Brown Crabs Are Attracted to Undersea Power Cables
Last edited Tue Jul 31, 2018, 11:51 AM - Edit history (2)
Electromagnetic fields have complex and possibly harmful effects on the valuable brown crab.
Authored by by Ramin Skibba
Wordcount July 30, 2018 | 850 words, about 4 minutes
Over the past 10 years, Scotland has installed thousands of offshore wind turbines in the North Sea and is starting to deploy marine energy devices that generate power from tides and waves. It’s a green energy push that is slowly being replicated in coastal areas the world over. Though these installations are reducing coastal threats such as oil spills, they have the potential to cause other, more subtle, problems for marine life.
From each offshore wind and tidal turbine, power cables snake to shore, connecting to power banks, converters, and the wider electrical grid. But these electrified cables could have odd and unexpected effects on seafloor life. According to new research, these electrical cables may be upsetting the behavior of the commercially valuable brown crab, otherwise known as the edible crab.
Kevin Scott, a marine biology doctoral candidate at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, is concerned about the potential cumulative effects of electromagnetic fields on marine life. In recent research, Scott and his colleagues at the St. Abbs Marine Station on the Scottish coast obtained dozens of crabs from local fishermen and exposed them to electromagnetic fields in the lab. The fields didn’t directly harm the animals; physiological responses such as respiration rate remained normal, for instance. However, the fields had a distinct effect on the crabs’ behavior.
Upon being exposed to electromagnetic fields, the crabs stopped what they were doing and were attracted to the plastic containers housing the equipment that generated the electromagnetic field, replicating what a power cable would do in the ocean. This distracting effect occurred roughly 70 percent of the time, while the crabs mostly ignored similar containers without electromagnetic fields.
More:
https://www.popsci.com/marine-wilderness-13-percent?dom=rss-default&src=syn
The correct link is this one:
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/brown-crabs-are-attracted-to-undersea-power-cables/
Hooray for crabs!
Sorry about this!
= new reply since forum marked as read
You used this link. 
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127118850
This was actually the second time I noticed this today (not yours), so it's easy to do, and it proves that I like to read your posts - so thank you for all you do! 
