A Robot May Have Watched the Salmon You're Eating

Salmon farming is becoming an increasingly high-tech affair. The Wall Street Journal's Aimee Look reports on what's happening in Norway, which produces more salmon than any other country. The stakes are high: It takes three years for a salmon to reach a market harvest size, and roughly 14% of Norway's farmed Atlantic salmon, or nearly 55 million fish, died last year before they got to that point. With rules limiting how much they can expand, companies are instead trying to up the chance of survival for every fish—by using net-cleaning robots, underwater cameras that scan for sea lice, and blue-light lasers that zap and kill said lice.

Mowi, the world's largest Atlantic salmon producer, vaccinates young fish in land tanks, then tracks them at sea with AI systems from Alphabet spinout TidalX; it says its monthly survival rate at sea hit 99.3% last year. Read the full story for more.