The Tuna on Your Plate May Be Endangered

Endangered tuna yields to farmed variety, humbler fish

(NEWSER) - As bluefin gets ever closer to extinction and governments mull a ban on international trade in the prized tuna, some restaurants are taking it off the menu. Others are sticking with the old favorite because it's what customers expect, but converts embrace the change. “It forces me to be much more creative,” one chef tells the Boston Globe . “In my experience, if you stick to what you actually believe in, people will follow you.” More»

Owner lays down the law with these rules for staff

(NEWSER) - The seafood restaurant Bruce Buschel is building will have excellent service—or else. Some staff members, he acknowledges, "will no doubt protest some or most of what follows," but he's the boss, and he presents 50 rules in his New York Times blog. A tasting menu:

• "Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course. Wait, wait, wait."
• Make sure the table is level and the wine glasses clean before anyone sits down or orders a drink.

(NEWSER) - Japanese scientists are racing to keep bluefin tuna from dying out by inducing another fish to give birth to them, GlobalPost reports. Overfishing has already decimated bluefin and convinced many diners, supermarket and sushi chains to avoid the fish. Now Japan is paying a Tokyo University team to replenish bluefin stock by stuffing the tuna's sperm and ovary stem cells into mackerel. More»

Chef served dangerous dish without license, cops say

(AP) - World travelers, take note. Blowfish testicles prepared by an unauthorized chef have sickened seven diners in northern Japan, three of whom remain hospitalized. The owner of the Tsuruoka restaurant had no license to serve blowfish and was being questioned on suspicion of professional negligence. Blowfish poison, called tetrodotoxin, is nearly 100 times more poisonous than potassium cyanide. It can kill in 90 minutes. More»

Australian aims to overcome fish shortage by simulating breeding grounds

(NEWSER) - A seafood entrepreneur thinks he can solve the world's bluefin tuna shortage by making the fish feel frisky, Time reports. German ex-pat Hagen Stehr, the baron of a $230-million Australian seafood empire, is simulating the tuna's breeding grounds in a hatchery—a "fishy virtual reality" with 14 hours of daylight and water at 73°F—and has succeeded in harvesting fertilized eggs from bluefin breeding stock. More»