Seal scientists
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February 25, 2013 |
If I were studying ocean currents in the Antarctic I don’t think I’d have thought to ask the friendly local elephant seals for help.
Thankfully a research group from Hokkaido University in Japan are more imaginative than I am, and their unusual idea paid off.
They glued sensors to the heads of elephant seals. Then when the seals dived up to 1800 metres below the ice they beamed back information about a whole new cold-water current.
Without the seals it could have taken years to gather this data from such hard-to-reach places.
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The more we understand about ocean currents the better we can see how the global climate is changing.
Image: Wikimedia/Mirounga Leonina
