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Electric Eel Shocks Like a Taser

Posted by samzenpus on from the reach-out-and-zap-you dept.

Science_afficionado writes After a nine month study, a Vanderbilt biologist has determined that the electric eel emits series of millisecond, high-voltage pulses to paralyze its prey just before it attacks. The high-voltage pulses cause the motor neurons in its target to violently contract, leaving it temporarily immobilized in the same fashion as the high-voltage pulses produced by a Taser. He documented this effect using high-speed video. The eel, which is nocturnal and has very poor eyesight, also uses closely spaced pairs of high-voltage pulses when hunting for hidden prey. He determined that the pulses cause the prey's body to twitch which produces water movements that the eel uses to locate its position even when it's hidden from view.

29 comments

  1. Incident by 2.7182 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't eel me bro!

    1. Re:Incident by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 1

      Mod this up please! Genuine humor right after I burned all my points.

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      Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    2. Re:Incident by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I would pay to see a someone get tased with an electric eel. Get an even more awesome headline, "Bank Robber Subdued by Fish"

    3. Re:Incident by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      You can eel me bro, mate; he owes me money.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:Incident by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My hovercraft is full of eels

    5. Re:Incident by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it low intelligence or religious delusion that causes people to think that the mind isn't like any other biological organ, capable of being affected by language?

      The great contradiction is that those who say words are not important are usually the first to mouth off their opinion. If words do nothing, why not stop talking? Really, why not?

      As for, "The world would be better off if..." are you diagnosed with any health condition which makes you likely to blurt out such a silly response? It's not just that it's not very nice, but that it's pathetically dull.

    6. Re:Incident by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      When I was a kid I was tazed by coffin ray. It was comparable to being zapped by the ignition coil in a car.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    7. Re:Incident by mi · · Score: 2

      Don't eel me bro!

      Why not? It is a perfectly natural process.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  2. Some bozo from the past called it an electric eel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And now we know why.

    FFS...

  3. BUT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The eel came first. Shouldnt the headline read tasers shock like eels?

    1. Re:BUT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Headline: Electric eel was intelligently designed like a taser.

    2. Re:BUT... by Livius · · Score: 3, Funny

      Headline: Taser patent invalidated because of prior art.

    3. Re:BUT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Patent remains valid because Acts of God are in the Public Domain.

    4. Re:BUT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the hell are you on about? If it's public domain, it's public knowledge and as such it is prior art. The point of the patent is protecting the method of making the electric shock and the only reason the "taser patent" would be valid is because the electricity is not generated the same way. If you cloned some eel electric generating parts and somehow made a taser out of it, the taser would not be patentable. Possibly something that you used to make that whole thing work would be, but as a taser, not.

    5. Re:BUT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wrong look up first to file

  4. Re:Some bozo from the past called it an electric e by sexconker · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I cannot form any opinions on this matter until Bennett Haselton (frequent contributor) tells me what to think.

  5. Don't tell Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They'll set up tanks full of electric eels to power their servers/citizen surveillance!

  6. electricity from living thngs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Great post.. !!
    Happy Christmas 2014 SMS

  7. Already knew that... by bradgoodman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They describe this in the signage on the eel tank at the New England Aquarium. They even have a "shock" meter - and they tell you when it is getting ready to shock, you will see some spaced-out low-intensity pulses before "the big one".

  8. Patent attorney spotted at local aquarium. by jpellino · · Score: 1

    Film at eleven.

    --
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  9. So that would be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Eelectronic warfare?

  10. circular? by argStyopa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm almost certain I read an interview with Jack Cover (one of the early inventors of these systems) in which he explicitly likened the effect to an electric eel, implying that may have been precisely on his mind when he developed the device although the similarity in the process at that point may just have been general.

    --
    -Styopa
  11. Isn't this common knowledge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tomorrows story "Rain is wet!"

  12. Electric hovercrafts by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    obviously.

  13. ___ like a ___ by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Electric Eel Shocks Like a Taser

    Looks like a fish*. Moves like a fish. Stings like a motherfucker.

    *well, kinda.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  14. Re:Some bozo from the past called it an electric e by rs79 · · Score: 2

    Go to any decent public aquarium they have electric eel demos all the time. I saw one in the Buffalo aquarium in 1975.

    There are also electric catfish, they get to be a foot long. The eels get to be three feet.

    Also the "baby whale" and "elephant nose" fish (of which there are many many species) also have this capability, albeit very mild, they use it to find food and navigate much in the way sonar works. They're also among the most evolved and intelligent of all fishes (and make lousy aquarium pets for this reason - you can keep them but you REALLY have to know what you're doing)

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