Western Australia has a particular question with shark attacks over the last three years, unfortunately and tragically culminating in five fatal shark attacks in a ten-month period during that time. But Western Australia is not alone in this. The incidents of shark engagements on humans is escalating worldwide. So it is not surprising, perhaps, that in July of this year, shark mitigation systems in collaboration with the University of Western Australia Ocean Institute make an announcement which captured the attention of the world wide media and of ocean users worldwide, and that was around the development of technology to mitigate or reduce the risk of shark attack based on the science of what the sharks can see. And I have for today the story of that journey, but also the notion that the science can be as powerful as a translator as it can be for invention.

When we began this process, we were looking to, I um, was about three years ago we'd just had the first two fatal shark attacks in Western Australia, and by chance, in a previous role, I happened to eating dinner with Harry Butler. Now Harry Butler who most Australians would know is a famous naturalist, had spent a lot of time in the marine environment. Harry Butler is a precursor, if you like, to the late Steve Irwin. when I ask him what the solution to the problem might be, the answer is quite surprising. He said, " take a black wetsuit, band in yellow stripes like a bumblebee, and you will be mimicking the warning systems of most marine species. " I didn't think about that much at the time and it wasn't until the next three fatal shark attacks happen, and it cause me to think maybe there is some merit to this idea. and I turned to the web to see if there might be some clues. And it turns out the web is awash with this sort of evidence that supports this sort of thinking.

So biologically, there are plenty of species that display banding or patterns, warning patterns, to either be cryptical in water or warning against being attacked, not the least of which is the pilot fish which spends a big slab of its life around the business end of the sharks. On the human side, Walter Starck, an oceanographer, has been painting his wetsuit since the 1970s, and anthropologically, Pacific island tribes paint themselves in band in a sea snack ceremony to ward off the shark god.

So what' s going on here? Is this an idea lying wide out in the open for us to consider or define? We all knows that sharks use a range of sensors when they engage, particularly for attack, but the sight sensor is the one that they use to identify the target, and particularly, in the last number of meters before the attack. It makes sense to pay attention to the biological anecdote because that is time-tested evolution over many millennia. But isn't human anecdote also an evolution of sorts, the idea that there's a kernel of truth thought to be important, passed down from generation to generation, so that it actually ends up sharping human behavior. I want to test this idea I want to put some science to this anecdotal evidence, because if science could support this concept then we might have at least part of the solution to shark attack right under our very nose.

To do that I need some expert in shark vision and shark neurology, and worldwide search, again, led me to the University of W.A. on the doorstep here, with the Ocean Institute. And professor Nathan Hart and his team had just written a paper which tells us, confirms that predatory shark see in black and white, or grayscale. So I called up Nathan, a little bit sheepishly, actually, about this idea that maybe we can use these patterns and shapes to produce a wetsuit to try and mitigate the risk of shark attack, and fortunately he thought that was a good idea. So what we ensure is a collaborative bit of research supported by the Western Australian State Government. And we did three key things. The first is that we mapped the characteristics, the physical characteristic of the eyes of the three main predatory sharks, so the great white, tiger and bull shark. And we did that genetically and we did that anatomically. The next thing we did is to understand using complex computer modeling, what that eye can see at different depths, distances, light conditions and water clarity in the ocean. And from there we can able to pinpoint two key characteristics what patterns and shapes would present the wearer as hidden or hard to make out in the water, cryptic, and what patterns and shapes might provide the greatest contrast but provide the greatest breakup of profile so that that person wasn't confused for shark prey or shark food. The next thing we need to do was to convert this into the wetsuits that people may actually wear, and to that end, I invited Ray Smith, a surfer, industrial designer, wetsuit designer, and in fact the guy designed the original Quicksilver logo, to come over and sit with the science team and interpret that science into aesthetic wetsuit that people might actually wear. And here is an example of one of the first drawings. So this is what I called a "don't eat me" wetsuit. And this takes that banding idea, take the banding idea is highly visible, provides a highly disruptive profile, and it is to prevent the shark from considering that you would be ordinary food, and potentially even create confusion for the shark. And particularly this one is configured to go with a surfboard, and you can see the dark and opaque panel on the front, and it's particular better for the surface where being backlit and provide a silhouette is problematic. Second iteration is the cryptic wetsuit or the one which attempts to hide the wear in the water column. There are three panel on the suit and in any given condition one or more panels will match the reflective spectra of the water so as to disappear fully or partially, leaving the last panel or panels to create a disruptive profile in the water column. and this one is particularly well-suited to the dive configuration when you are deep under the water.

So we knew that we had some really solid science here. we knew if you want to be stand out you need to look stripy and we knew if you want to be cryptic you need to look like this. But the acid test is always going to be how would sharks really behave in the context of these patterns and shapes. And testing to simulate a person in a wetsuit in a water with a predatory shark in a natural environment is actually a lot harder than you might think. So we have to bait the rig, because we need to get the statistical number of samples through to get the scientific evidence. And by baiting the rig we're changing shark behavior. We can't put humans in the water. We ethically precluded from even using humanoid shapes and baiting them up in the water. But nevertheless, we started the testing process in January of this year, initially with tiger sharks and subsequently with great white sharks. The way we did that was to get a perforated drum which is full of bait, wrap it in a neoprene skin, and then run two stereo underwater cameras to watch how the shark actually engages with that rig. And because we use stereo we can capture all the statistics on how big the shark is, what angle it comes in, how quickly it leaves, and what its behavior is an empirical rather than a subjective way. because we need to preserve the scientific methods, we run a control rig which was a black neoprene rig just like a normal black wetsuit against, what we called, SAMS technology rig. And the results were not just exciting but very encouraging, and today I would like to just give you a snapshot of two of those engagements.

(video--So there we got a four-meter tiger shark engaging the black control rig, which it had encountered about a minute and a half before. Now that exact same shark had engaged, and encountered this SAMS rig which is a Elude SAMS rig. About eight minutes before and spent six minutes circling it, hunting for it, looking for what it could smell and sense but not see, and this is the final engagement. Great white sharks are more confident than the tigers, and here you see a great white shark engaging a control rig, so a black neoprene wetsuit and going straight to the bottom, coming up and engaging. In contrast to the SAMS technology rig, this is the banded one, where it's more tactile, it's more investigative, it's more apprehensive, and shows a reluctance to come straight in and go.)
(applause)

So all the testing is done. It's important for us that the testing is done independently and the university of W.A. is doing the testing. It will going be an ongoing process. It's subject to peer review and subject to publication. It's so important that this concept is led with the science. From the perspective Shark Attack Mitigation System we're a biotechnology licensing company, so we don't make wetsuits ourselves, we will license others to do that. But I thought you might be interested in seeing what the SAMS technology looks like embedded in a wetsuit, and to that end, for the first time, live, and worldwide. I can show you what biological adaptation science and design looks like in real life. So I can welcome Sam, the surfer, and Eduardo.

So what we done here, well, to my mind, rather than take a blank sheet and use science as a tool for invention, we've paid attention to the biological evidence, we've put the importance to the human anecdote evidence, and we've used the science as a tool for translation, translation of something that was already there into something that we can use for the benefit of mankind. And it strikes me that this idea of science as a tool for translation rather than invention is one that we can apply much more widely than this in the pursuit of innovation. After all, did the Wright brothers discover manned flight, or did they observe the biological fact of flight and translate that mechanically, replicate it in a way that human can use? As for the humble wetsuit, who knows what oceanwears will look like in two years' time, in five years' time or in 50 years' time, but with this new thinking, I'm guessing there's a fair chance it won't be pure back. Thank you.