new breakthrough science which is all about visionary systems for predatory sharks," Anderson said. "We've been able to interpret that science and convert that into, basically, materials that create some confusion for sharks' visual systems."
See, it turns out that sharks are colorblind. The “Elude,” a blue and white wetsuit made for divers, renders you invisible in the water. Anderson said it "hide[s] you in the water column.
Anderson and Jolly's research firm, Shark Attack Mitigation Systems (SAMS), licensed their technology to wetsuit maker Radiator, which opened pre-orders for the first suits online Thursday from Aus$429 (US$392).
+ More >>