Local Biotech Students Conduct Sushi Study
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Some city high school students are learning about science by ordering sushi, and what they discover may surprise you.
Biotech students here at String Theory School used genetic testing to learn about the food they consume.
"Using DNA kind of bar-coding techniques to pick a number of sushi restaurants here in Philadelphia and order tuna and snapper and then extract the DNA and then test them to see whether they are really the fish that we thought we ordered," Sherri Hanna, head of the STEM majors program said.
Hanna said the new testing techniques could change how consumers make choices.
"You can get results within 30 minutes and they can be attached to someone's iPhone."
The tuna sample of 17-year-old Nacascia Harrow turned out to be escolar, a buttery-type fish. "It makes me think about if I can trust the people that we're getting our food from."
The sushi experiments will continue over the next several weeks.