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Engineers develop low-cost, highly sensitive underwater listening device

Ocean-going acoustic sensor array to aid in national security, ocean research effortsJason Holmes, a mechanical engineering graduate student at Boston University and guest researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, has devised a low-cost, highly sensitive array of underwater ears that is perking up interest in both homeland security and ocean research circles. Holmes' device -- an underwater hydrophone array designed to be towed by a small, autonomous submarine -- can monitor for ocean-going threats to America's waterways or for sound for ocean acoustics studies.