Red Tides

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080820163241.htm

Science News
Biologists Find Diatom To Reduce Red Tide's Toxicity
ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2008) — It’s estimated that the red tide algae, Karenia brevis, costs approximately $20 million per bloom in economic damage off the coast of Florida alone. Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found that a diatom can reduce the levels of the red tide’s toxicity to animals and that the same diatom can reduce its toxicity to other algae as well.
If scientists can learn to use this process to reduce the toxicity of red tide, they could reduce the vast amount of economic damage done to the seafood and tourism industries.
The research appears as articles in press for the Web sites of the journals Harmful Algae and the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.
“We found that red tide toxins can be metabolized by other species of phytoplankton. That holds true for both the brevetoxins that damage members of the animal kingdom and the as yet unknown allelopathic toxins that kill other competing species of algae,” said Julia Kubanek, an associate professor with a joint appointment in Georgia Tech’s School of Biology and School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Red tide is a dramatic case of an ecosystem that’s out of control. In normal seawater, K. brevis makes up about 1 percent or less of the species, but during a red tide, that share increases to more than 90 percent. Filter feeders such as oysters, mussels and clams ingest the dinoflagellate and become unsafe to eat. Fish killed by the red tide wash on the shore, which can be contaminated and essentially unusable to tourists for months at a time.
Kubanek and her researchers found in previous work that the growth of the diatom Skeletonema costatum was only moderately suppressed by the brevetoxins released by the red tide. So, they figured that the diatom might have a way to deal with the toxins. According to their study, they were right.
In one experiment, detailed in the journal Harmful Algae, Kubanek’s students grew the red tide algae along with the S. costatum diatom to test her group’s hypothesis and found that the samples with both organisms had a smaller concentration of brevetoxin B than samples without the diatom. They also tested the algae with four different S. costatum diatom strains from around the world and came up with largely the same results. That suggests that evolutionary experience with the red tide algae was not necessary for the diatom to resist the toxins.
In another experiment, covered in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, they found that the red tide algae was able to reduce the growth of the S. costatum diatom, but that exposure of the red tide organism to S. costatum makes the red tide less toxic to microscopic algae. That suggests that the diatom is somehow able to reduce the potency of red tide’s toxins.
“It could be that Skeletonema is degrading Karenia’s allelopathic chemicals just like it degrades brevetoxins. Or, it could be that Skeletonema is stressing Karenia out, making it harder to produce allelopathic chemicals,” said Kubanek.
What they do know is that the brevetoxins that harm oysters and other members of the animal kingdom aren’t the whole story.
“We found that when we took seawater and added purified brevetoxins to it, the live algae didn’t suffer much, so there must be other chemicals released by the red tide that are toxic to these algae,” said Kubanek.
How that’s done, isn’t clear yet, but Kubanek and her group are currently working on finding the answer to that question.
“What we do know is that this diatom, S. costatum, is able to undermine these toxins produced by the red tide, as well as the brevetoxins that are known to kill vertebrate animals like fish and dolphins,” said Kubanek.
If scientists such as Kubanek and her team can learn more about the strategies that microscopic algae use to reduce the toxicity of red tide, they might be able to use that knowledge to help reduce the poisonous effects the tide has on the animal kingdom, not to mention the damage it does to the seafood and tourism industries.
Kubanek’s research team for these studies consisted of Tracey Myers and Emily Prince from Georgia Tech and Jerome Naar of the Center for Marine Science at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
Adapted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology.

NUALGI - SOLUTION TO POLLUTION

Nualgi
Solution to Pollution
Solution to human waste treatment (Water pollution)
Solution to Carbon dioxide emissions and Global Warming (Air pollution)
By product – fish (increase in food availability)
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Key Words – Phyto-remediation, bio-remediation, wastewater treatment, sewage
treatment, lake remediation, aeration, diatom algae, water pollution, polluted lakes.
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All of us contribute to sewage and pollution.

We generate waste and flush it down the drain and it flows out as sewage.
In Indian cities one person generates about 100 litres of sewage per day.

We burn fossil fuel -
for conveyance – two wheelers, cars, buses, trains and aeroplanes,
LPG for cooking, and
electricity at home and office.
50 litres of petrol releases 150 kgs of carbon dioxide and 1 kWh of electricity from coal fired thermal power plants results in 0.8 kgs (Avg) of carbon dioxide emission.

The Problem:
Disposal of human waste is becoming a great challenge day by day. Rapid urbanization has increased the amount of sewage and higher population density has reduced the space available to set up STPs. Pumping and treatment of sewage is very expensive and lack of adequate sewage treatment facilities is resulting in pollution of lakes and rivers.

Higher CO2 in the atmosphere is leading to global warming.

The Solution :
Now there is a simple and effective solution within the reach of everyone to contribute directly to the cleaning up of sewage and to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere – NUALGI.

You are aware that aforestation leads to cleaner air, similar results can be achieved by growing algae in water. Algae are aquatic plants that also use photosynthesis to absorb CO2 and release oxygen.

Higher oxygen levels in water enable aerobic bacteria to grow and these breakdown organics in sewage into the base constituents, these are consumed by plankton or become harmless sludge.

What is Nualgi?

Nualgi is a plant nutrient in Nano particle size and this is used to grow diatom algae in any water including water polluted with sewage. It has micronutrients (P, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, B, S, Co, Mo, Si) in nano form (20 nano meters to 150 nano meters in size) and these are easily absorbed by the microscopic diatom algae (0.05 to 0.5 mm in size).

Diatom algae are aquatic plants that undergo photosynthesis and absorb carbon and release oxygen and they also consume nutrients like nitrates and phosphates, thus removing them from the water body.

Diatoms have a silica body and are eaten by zooplankton, these are in turn consumed by fishes, higher fish population attracts birds, thus polluted lakes and rivers are restored to their original glory.

Green and Blue Green Algae have a cellulose body and hence cannot be consumed by Zooplankton. Thus when these proliferate in polluted lakes the lakes become green in colour and smell due to the decaying organics and algae.

Nualgi dispersed in water looks like a solution but has very fine particles of the size estimated to be 20 to 150 nanometers. The particles are not visible to the naked eye or under compound microscope.

Nualgi is made by a complex process. The product has been patented, Indian patent no. 209364 dated 27/08/2007. PCT Patent has been also been granted.