🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1763@vax1.tc.fluke.COM> witters@tc.fluke.COM (John Witters) writes:
>> According to Time magazine, this test gave the following results:
>> [This is not an exact quote, but is what I remember]
>> 
>>    "A certain kind of radiation, escaping from the cable, attracted
>>     alligator sharks which chomped through the cable.  The solution
>>     was to use heavier armour."
>> 
>> My question:  what kind of radiation escapes from a *fiber optic* 
>> cable?
>
>Here again, we see an example of the technical illiteracy of most journalists.
>I think it is much more likely that some kind of gas was escaping from the
>plastic used to make the cable, and the gas odor was what attracted the sharks.
>Sharks have a very good sense of smell.

``Radiation'' might be a little inaccurate, but it is entirely possible
that a DC electic field from the cable (which, as Henry Spencer pointed
out, contains wires carrying DC for repeaters) is what attracted the
sharks.  According to Science News of several months back, certain sharks
have been found to be extremely sensitive to small electric fields, and
may well use them as aids in locating certain prey.  This is just another
in a set of unusual biological senses that have been discovered in recent
years (like magnetic senses in birds, infrared vision in reptiles, or
ultraviolet vision in insects).  Of course, in this case a chemical
cause makes just as much sense.

A point to ponder--technical people are often just as illiterate outside
of their own specialty as you accuse journalists of being.  True polymaths
are rare in this day and age.

		-Ed Hall
		decvax!randvax!edhall