How Scientists Tracked Down a Mass Killer (of Salmon) – The New York Times

Wed almost take bets in lab as to whether or not the chemical that we thought might be doing it would kill the fish, Dr. Kolodziej said. And it never did. Not the flame retardants. Not the plasticizers. Not a bunch of others that youve never heard of.
We were stuck, Zhenyu Tian, a research scientist who conducted many of the analyses, said.
Depressed, Dr. Kolodziej said.
Then a Ph.D. student, Haoqi Nina Zhao, suggested a new way to separate out chemicals that led to a prime suspect. But they couldnt…