Rare Magnets Repel Sharks

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Now this is something cool. By accidently SharkDefense found out that a special kind of rare earth magnet repels sharks. This can result in many beneficial solutions such as preventing shark attacks and if they can somehow use it for fishing in the ocean, it would save alot of sharks that needlessly get tangled up in the nets.

Since 2001, SharkDefense has been working on a chemical shark repellent. According to Herrmann, he and Stroud were playing around with powerful rare-earth magnets in 2005, when he dropped one next to their shark research tank in Oak Ridge, New Jersey. The lemon and nurse sharks inside instantly darted to the opposite wall.

Here is a video of it in action….pretty exciting…

And before you go and get your own shark repellent magnet…

Divers and swimmers may thrill to the idea of shark safeguards. However, before you rush out to buy neodymium magnets to create your own shark-repelling gear, Herrmann cautions that the magnets appear to have an effective range of only 10 inches. Also, you’d need to align the magnetic poles outward and keep the magnets from clicking together, and once you had the necessary 10 to 20 pounds of magnets all over your body, you’d sink. So, at a cost of about $5 a magnet, you could theoretically turn yourself into a $400 shark-safe anchor at the bottom of the sea.