{"id":30167,"date":"2025-06-21T09:01:03","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T09:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=30167"},"modified":"2025-06-21T09:26:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T09:26:28","slug":"jaws-at-50-scientists-are-still-studying-the-mysteries-of-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=30167","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Jaws\u2019 at 50: Scientists Are Still Studying the Mysteries of Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The film\u2019s release in 1975 haunted the reputation of sharks worldwide. But a generation of scientists helped to turn the tide.<\/p>\n

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When Steven Spielberg\u2019s famous mechanical shark, Bruce, first appeared onscreen in the summer of 1975, Chris Lowe thought it looked fake.<\/p>\n

Dr. Lowe, who now leads the Shark Lab at California State Long Beach, was 11 that year. He had grown up on Martha\u2019s Vineyard, the island in Massachusetts where \u201cJaws\u201d was filmed. He had watched Mr. Spielberg\u2019s crew transform his hometown into \u201cAmity Island.\u201d Some of his schoolmates served as extras; he saw the mechanical shark in person.<\/p>\n

But one of the film\u2019s characters in particular captured his attention: the marine biologist Matt Hooper, portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss. Dr. Lowe credited Hooper for first stirring his curiosity about shark scientists. \u201cHooper kind of got me interested in this idea that there are scientists that get paid to study sharks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Lowe wasn\u2019t the only one.<\/p>\n

\u201cJaws,\u201d<\/a> the highest-grossing movie of its time, cast a long shadow over the reputation of sharks. Throughout the 1970s and \u201880s, these ocean predators were vilified as voracious monsters and were drastically overfished. The only good shark was a dead shark, the thinking went.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But the film also ushered in an era of curiosity, inquiry and shark science. It produced a generation or more of researchers fascinated with these creatures that remain largely unknown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call it a blessing and a curse,\u201d Dr. Lowe said.<\/p>\n

Before \u201cJaws\u201d premiered in 1975, most shark research was conducted by the U.S. Navy. Much of it involved experimenting and testing repellents to prevent shark attacks on sailors. Very little was known about sharks, and the research sought to understand why they attacked people.<\/p>\n

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The film\u2019s release in 1975 haunted the reputation of sharks worldwide. But a generation of scientists helped to turn the tide.When Steven Spielberg\u2019s famous mechanical shark, Bruce, first appeared onscreen in the summer of 1975, Chris Lowe thought it looked fake.Dr. Lowe, who now leads the Shark Lab at California State Long Beach, was 11 that year. He had grown up on Martha\u2019s Vineyard, the island in Massachusetts where \u201cJaws\u201d was filmed. He had watched Mr. Spielberg\u2019s crew transform his hometown into \u201cAmity Island.\u201d Some of his schoolmates served as extras; he saw the mechanical shark in person.But one of the film\u2019s characters in particular captured his attention: the marine biologist Matt Hooper, portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss. Dr. Lowe credited Hooper for first stirring his curiosity about shark scientists. \u201cHooper kind of got me interested in this idea that there are scientists that get paid to study sharks,\u201d he said.Dr. Lowe wasn\u2019t the only one.\u201cJaws,\u201d the highest-grossing movie of its time, cast a long shadow over the reputation of sharks. Throughout the 1970s and \u201880s, these ocean predators were vilified as voracious monsters and were drastically overfished. The only good shark was a dead shark, the thinking went.But the film also ushered in an era of curiosity, inquiry and shark science. It produced a generation or more of researchers fascinated with these creatures that remain largely unknown.\u201cI call it a blessing and a curse,\u201d Dr. Lowe said.Before \u201cJaws\u201d premiered in 1975, most shark research was conducted by the U.S. Navy. Much of it involved experimenting and testing repellents to prevent shark attacks on sailors. Very little was known about sharks, and the research sought to understand why they attacked people.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30169,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30170,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30167\/revisions\/30170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}