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Some hybrid striped bass exposed to Prozac eventually began hanging vertically in the water — a highly anomalous pose — and stopped eating.

Tons of medicine ends up in the environment each year. Much has been excreted by patients. Leftover pills may also have been flushed down the toilet. Because water treatment plants were never designed to remove pharmaceuticals, water released into rivers by these plants generally carries a broad and diverse array of drug residues.

In 2006, a pair of chemists reported that antidepressants downstream of water treatment plants were making it into the brains of fish.

Normally a bottom-dwelling species, this antidepressant-exposed bass started swimming at the surface, partially out of the water. Below, its putative meal of minnows swam with impunity.

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