Americans Love Animals More Than They Used To

There are 48 days until the presidential election, and it often feels as if we Americans are at each other’s throats. Sometimes it seems as though all we can agree on — or agree to click “like” on — are dog and cat videos, right? Actually, that’s not so far from the truth. Americans do broadly have positive feelings about dogs and cats — and they also feel warmer and fuzzier about wild animals, such as sharks and wolves, than they did four decades ago.

http://tinyurl.com/guc486v

Scientists Tagging Sharks To Predict Hurricanes

Fifty sharks, tuna, tarpon and billfish are swimming around the Gulf of Mexico right now fitted with satellite-linked tags to help scientists track water temperatures and perhaps one day help improve hurricane forecasting.The devices were put there by researchers at the University of Miami who have tagged a total of 750 animals in the past 10 years to record water temperature and salinity at different depths.  The fish had merely provided data of interest to biologists, but earlier this year scientists realized the temperature figures coming back from the animals could be crucial to humans living in the path of hurricanes.

http://tinyurl.com/p24g2kd

Sharks Are Color-Blind

Sharks are color blind, new research suggests, with the toothy predators likely forever seeing the world in black and white. The study, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, is the first to investigate the genetic basis and spectral tuning of the shark visual system. The ramifications could be huge, helping to save both sharks and people.

http://tinyurl.com/8wywn6v

Sharks Get Worry-Free Tans

Even sharks can get a tan. Sharks' skin turns from dark brown to black as the pigment melanin increases in direct response to radiation. In other fish, the exposure can lead to skin cancer. Sharks, however, just seem to tan. What's their secret? The answer could hold the key to preventing skin disease in humans.

http://tinyurl.com/8m4dczs

Expedition White Shark App Lets You Track Great Whites

Want to travel the oceans alongside great white sharks, but your busy schedule and fear of death always seem to get in the way? There's an app for that. Now anyone with an iPhone or an iPad (and $3.99 to spare) can follow along in near-real time with a dozen of the world's most iconic predators with the app Expedition White Shark.

http://tinyurl.com/6s4d4o5

Video: Surfers Rescue Great White Shark

A group of Venice Beach surfers came to the rescue of a baby great white shark that had washed ashore near the Venice Pier on Saturday morning. A fisherman had realized that a shark had hooked onto his line. He and several other fishermen ran down to the beach to pull the shark from the water.

http://tinyurl.com/3wzj4o3

Watch Video of Shark Jumping Over Surfer

Sharks patrolling the waters off the Florida coast is not an uncommon sight but seeing a shark jump a surfer is a first for an Orlando photographer who was filming an action video of another surfer when he heard a voice exclaim "Dude, did you see that?"

http://tinyurl.com/5rutn3c