Tiny fiber-optic cables on seabed can do a lot more than you can imagine as researchers have found that these underwater communication cables can detect silent whales by sensing low-frequency pressure waves created while they swim. The discovery could improve whale monitoring, conservation efforts, and ocean research. Scientists used existing fibre-optic cable networks, ship data, and physics to develop a new method for tracking whales even after they stop vocalizing.

A 100-year-old equation and a fibre-optic cable off the coast of Svalbard led researchers to discover they could detect swimming whales — even if they were completely silent. The…

Tiny fiber-optic cables on seabed can do a lot more than you can imagine as researchers have found that these underwater communication cables can detect silent whales by sensing…