GabyThe Voice of the Sea
The sea has a voice. If you learn to listen to it, you can anticipate an approaching storm. Step out onto the shore, and apart from the splashing and roaring of the waves, you won’t hear much else. But if you take a hydrogen-filled balloon and hold it to your ear before a storm, you’ll feel pain: the inaudible sounds of the sea will communicate the impending storm through this discomfort, warning you two hours before the frothy waves begin to crash and rise.
Interestingly, jellyfish dive deep hours before a storm hits. How do they pick up on the sea’s voice?
It turns out that a jellyfish’s “ear” is similar to the hydrogen balloon used by humans. Its round cavity can compress and expand, resonating with the voice of the sea. Inside this “ear” is a tentacle with a sensitive “sensor.”
What if we could create a device based on the jellyfish’s “ear” to detect the sounds that precede a storm?
And that’s exactly what was done. The voice of the sea enters a horn that transmits air vibrations to a resonating sphere, which then presses against a quartz plate, generating an electric current. This current, when sent to an electronic amplifier, can activate any device.
In initial experiments, the device was fine-tuned so effectively that it can now warn of a storm up to 15 hours in advance.
