Electric fields could repel sharks

While the menacing fin of a shark has figured in many human nightmares, people may be the stuff of shark nightmares.

In addition to intentionally hunting sharks for food, fishermen often catch them inadvertently.

A new plan hopes to reduce this bycatch by repelling sharks with electric fields.

Sharks have an innate ability to detect electric fields, useful for sensing the bioelectric activity of their prey.

Researchers discovered that strong electric fields could repel these predators, most likely by overwhelming their electricity sensors.

“It’s a sense we don