A strange transmissible cancer is spreading through the catfish in this lake

For more than a decade, there's been something fishy going on in a lake that straddles Vermont and the province of Quebec. It involves cancer, a kind of catfish, and — possibly — clues about how tumors metastasize.

<img src='https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6048x4032+0+0/resize/6048x4032!/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc4%2Fbd%2F01dad0164c37975bc3cd6767ddf4%2Fnewport-fish-dissection-with-julie-dragon-49-of-58.jpg' alt='University of Cambridge professor Elizabeth Murchison and Peter Emerson of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department scoop up catfish for testing in Newport, VT. Emerson was one of the researchers to publish a new paper in the journal <em>Nature</em> describing the first known transmissible cancer in fish.'/><p>For more than a decade, there's been something fishy going on in a lake that straddles Vermont and the province of Quebec. It involves cancer, a kind of catfish, and — possibly — clues about how tumors metastasize.</p><p>(Image credit: Joshua Brown)</p><img src='https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=nx-s1-5901135' />