fish (Page 6)

Sometimes science is wrong, and one example of this are Frankenfish: In order to grow bigger salmon that can feed more people, a genetically-modified Atlantic salmon has been created that grows twice as fast as wild ones. Its genes have been artificially augmented with DNA taken from two other fish in order to give it more growth hormone.

Researcher Craig Altier says, “The fisheries of the world are being rapidly depleted and so advances in aquaculture will be needed to meet the growing demand for protein. Genetically engineered animals might help to feed the world, but they must first meet the most stringent requirements for human and environmental safety.
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It’s still going on: Thousands of fish have turned up dead at the mouth of Mississippi River.

PhysOrg.com quotes St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro as saying, “By our estimates there were thousands, and I’m talking about 5,000 to 15,000 dead fish.” He reported that crabs, sting rays, eel, drum, speckled trout and red fish were among the species of fish that turned up dead. Local investigators are not yet ready to blame the fish kill on oil, however.

Taffaro says, “We don’t want to jump to any conclusions because we’ve had some oxygen issues by the Bayou La Loutre Dam from time to time.”
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Global warming is being blamed for the 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton, which is an essential part of the marine food chain: If there is no more plankton, there will be no more fish. Not only that, phytoplankton produce half the oxygen we breathe.
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Are they out of luck? – One reason we’re all so concerned about the BP oil spill is that humans have been subsisting on fish for a very long time. Archeologists working in Kenya unearthed evidence that our human ancestors ate a wide variety of fish, which is aquatic “brain food” that may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain two million years ago. And shellfish saved early Americans as well: A study of discarded oyster shells reveals the way that the first British colonists survived an unusually severe drought.
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