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Toxic Green Algae Takes Over Beaches Off Yellow Sea In China
An anonymous reader writes "Caused by what researchers say is local industry and agriculture pollution, the green algae (scientific name Enteromorpha prolifera), has resulted in the foul-smelling mass taking over parts of China's Yellow Sea. The event, which has occurred in the same region over the past six years, always during the summer, has grown exponentially since its last notable interference in 2008. This year's growth is reportedly double in size, measuring in at more than 11,158 square miles. According to a report from the Guardian, officials have removed 7,335 tons of the algae recently in an attempt to control the growth after beach-goers in the nearby city of Qingdao have remain unaffected by the disturbance. While strange in appearance, the algae is reportedly nontoxic to humans but can, however, leave behind the toxic gas hydrogen sulphide. According to a report from the Daily Mail, crews are working to remove the algae as the toxicity is caused if it is left to decompose."
seems like some enterprising person or (party-backed business) could make some lemonade.
THL phish sticks
This is editing? WTF is up with our so-called editors? This summary is so far from proper English it's not even funny.
I've read better instructions that came with Chinese products that are notorious for their bad translations.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This seems to happen annually, why is it a story?
Makes more room for new growth. How thoughtful! (c:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Just rename it. Problem solved.
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Or did the summary make little or no sense when read as conventional English?
The Red Tide for the Red Menace !!
The algae, called Enteromorpha prolifera, is not toxic to humans or animals.
However the carpet on the surface can dramatically change the ecology of the environment beneath it. It blocks sunlight from entering the ocean and sucks oxygen from the water suffocating marine life.
The Chinese will just take it home, cook it and eat it.
Why isn't somebody harvesting this? The nutrient content in this stuff is huge and, at the very least, it could be processed and incorporated into feedstock.
So it's completely ok, in fact we should engineer more of these blooms, marine life and human safety be damned.
You know who else is decomposing? Beethoven.
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See: Command And Conquer series.
Gregory Benford published a novel in 1980 about a more toxic algae bloom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timescape
It got the Nebula award so some of you might have read it.
The blooms on Clear Lake in California, possibly the most inaccurately-named body of water on the planet, have been getting worse as well. The city of Clearlake used to only smell like shit due to its decomposition about one year in six, now it's two in three. I thought that UV was supposed to be driving algae underwater, but probably it's only the kind we like.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The reason ? Industrial farming, mainly. The manure that our farmers spread over the fields is washed down to the rivers and the sea shores. The level of phosphorous and nitrogen in the water rises and leads to massive, smelly "green tides" of algae on our beaches.
Unfortunately, no effective action is taken to correct these trends, and industrial farming tends to grow ever bigger and pollute our water ever more despite several warnings from the ECJ.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
...are belong to us!
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
"Toxic Green Algae on Yellow Sea Under Blue Sky."
And no one to paint the picture. To celebrate the beauty...
that's what it's called in Japan. and it's dried and sold as food. it's called Tai-tiao in China. i love this stuff. i really hope they're not just throwing it away. dried or frozen, it can keep for a long time. also, it's under the name ulva(sea lettuce) now, not enteromorpha.
So my wife and I rented an RV for a trip through California last fall, and near the end of our trip we stopped and stayed a few days in a little place called Watsonville, at the Pinto Lake RV Park. It's a small park, very quiet, right by the side of a small freshwater lake. You can go out on the lake in a boat, and you can fish in the lake, but the park manager tells us there's no swimming allowed and you might not want to eat the fish you catch. Why? The entire lake is a deep, dark green color from a completely out of control algae bloom, and the algae is somehow poisonous to people and animals. All the waterfowl living in the lake would walk around the park leaving wads of bird poop all over the lawn, which were dark green instead of white due to all the algae in their diet. But besides the issue with the lake and a lack of shower/laundry facilities, it was a nice place.
The cause? Apparently, agricultural runoff from all the local farms in the area. In other words, excessive use of fertilizers.
Since it is non-toxic then let's scoop it up and eat it. I had something like that one night in Hong Kong... I ordered the number 57 even though my hosts told me to never do that.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Well, we have a Yellow Sea, Black Sea, White Sea, Red Sea, and all the others are Blue, so now a Green Sea.
Check out the Mail Online article at the end.
Full-head coverage sunblock masks seem to be a very big thing in China, getting more and more popular every year.
I can't wait until they figure out how much more awesome those masks will be when they start decorating them like a Luchador.
Going to the beach will become quite an adventure!
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TFA mentions clearly that the algae is NOT toxic, in fact people happily swim in it.
China awash in green stuff screwing everything up = Capitalism
..a growth of algae.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/07/20/0015222/plan-to-slow-global-warming-by-dumping-iron-sulphate-into-oceans
I come from the country where they invented beer that tastes good.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
This image might look cool, but it just shows the scale of the problems the Baltic sea have. Happens every year now, so it's barely written about anymore.
/ The Arrow
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