Page 28 - aruba-today-20170317

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 17 March 2017

The seal whiskerers: Navy looks to sea life for new ships

JENNIFER McDERMOTT funding bio-inspired work
Associated Press at universities, has taken a
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — The greater interest in the field
U.S. Navy is enlisting the in the past decade. Ani-
help of seals — but not the mals do things well that the
kind of highly trained spe- Navy wants its underwater
cial operatives with whom vehicles to do well, like the
it usually associates. way they propel them-
Real seals, specifically their selves through water and
whiskers, may be the key can stay put in the face of
to a new way for ships and currents.
underwater vehicles to Scientists and engineers
sense their environment, at the warfare center are
scientists think. studying a variety of crea-
When a fish swims by, a tures to borrow their best
hungry seal senses the features for potential mili-
wake with its whiskers. It tary applications, from the
can tell characteristics of maneuverability of a bat
the fish, such as shape and in flight to cicadas’ abil-
size, and track the loca- ity to transmit sound. One
tion even when it’s murky researcher is even trying
or dark. to figure out how a sensor
Despite the adorable pos- could float like a jellyfish.
sibilities, scientists aren’t The seal whiskers project
looking to outfit ships and shows “remarkable prom-
vehicles with whiskers. In this Thursday, March 2, 2017, photo, engineer David Wade, hands only, attaches a seal whisker ise” for the Navy because
They’re studying how to a clamp in a laboratory at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, in Newport, R.I. a seal’s sensory capa-
the whiskers function to Associated Press bilities are so specific and
learn how to reverse-en- sensitive, said Woods Hole
gineer the system. The sci- Oceanographic Institu-
ence could be applied to of millions of years of work Warfare Center. scape.” tion researcher Andrea
the development of a sen- that nature has done for Murphy and colleague Joy Murphy discussed their Bogomolni, who leads the
sor. us,” said Christin Murphy, a Lapseritis looked to seal work with Ash Carter, then Northwest Atlantic Seal Re-
“If we want to design the marine mammal biologist. whiskers because they’re the secretary of defense, search Consortium.
best systems, it makes The research is taking a highly sensitive system when he visited Newport in This month in the lab in
sense to take advantage place at the Newport divi- of underwater touch that May. Newport, Lapseritis and
sion of the Naval Undersea employ bumps to reduce The warfare center re- Murphy measured the mo-
their own self-induced vi- ceives funding from the Of- tion of a harbor seal whis-
WE BRING OUR LIVE GIRL ON GIRL SHOW TO YOU brations, something that fice of Naval Research for ker in a tunnel of water
may help increase their in-house laboratory inde- as the speed of the flow
sensitivity to water distur- pendent research, includ- changed. A cylinder in the
bances. ing the whisker project. tunnel disturbed the water
That, Lapseritis said, could The budget is about $2.4 flow like a swimming fish
lead to a novel, passive million annually, with each would.
sensor. project typically receiv- They work with groups that
“You don’t need to put ing $100,000 to $150,000 respond to reports of dis-
sound into the water, like a year, according to the tressed or deceased seals
sonar,” she said. “This is center. to collect whiskers from
literally feeling the land- The Navy, which is also
seals that die.q