Tag Archives: neurotoxin
Mystery of world’s worst toxic algal blooms solved: Cold water upswells from the deeper ocean
The most deadly algal blooms have extremely high levels of the neurotoxin domoic acid, which causes paralytic food poisoning and in rare cases amnesia or death if people eat contaminated shellfish. Scientists now think they have discovered why such blooms happen. It was previously thought that a pocket of warm water, known as a ‘warm blob’, was to blame. A study in Geophysical Research Letters has now identified that in fact upwelling of cold water from the deep oceans was responsible. click here to read the story 09:31
Toxic ‘red tide’ in Chile prompts protests and investigation of salmon farming
An algal bloom ‘of biblical proportions’ has led to protests and health emergency as concerns raised over dumping of rotting salmon in ocean. Chilean authorities are investigating the country’s salmon-farming industry after an algal bloom carrying a virulent neurotoxin spread for hundreds of miles along the rugged coastline of Patagonia, triggering a health emergency and angry protests by fishermen. The huge “Red Tide” has grown rapidly over recent weeks, in what has been described as the country’s worst environmental crisis in recent years: dozens of people have been poisoned by the algal bloom which makes seafood toxic and has deprived thousands of fishermen of a living. But the spotlight is now being focused on the salmon industry amid allegations that the algal bloom may have been exacerbated by the dumping of rotting salmon in the open ocean and the massive piles of salmon faeces and salmon food now smothering portions of the seafloor. Read the story here 08:24
