Two years ago, two students from Manhattan’s Trinity High School took samples from fresh fish sold in New York’s markets and restaurants, then compared their DNA with DNA barcodes available in public databases. The result? They discovered that 25 percent of the fish sold were mislabeled as more exotic, pricier species. Sushigate, as it became know, garnered the students and the school national headlines. Now, MSNBC’s Cosmic Log blog reports, two more Trinity students have expanded on that first DNA experiment and have once again found some rather startling results. Matt Cost, 18, and Brenda Tan, 17, both seniors, gathered 217 food samples from their homes, friends’ homes and the school, and 151 contained intact DNA “fingerprints.” Of 66 foods tested, 11 were mislabeled. A top brand of sheep’s milk actually came from cows. Expensive “sturgeon caviar” was actually the roe from Mississippi River paddlefish. Inside a box of grapefruit they found an invasive species of fly that, so far, is only established in Texas and California. The biggest find, however, were cockroaches whose DNA didn’t exactly match that of the billions swarming around New York. If that finding holds up, they’ll have discovered a new species of the pest. Their reward: they’ll be allowed to coin the new roach’s Latin scientific name.

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