The woman gasped and dropped the knife, which was covered in shimmering scales. The fish thrashed its tail, hit the table, and flopped onto the floor.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! You scared me…” the woman grumbled as she picked up the fish. “How was I supposed to know you were alive…”
These days, you really can’t tell whether a fish is alive.
In the past, fish were transported across the country in specially designed tank cars. Carp and catfish swam in water throughout the journey, then were scooped into aquariums set up in stores, splashing the sellers as the fish were weighed.
But this method of transporting live fish was quite inconvenient: it required hauling many times more water than fish when shipping by rail.
Then scientists discovered that electric current could anesthetize fish. A carp put to sleep with “electro-sleep” could be transported for hours without any water at all. Only when it ended up on the kitchen table would the fish come out of electro-sleep and wake up.
