“Coke on fish gills is as dumb as it sounds", Dr. Solomon David, aquatic ecologist, Nicholls State University

Northern pike  Photo by Darcy Cheek /Postmedia

"We provide the first evidence that counters the growing popularity of using carbonated beverages to stop bleeding in angling-caught fish."                     "We found no benefit or disbenefit with pouring carbonated beverages over the gills of northern pike but it is possible there are longer term impacts."  "These findings provide direct scientific evidence that the use of carbonated beverages does not curtail bleeding from gills, which is counter to anecdotal observations made by recreational anglers that use this technique. Overall, our study debunks the assertion."                                                                                                          Carleton University researchers

Research funded by Muskies Canada and by fishing guide John Anderson and undertaken by the fish ecology conservation and physiology laboratory of Carleton University, led by graduate student Alexandria Trahan, appears to have concluded that a technique to ease bleeding in injured fish that has become popular with anglers has more resemblance to an urban myth than it does a folk remedy to curtail bleeding and discomfort in fish that have sustained injury either as a result of the angler's actions or other misadventure.

And though veteran fishing guide and owner of Ottawa River Musky Factory John Anderson was partially responsible for putting the research into motion, spurred on no doubt by his belief in the healing power of carbonated liquid on fish, his commitment to the use of Diet Coke to help stop muskellunge bleeding from the mouth, throat or muscles around the gills is secure. On the basis of his own experience with the use of the technique on 18 different occasions.

While on a fishing trip four years earlier accompanied by writer and outdoorsman Gord Pyzer, the method was first brought to his attention when it was demonstrated to him. He gave due credit to the senior manager in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry when he was informed by this man who makes use of spring water, supersaturated with carbon dioxide in cauterizing hook wounds in a fish's mouth, throat or gills, who swore by its efficacy.

In the event, researchers from the lab of biology professor Steven Cooke undertook a scientific study of the controversial and popular belief in the usefulness of Diet Coke as a first aid for injured fish, where advocates insist that carbon dioxide in soda drinks constricts a fish's blood vessels to halt bleeding. Critics of the method on the other hand, label it as pop science for the gullible. Those who want to catch these fish for sport, but are committed to releasing them back to the water. Salving their consciences in the belief that the remedy works. In their analysis the Carleton scientists discovered that in the first 20 minutes following the application of pop to injured gills of northern pike, nothing occurred.

Last year, led by graduate student Alexandria Traham from the lab, 145 northern pike were caught in the
Rideau River system to use as subjects where gill injuries were simulated with the use of pliers removing a one-centimetre section of gill. A carbonated beverage was then applied; Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew or carbonated lake water. Nothing was applied to a control group of fish. The experiments were conducted in May and August in assessing whether changes in water temperature might affect the outcome.

Scientists observed and recorded what happened to the bleeding of the injured fish held in a water-filled tank for 20 minutes -- finding that Mountain Dew as well as the other carbonated drinks produced no discernible effect whatever. No difference was noted, according to the researchers, between the fish in the control group and those that had been treated with a soft drink. Bleeding failed to stop sooner, and nor did the fish bleed less.

A possible explanation was put forward, researchers suggesting that when anglers lift a fish from the water to apply a soft drink to the fish wounds, air exposure induces hypoxia which in turn slows the heart rate of the fish. "The pop does work at the right place and the right time", insisted Mr. Anderson who didn't dispute the Carleton study, but felt that the researchers would have done better to avoid using sensitive gill injuries in their assessment of the value of the technique.

John Anderson of the Ottawa River Musky Factory says the Carleton research has not changed his mind about the value of Diet Coke as a way to assist muskellunge bleeding from the mouth, throat or muscles around the gills. He said he had successfully used the technique 18 times. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

Bioarchaelogy Sleuthing

"When it comes to our understanding of cancer in the past, we're really just at the beginning."
"[This new find has importance to enable scientists to learn more relating to cancer in vertebrates]."
"On the subject of our understanding of most cancers up to now, we’re actually [just at the starting gate]." 
"It’s not like individuals say, ‘Oh, I need to go research most cancers in historic turtles or in fossil mammoths,’ as a result of [which] we've got so little proof."
Michaela Binder, bioarchaeologist, Austrian Archaeological Institute

 Cancer was found on examination of a femur of an excavated Pappochelya    Brian Engh

"What makes this really cool is that now we understand that cancer is basically a deeply rooted switch that can be turned on or off. It's not something that happened recently in our evolution."
"It's not something that happened early in human history, or even in mammal history."
Yara Haridy, paleontologist, National History Museum, Berlin

The fossil record hasn't exactly been a cornucopia of discovery in traces of cancer in early animals during evolutionary stages of existence. Researchers, however, writing in JAMA Oncology on February 7 revealed the discovery of cancer on an ancient femur of a 240-million-year-old precursor to modern turtles, an amniote, a group including reptiles, birds and mammals.

The 240 million-year-old fossilized leg bone of an ancient stem turtle that revealed signs of bone cancer.

Brian Engh/dontmesswithdinosaurs.com/Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin

It was described as representing the oldest known instance of cancer in an ancient creature. Cancers that surface in the present day are diagnosed through soft-tissue examination (biopsies), but such diagnosis is difficult working with hard fossils. The femur was identified when it was collected for the Stuttgart State Museum of National History in Germany as belonging to a wide-bodied, long-tailed animal called a Pappochelys, a relative of modern turtles but lacking a shell.

The jagged growth on the femur aroused the interest of Yara Haridy, with Berlin's Natural History Museum. She identified the marks as indications that illness and injury had been involved, those marks drawing the attention of bioarchaeologists in the study of paleopathology, combining aspects of modern forensic and medical practices. When the femur was examined through micro-CT scans Ms. Haridy and her colleagues identified the swelling as an osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer.

Up to the present, prehistoric cancer knowledge suffered from a lack of evidence, leading researchers to conjecture that the disease represents a purely modern phenomenon, the result of unhealthy living; pollution, or individuals becoming 'older' in biological terms. On the other hand, other specialists suggest the presence possibly of a tumour-suppressive gene present in vertebrates, the failure of which permits tumours of a benign nature to metastasize.

With no fossil evidence there was no available proof that either theory could be hitting the mark. Furthermore, some animal lineages appear to be less susceptible to cancer than others. On the other hand, tumours in invertebrates tend not to resemble those appearing in vertebrates.

IN 2001, Russian paleontologists identified a possible cranial osteosarcoma in an Early Triassic amphibian, as an example of other finds of recent vintage. Yet again, a jaw tumour from a 255-million-year-old mammal forerunner had been reported in 2016.

A mass on the femur of a Pappochelys rosinae specimen. (JAMA Oncology (2019))