Free Republic

A Canadian high school student named Bronwyn Delacruz never imagined that her school science project would make headlines all over the world. But that is precisely what has happened. Using a $600 Geiger counter purchased by her father, Delacruz measured seafood bought at local grocery stores for radioactive contamination. What she discovered was absolutely stunning. Much of the seafood, particularly the products that were made in China, tested very high for radiation. So is this being caused by nuclear radiation from Fukushima? Is the seafood that we are eating going to give us cancer and other diseases? The American people...

Enlarge Image Green plague. In Fiji, rarely fished reefs (top) abound with colorful corals, but seaweeds start their invasions in exploited locales (bottom) Credit: E. Hunter Hay (top); I. P. Markham (bottom) "Attack of the killer seaweed" may sound like a cheesy horror flick, but for many coral species, murderous multicellular algae have become real-life villains. A new study of reefs in the South Pacific suggests that some algae can poison coral on contact. This chemical warfare may be increasing the pressure on struggling reef communities worldwide, researchers say. Along the reefs dotting Fiji, overfishing has pitted corals against...

Ernesto "Che" Guevara's famous beret is gone. His iconic beard is filthy and matted against skeletal cheekbones. One bushy eyebrow arches over his half-open eyes. As a Bolivian country surgeon methodically saws off his lifeless hands, Che appears vaguely amused. Gustavo Villoldo, a stocky figure in green army fatigues, stands just inside the tiny laundry room where the Cuban revolutionary's corpse rests atop a sink. For five months, the CIA operative has led soldiers hunting Guevara through the rough crags and valleys of southern Bolivia. Less than 24 hours ago, his team had captured and executed him in a village...

Holidaymakers have been told to keep away from beaches in northern France covered in seaweed after doctors gave warning that it could give off lethal fumes when it rots. A stretch of beach had to be closed after a horse rider lost consciousness as a result of the putrefying algae. His horse was killed. Local residents have also been treated in hospital. Green algae is collected from the beach at Saint-Efflam in Brittany The incident was in Brittany, where green seaweed is spreading across the region’s beaches as nitrates pollute the water supply as a result of intensive agriculture. Scientists...

All along the California coast, stretching from Los Angeles to San Francisco, a species of rapidly-growing sea kelp from Japan has begun taking over the coastline and spreading quicker than authorities can contain it. The aggressive seaweed, known to scientists as Undaria pinnatifida, was first detected in the area in May when a local biologist noticed the marine plant clinging to piers and boats in a San Francisco Bay yacht harbor. “I was walking in San Francisco Marina, and that's when I saw the kelp attached to a boat,” recalled Chela Zabin, a biologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center...

Migrating peoples were sophisticated in sea harvesting, Jon Erlandson says The Pacific Coast of the Americas was settled starting about 15,000 years ago during the last glacial retreat by seafaring peoples following a "kelp highway" rich in marine resources, a noted professor of anthropology theorized Wednesday. Jon Erlandson, director of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon, suggested that especially productive "sweet spots," such as the estuaries of B.C.'s Fraser and Stikine rivers, served as corridors by which people settled the Interior of the province. Erlandson said in an interview these migrating peoples were already...

First Americans thrived on seaweed 19:00 08 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht How times have changed. Instead of large amounts of meat and spuds, some of the first Americans enjoyed healthy doses of seaweed. The evidence comes from 27 litres of material collected from the Monte Verde site in southern Chile, widely accepted as the oldest settlement in the Americas. Nine species of seaweed, carbon dated at 13,980 to 14,220 years old, played a major role in a diet that included land plants and animals. Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, argues that the seaweeds were...

Israeli firm Seambiotic Ltd. has unveiled a technology to produce commercial quantities of fuel from seaweed, Ha'aretz reported. The technology - demonstrated at an international conference on marine biotechnology in Eilat - allows the industrial cultivation of seaweed through the use of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Instead of allowing the polluting gas - one of the main contributors to global warming - to escape into the atmosphere, the gas passes through a filtration process and enters a pool, where it feeds microscopic seaweed. The seaweed is used to produce fuel. According to the scientists who developed this technology,...

Role of the nervous system in regulating stem cells discoveredStudy led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine may provide new hope for cancer patients and others with compromised immune systems  New study by Mount Sinai researchers may lead to improved stem cell therapies for patients with compromised immune systems due to intensive cancer therapy or autoimmune disease. The study is published in this week's issue of Cell.  A group, led by Paul Frenette, Associate Professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, found that the sympathetic--or "fight or flight" branch--of the nervous system plays a critical role in coaxing...

Two new studies suggest that use of cells derived from bone marrow, as well as a seaweed-derived product called hydrogel, may prompt stem cells to repair nerve damage caused by stroke or spinal cord injury. Both studies were expected to be presented Friday at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting, in San Diego. In one study, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, examined bone marrow-derived multi-potent progenitor cells, which have the ability to develop into different kinds of cells, including nervous system cells. Both human and rat bone marrow cells were transplanted into rats with induced strokes....

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Scientists have discovered what they believe is a new fish species and at least 20 types of previously unknown seaweeds during a recent expedition to one of the Caribbean's most diverse marine areas — a coral-covered underwater mountain off the Dutch island of Saba. It could take a year before researchers confirm the findings, which local fishermen, working with the Dutch Antilles government, are hoping to use to lobby authorities to steer oil tankers away from the Saba Bank Atoll to protect their livelihoods and the rich underwater life. During their two weeks at the...

Over the last decade, sushi has boomed in popularity around the world. While most people focus on the delectable fish wedged between the rice, Israeli scientists are taking a more in-depth look at the seaweed wrapping which holds the rice and seafood together. The glossy purplish-black edible seaweed sheets are made up of Porphyra, or more commonly known as Nori. Health food experts the world over recognize that Nori's nutritional value is vast; especially because of its high vitamin A and protein count. While Nori farming in Asia has been around for centuries, pollution and weather irregularities consistently threaten the...

Professor Wants To See Seaweed On Dinner Plates UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT July 25, 2005 KETCHIKAN, Alaska -- Your idea of seafood probably isn't seaweed. But Dolly Garza would like to change that. She is a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and is the author of a new book which includes seaweed recipes. Garza says seaweed is low in fat, has lots of vitamins and minerals, and harvesting it is a great family activity. Garza is especially fond of dry seaweed. She says the easy way to eat seaweed is to roast it and munch on it like...

Korean seaweed soup or miyeok-guk is gaining popularity as a post-childbirth food in the U.S. It is reportedly the most popular dish among new mothers at Queen of Angels-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, where half of the 80-90 new mothers recovering there order the restorative soup. More and more general patients are ordering the soup as well, the hospital said. The phenomenon started after Korea's CHA Medical Group took over the medical center from Tenet Healthcare Corp. in February. "Seeing Korean mothers eating seaweed soup after childbirth, white, black, Latino and Armenian mothers as well as general patients...