Scientists have made some intriguing parasite discoveries in an accidental back-of-the-pantry natural history museum. Canned salmon, well past its prime, has preserved decades of Alaskan marine ecology in brine and tin.

Parasites can reveal a lot about an ecosystem, since they tend to get up in the business of multiple species . But unless they cause a major issue for humans, historically we've mostly ignored them .

That's a problem for parasite ecologists, like Natalie Mastick and Chelsea Wood from the University of Washington, who had been searching for a way to retroactively track the effects of parasites on Pacific Northwestern marine mammals.

So when Wood got a call from Seattle's Seafood Products Association, asking if she'd take boxes of dusty old expired cans of salmon – s

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