Fish aren't thermometers

Mercury and our flippered friends have never gone together well, and Alabama health officials rightly are about to adopt stricter regulations of that hurtful combination. Right now, the state still uses an FDA standard that (scarily) permits five times as much mercury as an EPA standard to which most other states' health agencies adhere when advising fishermen about which bodies of water are too contaminated to ensure that the fish are safe to eat.

Alabama will begin to follow the EPA guideline by March, when officials are scheduled to release the state's next round of fish consumption advisories. They predict that the new standard could lead them to issue warnings for virtually every stream in the state.

Today's fun fact: Ichthyophagy is the act of eating fish. Seriously.