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Magazine Bites At Shark Study

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By LINDSAY PETERSON

lpeterson@tampatrib.com

Published: January 1, 2009

TAMPA - Since childhood, the ferocity of sharks has fascinated 30-year-old University of Tampa researcher Dan Huber. He studied them in school, then college, then after college.

Now, his shark studies have landed on Discover magazine's "Top 100 Stories of 2008," which appears in the January issue.

Huber, a UT assistant professor, is part of a research group that created an 8-foot great white shark in 3-D digital form. The group uses the digital model to demonstrate how the animal feeds and how hard it bites.

As an academic, Huber is trying to understand how an animal whose skeleton is made of cartilage, not bone, evolved into such a fierce predator.

Practically, he's looking for data that could be used to develop protective swimwear and other things, such as underwater cables, that can stand up to shark bites.

Huber is working with biologists at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and the University of Newcastle in Australia. The group created its digital shark by employing an engineering technique used to study new products in development.

Huber has consulted for the Discovery Channel, History Channel and Smithsonian magazine.

He and his team are studying the behavior of all species built of cartilage, not bone.

"These are all pretty dominant animals," he said. "How can this group get away with having a skeleton that bends when you push on it?"

Keyword: Sharks, for links to the UT research site and Discover magazine, where its "Top 100 Stories of 2008" list appears.

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