A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
1–10 of 29 posts
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#2Interesting article, but the images I'm getting are all extremely low quality. Tried both Chrome & FF.
EDIT: Well, downvotes or not, I'd still like to know what is going on. Here is a screenshot of part of my browser window while viewing the article.
I assume others are getting higher quality images (?).
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#3This finding reported in the article is interesting: "Related to this discovery is an extreme irony. Governments and organisations around the world have, for a very long time, tried to stop algal blooms from strangling rivers by reducing phosphorous pollution, believing the algal feed off this nutrient boost. But in doing so, they might have encouraged the green snot that is Didymo. 'It goes against everything we’ve been thinking for 50 years,' says Spaulding."
The main takeaway from this interesting article is that we still need to do a lot more foundational science about microorganisms and their ecological relationships with various changes in the natural environment.
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#4[deleted]
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#5Didymo is edible btw, and Rob Rhinehart has talked about future Soylent ingredients being made by bio-engineered algae.
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#6Interesting article, but the images I'm getting are all extremely low quality. Tried both Chrome & FF. EDIT: Well, downvotes or not, I'd still like to know what is going on. Here is a screenshot of part of my browser window while viewing the article. https://imgur.com/IcEyM3R I assume others are getting higher quality images (?).
It was fine for me, although the images were much delayed on loading, so there is some javascript acting there. Are you using noscript?
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#7Interesting article, but the images I'm getting are all extremely low quality. Tried both Chrome & FF. EDIT: Well, downvotes or not, I'd still like to know what is going on. Here is a screenshot of part of my browser window while viewing the article. https://imgur.com/IcEyM3R I assume others are getting higher quality images (?).
It was fine for me, although the images were much delayed on loading, so there is some javascript acting there. Are you using noscript?
> Are you using noscript?
No. The only thing I explicitly block is flash. (Also, I don't recall having a problem like this before.)
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#8Didymo is edible btw, and Rob Rhinehart has talked about future Soylent ingredients being made by bio-engineered algae.
Where did you see / read that? That suggests an expansion in the turtle population. I haven't seen anything like that mentioned yet but would love to find it. I'm still on the lookout for a species that evolves into something which can only survive in an EPA superfund site so that cleaning up the site will cause the extinction of the new species. Just thinking about the Environmental Impact Statements on that possibility makes me chuckle.
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#9"[...] its biggest impact seems to be aesthetic. 'The main effect of Didymo is how it changed the appearance of rivers and streams,' she says. 'It's not toxic. It really doesn't do anything really awful.'
This is true, but it can cause problems for people swimming downstream: "people swimming in waters downstream from areas containing high concentrations of Didymo have complained of eye irritations, which may be caused by the silica of the frustules."
http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/natural_resour...
Re: A strange green organism has spread, clogging up the world's rivers
#10Diatoms are primary producers and the fastest growers. If they are thriving it's a signal the water quality has dropped and they are doing their job, consuming the excess nutrients, so trying to kill it makes no sense.
While they feed on nitrogen and phosphorus their limiting nutrient is silicates, so maybe it's tied to siltation (erosion making it's way into water bodies). I don't see this mentioned on the article.