Scientists develop remote-control fish. (It works a bit like Western democracy)
Well, it ain’t exactly the story of Moby Dick & mad captain Ahab but it’s interesting enough.
And slightly sad, in a way:
Fish will one day be able to catch themselves if an experiment by US scientists proves successful. Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts, are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by using a sound broadcast to attract them into a net.
They hope to release fish into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, before enticing them into an underwater cage to be harvested when they hear a tone that signals feeding time. If successful, the system could be used to bolster depleted fish stocks and reduce the costs of fish farming, scientists said.
“It sounds crazy, but it’s real,” said Simon Miner, a research assistant at MBL. Mr Miner said the first step in the project was to establish whether fish could be trained. Fish, including black sea bass, stout and bottom-dwelling fish, were kept in a circular tank and fed in an enclosed feeding area within the tank.
Scientists would sound a tone before they dropped food into the feeding area, which the fish could enter through a small opening. The tone was played for 20 second, three times a day, for about two weeks. The result, according to Mr Miner, was “remote-control fish”.
“You hit that button and they go into that area and they wait patiently,” he said.
It’s an intriguing idea – but hardly original. Politicians have been doing it for ages with more or less the same results.
Just before the have to write out elections they lower taxes or start a war or give other crowd-pleasing signals…
… and in their millions schools of voters swim obediently towards the ballot boxes to worship the hands that feed them.
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