"A Primeval Tide of Toxins" = "the rise of slime"

[bloom]

A 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

<snip>
Scientist Judith O'Neil put a tiny sample under a microscope and peered at the long black filaments. Consulting a botanical reference, she identified the weed as a strain of cyanobacteria, an ancestor of modern-day bacteria and algae that flourished 2.7 billion years ago.

O'Neil, a biological oceanographer, was familiar with these ancient life forms, but had never seen this particular kind before. What was it doing in Moreton Bay? Why was it so toxic? Why was it growing so fast?

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."
<more>

http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-me-ocean30jul30,0,799834.story?coll=ktla-news-1

[ClintonTyree]

1. Devolution.......

it's not wise to fuck with Mother Nature. She's the vindictive sort. We screw up her planet, she'll screw us up even worse. Man, for all his "intelligence" and "reason", will destroy himself through his own ego.

[bloom]

2. "My kids," Pauly said, "will tell their children: Eat your jellyfish."

This is the most comprehensive article I've seen on the subject. It's part of a week-long series on oceans ->


Today

Mankind is returning the seas to a time when algae and jellyfish ruled.

Monday

Toxic algae are attacking the brains of sea lions and other marine mammals.

Tuesday

Red tides grow more virulent and sicken people on land.

Wednesday

Torrents of plastic junk foul the most remote parts of the ocean.

Thursday

The seas are turning acidic, eroding the building blocks of ocean life.

[Pooka Fey]

3. As above, so below

The devolution of humanity (evidenced by generalized cultural losses of intelligence, rationality, curiosity, civility, and beauty) is mirrored in the devolution of the life forms in our oceans. How could it be otherwise? :cry: Without immediate revolutionary change, equivalent of all earth's cultures finding the proverbial needle in the haystack, I foresee our oceans teeming with slime and jellyfish, skies filled with mosquitoes, locusts, and flies, and the earth populated by poison ivy, rapacious grasses, rats, roaches, snakes, and religious fundamentalist killers.

[enough]

4. Of the many articles I have read recently about the decline of the seas,

this is probably the most frightening. Well worth reading the whole article.

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. K&R

Planetof the Apes, anyone?

Hope your kids & grandkids enjoy our legacy!

[Canuckistanian]

6. So that's where Republicans come from...

A scary article, considering that a great number of people get their food from the sea.

[bloom]

7. self-delete

[ramapo]

8. Stunning

The pervasive changes throughout the world brought on by the behavior of humans is absolutely stunning. There is not a place in the world not contaminated with the spoils of our society.

Mother Nature is pissed off...