Nasty Venice algae to become green energy source

Real green energy for Venice--nuisance algae blooms to be harvested and used to produce electricity. Up to half the electricity needs of the historic city center can be generated by this goop to gold alchemy scheme.

If only every nuisance could be so readily transformed into a resource. Imagine using CO2 to eliminate wrinkles and unsightly cellulite. We'd be using up so much CO2, we'd have to worry about global cooling.

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A few nuggets of fish news

In case you missed these stories:

• Yesterday, the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to move the west coast groundfish fishery one step closer to a tradeable quota system. The new IFQ system for flounder, sole, and Pacific rockfish* would be the largest in the U.S. in terms of geographic scope and impact. They're now moving ahead with the regulatory analysis and hope for a final vote in November, those these things have been known to take longer than expected. Check out former Senator Slade Gorton's OpEd on the topic.
• Researchers at the Marine Mammal Center and NOAA found that domoic acid poisoning not only affects adult sea lions, but can also damage sea lions in the womb, causing behavioral problems and seizures later in life.
  
• In other pre-natal news, cuttlefish decide what they want to eat based on what they observed around them as larvae (read Zooillogix's summary if you can't get the whole article). We've known about the transmission of learned behaviors in marine mammals for some time (for example, sea otters use rocks to open their food only if they had rock-using mamas) but it's news to see it in other orders.
  

* On the west coast of the U.S., "rockfish" refers to 70+ species of Sebastes. Not to be confused with the rockfish of the east coast, aka striped bass.

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Does nutrient pollution cause red tides?

Larry Brand thinks red tides are getting worse thanks to nutrient runoff caused by people. Needless to say, this has not made him popular in his home state of Florida.

Florida's agriculture industry, in particular, would like him to go away.

Links between pollution and red tides have been cited by others, so the suggestion is not exactly implausible. But hey, maybe things are just different in Florida where developers have clout and red tides are natural events.

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