LAT, part 1 of 5, "Altered Oceans": A Primeval Tide of Toxins

[DeepModem Mom]

Primeval Tide of Toxins
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This 'rise of slime,' as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2006

....The venomous weed, known to scientists as Lyngbya majuscula, has appeared in at least a dozen other places around the globe. It is one of many symptoms of a virulent pox on the world's oceans.

In many places — the atolls of the Pacific, the shrimp beds of the Eastern Seaboard, the fiords of Norway — some of the most advanced forms of ocean life are struggling to survive while the most primitive are thriving and spreading.

Fish, corals and marine mammals are dying while algae, bacteria and jellyfish are growing unchecked.

Where this pattern is most pronounced, scientists evoke a scenario of evolution running in reverse, returning to the primeval seas of hundreds of millions of years ago.

Jeremy B.C. Jackson, a marine ecologist and paleontologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, says we are witnessing "the rise of slime."...

http://www.latimes.com/la-me-ocean30jul30,0,1870392,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[mom cat]

1. We are witnessing the rise of slime here on land too!

:sarcasm:
Actually, it was a quite informative article.

[The Sushi Bandit]

2. kick this - and a greatest vote too!