

New York's Water Filled With Invisible Shrimp - tomeast
http://consumerist.com/2010/08/new-yorks-water-filled-with-invisible-shrimp.html

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btilly
This came up a few years ago.

It resulted in an interesting debate about whether NYC water was kosher to
drink. When I heard about it, the question was still being debated, and I
don't know how it turned out. (Not being Jewish or religious, it wasn't
particularly material to my life.)

Oddly enough it turns out that the water was unquestionably kosher to drink
_before_ the local Jews were told about the arthropods. But once they had been
told, there was a real question about whether they could continue to drink it.
The reason for this is that there is a dispensation for breaking the dietary
rules out of sheer ignorance. But once you know the rules, you are responsible
for following them. The classic example being, if I recall correctly, the case
of a blind man who didn't know that he had been eating pork.

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mapleoin
Funny how I read this in the morning on reddit and it travelled to Gizmodo,
then to the Consumerist to finally get to HN.

I found the top comment on reddit[1] very interesting, although it's actually
a wikipedia citation [2]:

 _The copepods can be added to water-storage containers where the mosquitoes
breed. Copepods, primarily of the genera Mesocyclops and Macrocyclops (such as
Macrocyclops albidus), can survive for periods of months in the containers, if
the containers are not completely drained by their users. They will attack,
kill, and eat the younger 1st and 2nd instar larvae of the mosquitoes. This
biological control method is complemented by community trash removal and
recycling to eliminate other possible mosquito-breeding sites._

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/d7pso/look_what_i_f...](http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/d7pso/look_what_i_found_in_my_tap_water_he_stained/c0y66a0)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copepods#Water_supplies>

~~~
ars
This business about added is wrong. Maybe they could be, but they aren't. They
are there naturally.

~~~
whyenot
Not only could they be added, but they have been. See for example this article
about a program in Vietnam where they have been used to control the mosquito
responsible for Dengue fever.

<http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/full/72/1/67>

There are many more examples on Google...

~~~
ars
I was talking about New York specifically.

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avar
If I sold bottled water in NYC I know what my advertising campaign would be
about:

    
    
        Feel like drinking an arthropod today?
        No? Then buy our Bottled Water(TM)"

~~~
hristov
Except that most bottled water is local tap water, so you would be doing false
advertising.

~~~
avar
Yes, but most of the brands probably don't bottle in NYC. So they probably
don't share this particular problem. But what do I know? Maybe they all have
arthropods.

~~~
eds
That's why you have to insist on <http://tapdny.com> . (I know, it's
filtered.)

------
martingordon
NYT article from 2004 discussing the same exact organisms:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/nyregion/there-s-
something...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/nyregion/there-s-something-in-
the-water-and-it-may-not-be-strictly-kosher.html)

------
po
The last thing we need is another reason for people to be buying bottled water
when tap is perfectly safe, cheap and environmentally friendly.

You ingest far worse things every day. This is intellectually interesting, but
I fear it will cause people to overreact.

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aresant
Haunting comment from Reddit thread yesterday:

"On the grand scale of things, these are about a "3" on a scale of 1-10. Start
looking at everything you eat, drink or breathe in an average day under a
microscope and besides being obsessive, you'll realize there are a lot of
things that should best not be looked at under magnification. The only harm
these will do is psychological."

~~~
iamelgringo
If you're haunted by that, don't study microbiology.

 _The human body, consisting of about 100 trillion cells, carries about ten
times as many microorganisms in the intestines._ [1]

 _The total number of bacteria on an average human has been estimated at
10^12_ [2]

ref: [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora> [2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_flora>

------
SteveMorin
I wonder if that's why the pizza and bagels taste better in NY

~~~
eli
You're not the first person to have that theory
[http://www.slashfood.com/2005/09/26/new-york-pizza-is-the-
wa...](http://www.slashfood.com/2005/09/26/new-york-pizza-is-the-water-the-
secret/)

------
squidsoup
I wonder how vegetarians, particularly vegans, in NY have responded to this,
given that bottled water is often tap water.

Opportunity for a vegan stillsuit startup?

~~~
hugh3
Of course if you did distill your water, you'd just be killing the shrimp and
then _not_ eating them. A correctly-designed filter is what you'd want.

It's an interesting question, actually: how many animals do you kill every day
if you're trying not to? Let's limit it to multicellular animals, but with the
shrimp in your drinking water plus the insects you breathe in, and everything
you step on, and whatever might be lurking in your (non-meat) food, I'd say
the typical vegan has killed a _lot_ of animals today.

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hugh3
If they're 1-2mm long, surely they should be visible with the naked eye if you
look closely?

~~~
hartror
They're also transparent, the image uses stained samples.

An aside about staining, the dyes created for the textiles industry during the
industrial revolution had the neat side effect of advancing biology greatly.
As each dye binds to different things in a cell it allows scientists to
glimpse the inner workings of the cell.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
You'd still see [the effects of] a 2mm something swimming in your glass of
water if it was 100% transparent. Reflection, refraction, wake ...

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mattmaroon
Too bad it's not full of visible shrimp. Those are worth money!

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theoneill
Reminds one of the invisible clams in Scientology.

