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Learn something new every day:
“ Brown trout can get hooked on methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug found in waterways around the world.
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Human drug use can spill over into streams and rivers, because the chemicals pass through wastewater systems that weren’t designed to extract them. To study the effects of a common illicit drug on wildlife, Pavel Horký at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague and his colleagues looked to brown trout, Salmo trutta.
For 8 weeks, the researchers held 60 trout in a tank spiked with methamphetamine at a concentration of 1 microgram per litre, and 60 control trout in a meth-free tank. The fish were then placed in a tank containing two separate streams of water — one with methamphetamine and one without — between which they could swim freely. Trout that had spent 2 months swimming in meth-spiked water were found on the meth side in 50.5% of observations, compared with only 41.5% for control trout. The authors interpret this preference as a sign of addiction.“
Crazy that we have to test for this kind of stuff, and that the sign that this happens to animals around our planet.
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