The Voice of the Sea
The sea has a voice. If you learn to listen, you can sense an approaching storm. When you step onto the shore, 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: inaudible sounds from the sea resonate in the balloon and warn you about the storm up to two hours before the waves begin to swell and crash.
Jellyfish dive deep hours before a storm. How do they detect the sea’s voice?
A jellyfish’s “ear” works a lot like that balloon. Its round cavity compresses and expands, resonating with the sea. Inside the cavity is a tentacle tipped 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?
That’s exactly what was done. The sea’s sound enters a horn, which transmits air vibrations to a resonating sphere. The sphere presses against a quartz plate, generating an electric current. When that current is sent to an electronic amplifier, it can trigger other devices.
In early tests, the device was tuned so precisely that it can now warn of a storm up to 15 hours in advance.
