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Antidepressants In the Water Are Making Shrimp Suicidal

Posted by samzenpus on from the crustacean-frustration dept.

Antidepressants may help a lot of people get up in the morning but new research shows they are making shrimp swim into that big bowl of cocktail sauce in the sky. Alex Ford, a marine biologist at the University of Portsmouth, found that shrimp exposed to the antidepressant fluoxetine are 5 times more likely to swim towards light instead of away from it. Shrimp usually swim away from light as it is associated with birds or fishermen.

2 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. No Fear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think it's that they want to die.

    They probably just don't fear the light anymore.

  2. This should be Science, not Idle. by FiloEleven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lots of shrimp are already being affected by this. People take the antidepressants which then get into the wastewater which gets into the ocean. That makes it a real environmental concern (albeit a minor one; other ones are justifiably topping the list at the moment) and not a joke.

    IMO it just goes to show that the law of unintended consequences is damn near universally applicable.

    --
    Your brain is not a computer.