Lindsay moran is an exc. I. A. Operative, and dr. Shay is an engineer, and dr. Crystal dilwort h is a scientist. Thats our team. Hello, welcome to techno. Im phil torres joined by lindsay moran, dr. Shay somora and dr. Dilworth. I just got back with an exciting week of my life, and it was all for science. With you jump on an oneton tiger shark . Well, thats the opportunity i got to do with these researchers based out of university of miami. We went on a boat in the bahamas sbahamas bahamas, in the name of sharks. Lets take a look. Shark on shark. The very name inspires wonder and fear, vilified as the worlds ultimate killing machine, but their badboy image is all wrong, according to these guys. I havent had a single bad day with sharks in 35 years of doing business. If there is a shark around, youre likely to find jim in the water with the camera. We have 400 billion years of sharks shaping our oceans health. And in the last 50 years on my watch weve literally destroyed it. One in six of all sharks that have been threatened with extinction. The university of miami, one of his primary missions is to study sharks in the wild so policymakers can make good policies based on science. I really cant express the word of value that jim brings. He can get to sharks. He can figure out what the best conditions are, and he can help us design our information based on the health of the ocean. This is where you will find him, making sure that the shark and the team are safe while they gather data. Theyre getting ready for an fiveday exhibition off the shores of bahamas. The goal is to tag tiger sharks. And techno was invited along on the mission. People often ask me why should we care. As an apex predator, meaning nothing eats them. Theyre at the top of the pyramid. They play an important i can logical role. When you remove them, that could effect others members of the community. I join neil and his team at the lab in miami as they back the research gear. Its better to be over prepareed than under prepared when out in the ocean with tiger sharks. Then we board with the crew. This is your home for the next week. The ultimate shark diving route. This is my new home. Yep. After a rough overnight passage we head towards destination a special place called tiger beach. Its not a beach. In fact, its about 20 miles offshore, but its got plenty of tigers. This area is largely dominated by tiger female sharks. Which is interesting. Why are there not males here . Could it it deal with reproduction . We set out the baits. Bait in the water. That is nice looking fish. Once all eight lines are set we wait for the sharks to bite. Sometimes they dont. And then suddenly a sighting. And everyone swings into action. Yes, baby, the first tiger of the trip. You were fishing with the drum lines. What the drum lines allow us to do, they hooked in large circles. Which means that theyre not fighting and impairing movement. Get the line, get the line, get the line. Get the tail. Wait, i want to get the tail rope on. Can you cut the engine . Lets get it on. Ready to come on. Right after me. Its a female. Hold that tail up. Get the tail out of the water. Theyve been trying to pull this thing in for ten minutes now. Its huge, its a tiger shark, and the first one of the expedition. Its really exciting. The first one is always the toughest. Hes so big get that pump in. He insert a pump into their mouth. Thats great because one thing they get to bite down on something and it makes them feel better about it, but two, its artificially helping them to breathe, pumping oxygenateed saltwater in their mouth over their gills. Carolyn is an undergrad at the university of new england shark and research lab. She is one of the most crucial jobs, using this veterinarians ultrasound to see if the shark is pregnant. Tiger shark are tough because theyre so massive, we cant get the whole uterus in one shot. This shows that this shark was not pregnant. The next major task, surgery to implant this transmitter inside the shark. This is the size of a small battery but it has enough Battery Power to transmit you will are a sonic signals for serve years while the animal is out there swimming. The they take detailled measurements. Tiger sharks, which are predatory sharks, are really built, in many cases, ambush. Theyre made for short bursts of speed. What you look at the tiger shark what can you tell me about its feature. The first thing youll notice is their large blunt head. They their athlete are designed almost like a can open. Blood and finish samples are taken before the hook is removed from the mouth and the shark released. The whole process takes about 20 minutes. One, two, three. It was spectacular. It swam down to the bottom leveled off. Jason stayed with it for an unbelievable amount of time while i was gasping for air. Its a learning curve with an oneton who doesnt want to be on the boat. This will help neil track its every move in tiger beach. How, by sending a signal to one of these. This is a hydrophone. The electronic gear. This trip the doctor hopes to install 32 hydrophones located throughout tiger beach. Each reefer receiver will tell you when it detects a shark with the receiver. The work has just begun. Coming up next well find out if shes pregnant. We want to hear what you think about these stories. Join the conversation by following us on twitter and at www. Aljazeera. Com. You have kids here whove killed someone . Award winning journalist Soledad Obrien takes us inside the violent world of kids behind bars. Will a new Experimental Program be their last chance . I have to do my 100 percent best so i dont end up in a place like this again. Because i was African American i was trying to fit in. Misty coplelands journey wasnt easy. Dancing gave me the opportunity to grow into the person. I dont think i could be without it. Now, this trailblazer is opening the door for others. I wanna give back to ballet what its done for me. The very positive thing, and this its underwater. Thats really good. This is a tiger shark. Its not long before the platform is put to the test by an 11. 5 11. 5foot tiger shark. [ yelling ] since the shark is dorsal finish up, tissue samples are taken first. And then blood is drawn. It will provide a wealth of information, the kind that scientists used to get only by sacrificing the shark. In the past if you wanted to see what it was eating we would cut it open and look at its stomach. But now we can look at the chemicals to see what theyre eating. The shark is flipped over and carolyn begins her ultrasound. She is pregnant. Wahoo we got a pregnant one inside this big bloated tigershark belly are a bunch of baby sharks. The first female that we have found that is pregnant. We also need to track where theyre going so we can understand their breeding behaviors. Right now thats what theyre doing. Theyre implanting the transmitter to give precise details. Shes given a satellite tag to track her movement. The satellite tags are bolted to the finishes that have no nerves, just cartilage. Were using medicalgrade titanium yum to hold it on, and that makes sure that that tag will fall off eventually. Woo [ clapping ] that was awesome. The team will follow her wherever she goes on google earth. Of course, i had to check out the ultrasound. So you can see these kind of definitive circles so that this is the top here. This is the one here. This shows one of the pups. Im counting three or four pups in just that area. How many total do you think there are . There definitely could be a lot more. You can see that they come in and out of focus. It can be difficult to count. On this one i counted approximately 10 per side , 20 total. Should we finish this up . Time to swing back in action. There was a lot of action over the course of three days. The team had caught a total of 15 sharks. I know we call it tiger beach, but this aint no beach holiday. This shark caught on day three turned out to be pure gold for research. She was a female the team had tagged before in october on their last expedition to tiger beach. This is their first recaptured shark. In october she was pregnant. Now we cant to find out what happened. Now were showing that shes not pregnant. Thats really exciting. That means that we can use the acoustic tag data to see where she has gone to give birth. How huge is that data point for you guys . Oh my gosh, its the holy grail for the type of science that were doing. This is a recapture. I could not believe it. I was thinking, one of our sharks. This is why were here, to try to determine their nursery ground. If we protect those important areas we can have a substantial conservation impact on this animal. There are over 100 million sharks being killed every year. Not just for food, but as bycatch. Something needs to be done, and you cant conserve an animal unless you know something about it. Sharks are such mysteries. As much as we talk about them,em. Are we seeing tangible results that can be adapted to take on conservation measures . I think so. The theythey had high pot these hypothesis, but maybe they come there to get warmer, increase gestation, get for food. Now theyre starting to get solid answers. How dangerous is that work . I notice the wound on your hands. I should have covered up more. Shark sin is incredibly rough. Its like sand paper. At first you dont notice it but my shins were cover covered. You can see on instagram that i was pleading for science. Its my own fault because i should have been wearing a wetsuit. Sharks have this reputation for coming in to eat us all, but thats not the case. Before going in to this case i had a certain opinion of sharks, and the danger of them. You see the passion behind these people and the evidence when theyre out there petting these sharks in the ocean, it convinced me, and now i love them. Youll check that out after the break. Get excited for the 1989 world tour with exclusive behind the scenes footage all of taylor swifts music videos interviews, and more. Xfinity is the destination for all things taylor swift. You. Welcome back. Im phil torres, guys, were about to see the final part of this shark expedition. It was incredible intense week of hard work, and it was driven by passion for sharks and helping to conserve them. Youre about to see just what i mean. Sharks are nice, and the world doesnt know this. Jim abernathy loves sharks, and he wants you to love them, too. Thats one of the reasons he became a pioneer in cagefree shark diving. In florida we have a dozen. You you were bitten by a shark. Are you concerned by your safety . No, the shark that bit me happened while i was tending to the bait. I had hundreds of thousands of bait in my hands. It bit me in my arm and released me. It further proves to me that sharks dont eat people. The only reason they bite someone is a case of mistaken identity. Oh, my god, check this out. Theyre feeding on turtle s. They all want to spread the same tiger shark love. I really want these sharks to survive. We name them and i wish people could appreciate them for what they are. Nothing else matters. We hadnt seen julia for a while. She showed up on the third or fourth day. Yeah, all right, shes here. Its embarrassing, now that i think about it. Your crew gives affection to sharks. I quickly realized that sharks like affection. It was very trusting, and i could pull it in and see the hook in its jaw and simply pull it out. It doesnt take very long to figure out that neil really loves sharks. Hes answering the questions that the nonprofits need in order to put the right rules into place where it can be very impactful for the future of sharks. The doctor is hoping his research at tiger beach will help him answer some of those questions. Do you have any data on the shark that we captured . Sure do. Thats the first thing that we looked at. When you look at the data, what does at a tell you . She stuck around. She he was there from then to now. Between the last time we has saw her and now she gave birth. Is there a possibility that she gave birth at tiger beach. If you look there is a gap by a handful of days, the question is did she give birth and then come back to tiger beach . I cant put my finger on it yet, but if i play around with the data and get recaptures you can see the puzzle pieces coming together. When the shark is up here and youre processing it, it looks like thats when the research happens. It swims away, and it doesnt end there. Definitely not. Youre seeing the precursor. Right now while were having this conversation the sharks are doing my work for me so i can do this. You know, it brought me back to my days in the rain forest. I just love that feeling of working with a team, working hard in tough physical conditions. I was just amazed. There were two young women there who were juniors in college, and theyre out there doing this work. Im always just amazed with science careers because a lot of young people out there dont realize what they could be doing as their summer job when theyre 20. Thats incredible footage. How did we get that . It was awesome. We were shooting above water. We were shooting in the water. Jim abernathy had this great set up in there, just the perspectives they were getting and the fact that we caught 15 sharks and processed 15 sharks the way the camera could focus on different aspects of the operation. The shark was not the menu. No, they were against eating shark fin soup. But i had a really good sea sick medicine that pricingly i surprisingly i did all right. Thank you for taking us on that journey with you. I hope it affected you as much as it affected me, and my view on sharks was completely different. Well see you next week here on techno. Go behind the scenes at www. Aljazeera. Com techno. Follow our experts on twitter, the technology is there. Why isnt being done more . How to make recycling work. When these different plastics are blended then the recycling becomes difficult, to impossible. Can we fix americas plastic problem . We cant unscramble an egg. Techknows team of experts show you how the miracles of science. Im standing in a tropcal wind storm. Can effect and surprise us. Wow, these are amazing. Techknow, where Technology Meets humanity only on Al Jazeera America this is the land of rising seas where the impact of Climate Change has moved far beyond the possible and is the present. Whats going to happen to our grandmother . She cant even walk. She crawls. Whos going to carry her up and out when the waves come. People wonder how long can we stay when sea levels rise or do we flee and become some of the worlds first Climate Change