[thedoc (OP)]

Brandon Guerrero  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Would it be possible for the lemon to act as an electrolyte, aluminium sheet actually be an alloy of aluminium-zinc and the fish composing traces of copper to allow the three elements create this phenomenon?

Here is a liveleak.com video of a dead fish moving quite a bit.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fe6_1347247839 [Links inactive - To make links active and clickable, login or click here to register]

What do you think?

[RD]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khW3nLG_xoY [Links inactive - To make links active and clickable, login or click here to register] continues to move even when it's not touching the aluminium foil, see ...

[evan_au]

Electricity in animals was discovered by Galvani when dissecting a frog. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Galvani#Early_life [Links inactive - To make links active and clickable, login or click here to register]
[But I'm a bit suspicious of the comment in Wikipedia that it was due to static electricity.... More likely an electrochemical cell.]

[CliffordK]

The fish must be fresh.  The lemon juice would depolarize the neurons in the fish.  Quite spectacular videos.

Did you read about the 2012 Ig Nobel prize about neuro-imaging of dead fish?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/21/ig-nobel-awards-dead-salmon [Links inactive - To make links active and clickable, login or click here to register]
http://www.jsur.org/v1n1p1 [Links inactive - To make links active and clickable, login or click here to register]