FISH 133 Spring 2019

Breaking News
Breaking News...
How fish and shrimps could be
recruited as underwater spies
Sea lampreys help medical advances
Reported on the BBC’s website on 7th June
2019. We have a long history of trying to
use animals as spies, weapons and warning
systems, but the latest plans to use marine
organisms as motion sensors may be the
strangest yet.
When a beluga whale was spotted wearing
a harness recently, some speculated that it
had been trained to spy for the Russian army.
Norway finds ‘Russian spy whale’ off coast.
That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Ever
since the 1960s, the US Navy has been training
dolphins to detect mines and help rescue lost
naval swimmers. Russia’s been known to do
the same. And sharks, rats and pigeons have
been enlisted over the years as eavesdropping
devices, with mixed results.
The latest project from the US Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa)
aims to improve military intelligence by using a
range of aquatic creatures - from large fish to
humble single-celled organisms - as underwater
warning systems.
“We’re trying to understand what these
organisms can tell us about the presence and
movements of all kinds of underwater vehicles in
the ocean,” says Dr Lori Adornato, programme
manager of the Persistent Aquatic Living
Sensors (Pals) project.
Sea lampreys are a parasitic fish that could
help scientists develop new treatments
targeting brain tumours, brain trauma, and even
dementia, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison and the University of Texas at Austin
found a way to turn sea lamprey molecules into
drug delivery mechanisms that directly reach
brain tumours, succeeding where many other
cancer treatments fail.
Sea lamprey immune systems, although similar
to humans, produce small molecules called
VLRS in place of antibodies. It was these
VLRS molecules that the researchers used to
deliver drug treatments to the brain. The team
first vaccinated lampreys to find the VLRS that
service the extracellular matrix of the brain.
Not so fish friendly festival
A new study from the University of Miami has
found that high sound levels from Ultra Music
Festival 2019 caused ‘a significant stress
response’ in fish swimming in waters near the
festival’s site, similar to the stress levels that they
would experience if they were being chased by
a predator.
During the festival, which took place in March,
they conducted tests on toadfish at the hatchery
and also monitored decibel levels in their tanks
and the surrounding waters. On 6th May,
the university issued their first official findings,
stating that the high volume levels caused
toadfish to experience a ‘4-to-5-fold increase in
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