The sophisticated instrument that will protect you from eating Gulf seafood tainted by oil in the coming months and years may be somebody's nose.
A University of Florida program that has trained inspectors for decades to analyze seafood spoilage by smell will next month begin to teach them how to use their nose to detect oil components absorbed by shrimp, oysters and crabs.
As the oil plume grows in the Gulf of Mexico from British Petroleum's ruptured well, so grows the threat of tainted seafood pulled from those waters. Because the oil is flowing from the bottom, it is affecting every level of the water column, from sediment to surface.
Chemically analyzing seafood in a lab is time-consuming and expensive, especially considering how broad the contamination is expected to become. And with just three federal labs and a new mobile lab stationed in Tallahassee to provide that analysis, the backlog will likely be enormous.
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Photo courtesy of The Associated Press