Restaurant Menus Will Include DNA Barcodes to Verify Fish Species
Fish Farm in China IvanWalsh via Flickr Fish specials at your local restaurant may soon come with an extra guarantee of quality and sustainability, as fishmongers start checking the DNA of their wares. The Food and Drug Administration approved DNA barcoding last month, and restaurants are planning to start using it to prove the provenance of their pricey fish, the AP reports. DNA barcoding can be used to protect endangered species and guard against sale of illicit ones - from overfished tuna to bushmeat sold on the black market, even to medicinal herbs and plants. It can also guarantee that a restaurant patron is really eating the pricey Beluga caviar he paid for, and not a cheaper substitute. A DNA barcode works somewhat like it sounds, by using a short sequence of DNA to identify a species using a known database. The Consortium for the Barcode of Life, based at the Smithsonian...