Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Solve Riddle of Toxic Algae Blooms
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from the Victoria Times Colonist: "After a remarkable 37-year experiment, University of Alberta scientist David Schindler and his colleagues have finally nailed down the chemical triggers for a problem that plagues thousands of freshwater and coastal ecosystems around the world." Punchline: "Phosphorus."
Isn't the fact that phosphorus stimulates algae growth, which suffocates other lifeforms, common knowledge? I seem to recall being taught this in school...
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Is there something I'm missing here?
A shot at enough money to fund an experiment for 37 years, apparently.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
It's not irony, it's phosphorousy!
IBM doesn't play chess with the Universe.
It took 37 years to figure out that fertilizer helps plants grow?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You seem to be missing the point that this type of algae's existence will harm the local ecosystem far more than it would benefit the world ecosystem if harvested. This algae shouldn't exist in the first place. Get rid of the phosphates and the algae disappears. Go build a man made lake in the desert as the parent suggests and you get algae plus clean local ecosystems.
Try to take off your algae=fuel blinders for a second and see the situation for what it really is...
That's not "ironic".
Irony is when we think or hear something is true, but then events demonstrate that thing is false. That is in no way the case with this research.
The scientist who just published these conclusive results is indeed the same scientist whose preliminary results in 1974 were the scientific basis for global laws and the industrial movement that removed and reduced phosphorus in wastewater. They demonstrated then that phosphorus was causing the toxic algae blooms, so we cut way back on phosphorus pollution. Now he's conclusively proved that it is indeed the phosphorus alone.
There's nothing ironic about that sequence of this scientist's career. There's nothing ironic about two completely consistent events.
--
make install -not war
Is there something I'm missing here?
Read your own link, then your post. You mention phosphorus and only phosphorus. Your link mentions phosphorus and nitrogen. That's what the issue is. The common thought was that it was all fertalizer (expecially phosphorus) that caused the blooms. He showed it was phosphorus and only phosphorus and that attempts to remove nitrogen as well only exacerbated the problem. It isn't anything "new" in that phosphorus causes blooms. It is "new" in that people thought other chemicals contributed as well, and they have been found to be inconsequential.
Learn to love Alaska
Check out some of the results of a Google for "reef+phosphates" and see the problems even a tiny increase in the ppm of phophate can cause in a salt-water reef aquarium. Even just one additional ppm above "normal" can be pretty extreme.
Multiply those effects by the size of our collective phosphate-largesse and the size of the oceans and I guess you get full-on dead zones instead of just a tank of nasty algae and bacteria.
Hope this helps.
-Matt
I think the developing world has other problems, like eating.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Something which is weird is that I know it was recently banned here in Sweden in laundrary detergents, but then I read a test of cleaning power in multiple ones and the store "Willys" own brand was supposed to be the best one, so I bought a box.
The packaging says "new formula" and I noticed the ingredient list said "fosfor." I wonder if the ingredient list is wrong or if they actually made a kind of illegal detergent or whatever have happened. I did so back then aswell but I didn't knew how much of a deal it was so I haven't bothered to call them and ask yet. Will do.
Box - http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p7236797ct6.jpg
(Notice new formula and dosage in upper left corner.)
Ingredients - http://img66.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p7236799tf8.jpg
(15-30% Phosphates (5% Phosphorous))
I was thinking the exact same thing. As a saltwater reef aquarist I've been testing phosphates every few days for years to keep algae (esp. that annoying bubble algae) in check. I don't ever recall reading anything that considered nitrogen (other than nitrogenous waste ... which is another issue) to be part of the algeal bloom cycle. As mentioned earlier up in the thread, amateurs aquarists have a ton of products for phosphate removal/sequestering ... are these not practical on a large scale?