The Global Tumor: Scientists engineer computer program that “biologically profiles” Great White sharks in order to save surfers from “vicious, godless” attack!

Specisim.

Mass, illegal, unwanted and unwarranted surveillance is what will eventually destroy our gloriously viral human organism, amiright? No? You enjoy various governmental and non-governmental bodies peeking in to your every purchases, every web search, every….thing because, “I’m not a weirdo, nothing to hide, whatever, etc…..?”

Yeah?

Well, I imagine “man-eating” Great White Sharks are not on #teamyou.

I imagine they are furious in relation to governmental and non-governmental interference exactly as you should be due the shake-down on disemboweling and calorie intake exactly as you should be.

What?

Exactly.

Yet here we go.

Now imagine that a computer program could help researchers and safety officials predict, with some accuracy, where and when sharks may congregate. Such modeling software could offer an important new early warning system that would give everyone a heads up so that they would know when and where to look for our fierce visitors.

Right now, a pair of researchers – one from the state Division of Marine Fisheries and one from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology – are gathering data from 27 buoys that were strategically placed on both the ocean and bay sides of the Outer Cape. In addition to performing more traditional tasks, such as marking channels, these floats have been recording both the progress of sharks that have been tagged with radio frequency identification devices as well as the water temperature.

Officials want to correlate the temperature data – great white sharks favor water between 55 degrees and 73 degrees Fahrenheit – with the sharks’ travel patterns, essentially painting a picture as to what sort of weather seems the most conducive to shark visits. Taking all of that data into consideration, researchers hope to craft a computer model and warning system that will help local safety officials predict the location of sharks off our shores.

It may, however, be some time before this project produces the desired results. Researchers note that it will take at least two years to get all the necessary information, create a model, and then test that model under real-time conditions. As part of that process, they expect to examine almost 10 years of temperature data, as well as other environmental markers. It will only be after that data has been analyzed that researchers will be able to say with some degree of certainty that they can predict the sharks patterns.

If they are successful, there is the very real potential to attach data-capture devices to these same buoys that could provide real-time results and transmit the data to area beaches.

The science behind such innovations may be beyond the ken of many of us, but most of us can recognize the idea behind such computer modeling as a potentially valuable new tool. Combined with good old-fashioned lifeguarding, a heightened effort to train both rescuers and beachgoers in basic first aid preparedness, and a new emphasis on providing our beaches with emergency communication abilities that are more reliable and available than they currently are, beach visitors can enjoy a sense of being a bit safer than they would be without such improvements.

Big Brother is a Bastard.

No?

Discuss.

Also, no more surfing for at lest the next decade.

Or two.

Discuss.