Cobia is a sleek and powerful fish that devours flesh and does not apologize for it. Open its belly and anything might pop out — crab, squid, smaller fish, you name it.
Recently, three Baltimore researchers — Aaron Watson, Frederic Barrows and Allen Place — set out to tame this wild and hungry fish, sometimes called black salmon. They didn't want to simply domesticate it; hundreds of fish farmers have already done that. They sought to turn one of the oceans' greediest carnivores into a vegetarian.
The researchers announced last week that they pulled off the feat at a laboratory in the Columbus Center in downtown Baltimore.